Wonderful character development!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

When Christopher Lee opens with monologue, it appears that he would be setting up some sort of "tale of the macabre". He seems like a Rod Serling or Boris Karloff, preparing us for a tale of terror and the supernatural. And, this wouldn't seem so out-of-sorts for that, but the problem is his monologue is put in front of some 70's hokum, an exploitation feature which doesn't remotely resemble any of the content for which he so describes. If this were an episode of "chiller theater", then Lee's work would've been ideal. Alas, it's applied to Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre. Lee returns at the end to close the film on the topic of powerful Shamans perfectly conveying the disconnect between his work and that of the central story-line.The movie itself is about students, real hellraisers, who decide, for the sheer pleasure of it, to assault their professor, Cantrell(James Habif) and his family. Mason(Larry Justin) is the psychopathic ringleader. The sadistic brood never use a cleaver, which negates the use of the film's title. This film, on it's own, probably wouldn't have such a negative reaction towards it if those who produced/distributed it weren't such fraudulent. Come to think of it, I'm not sure any of the film actually takes place in Hollywood! These kinds of movies have premises commonplace in cinema at that time. Last House on the Left as well as the Manson murders obviously come to mind, and, of course, the numerous clones that spawned as a result.Mason has a short fuse, a temperament that's ugly and confrontational. Why anyone would associate with a slimeball such as this is anybody's guess. What Mason and his group don't expect is the professor's ability to call a creature to exact justice on his part. Mason was one of those nuisances who considered his college class on the occult nonsense, and boy will he be in for a surprise! As expected, they are haunted by nightmares and soon fall prey, one at a time, to a menace, while we hear the voice of the professor summoning the Morak. There's this funny scene where one of the pack contemplates slitting his wrist, only to back out because he was late for work. Anyway, we see that when the "force" attacks each victim, Cantrell reacts as if he can sense their pain and fear. The filmmakers also juxtapose the portrait of a warlock(..which favors Cantrell interesting enough)and multi-eyed creature. Death sequences include a car hood crushing a victim underneath, a fusebox blasting sparks into the face of a victim, and a chest is opened up. Mason's fate is fitting.

Man, what can I say about this film...? First off, I laughed pretty hard with that sequence where the guy's about to commit suicide and then calls it off because he's running late for work. But this film is not a comedy.Secondly, I have to disagree with Coventry - my good friend who also wrote something about this film on these pages - when he said that "Funny Man" (1994) is a worse film than "Meatcleaver Massacre". I know I'm not supposed to comment on other people's writings on here, but I'm sure he'll forgive me. While "Funny Man" does star Christopher Lee in nothing more than a (rather similar) cameo, it's pretty clear that Lee knew this time what kind of film he was doing it for. Also, the two films are completely incomparable. "Funny Man" obviously is an intended horror-comedy that wants to be ridiculous & gory at the same time. Just imagine a film like Ken Russel's "Gothic" featuring a villain like "Rumpelstiltskin" or "Leprechaun" with a bad case of Freddy Krueger one-liners thrown in the mix. It has a few surreal sets, quite a bit of stupid humor and a bit of blood, splatter & guts in it. Admittedly, not everything works in this B-movie, but some stuff does, while in "Meatcleaver Massacre"......virtually everything results in below par dreck, meaning: It's actually a worse film. Furthermore, the film plays it dead-serious - I expected no less from this one - and that makes it all the more painful. However, I have a couple of good things to say about it. Mainly about some imagery and the way it was shot & edited. The 'dream sequences' prior to the death scenes had something to them. They were like sequences of experimental film-making edited into the film. They felt completely out of place, but I did find them the most enjoyable parts of the movie. Even had me thinking about the 'tripping scene' on the graveyard in "Easy Rider". The (rudimentary) editing, at times, features cross-cutting & the juxtapositioning of certain images.But the film itself, is complete drivel without even an attempt at a storyline to make it a bit more coherent. However, it still is the kind of drivel - barely, I might add - that is manageable to sit through. To me, it felt like "Death Wish" & "House on the Edge of the Park" (for some reason Larry Justin had me thinking of David Hess) teaming up with Lucio Fulci's "Aenigma", while possible directed by a senile Ed Wood on drugs. I realize that saying this, might draw die-hard fans of exploitation horror only closer to this film. And exactly for those folks, "Meatcleaver Massacre" might be worth a watch. Other people, just steer clear away from it. Also know as "Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre", this film is absolutely nothing along the lines of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", just in case you should wonder (and that's another sign of how shameless the producers of this wretched film were).While lacking a decent story, the whole film is pretty much nothing more than 3 (or 4, depending how you look at it) death scenes with useless filler material in between. As a bonus you get the violence against the professor & his family at the beginning of the film, which really isn't much to write home about either. They didn't even rape the daughter (just a quick shower-shot from behind, filmed through tainted glass). Harsh thing to say, maybe, but what else would sick-minded puppies look for in a film like this? They did kill the wife's dog called Poopers, though. Yes, it was called Poopers.The professor ends up in a coma with a fractured skull, but not without summoning a demon (Morak, The Destroyer! The Avenger!) to act out his vengeance. Now - probably thanks to the very low budget - the demon isn't show throughout the film, and this actually works for the better. In the death scenes, the villains are killed by an unseen force and those sequences look fairly imaginative. But some poorly executed blood & gore effects do diminish the over-all effect those kills should have had. Unfortunately, when bad guy Mason gets it near the end, the filmmakers do decide to show us a bit of the alleged demon, and they really shouldn't have. It looked like a toxic bum with a wig & bad make-up. Oh, what's that? This film tries to be clever at the very end? Well never mind that, as it's far too late already.As everyone knows by now, the movie's opening- & closing minutes feature Christopher Lee telling a couple tales of the occult, which bear no relevance to the actual film. I do hope he got payed for his work, regardless how his footage ended up in "Meatcleaver Massacre". And let's repeat something else that everyone already knows: There's no meat-clever to be spotted in this film. But, hooray, around the one-hour mark, there's a bit of welcome female nudity for pretty much no reason in particular. Anything else I might have forgotten...? Perhaps, if you should decide to watch it, try to watch it when you feel up to it, otherwise it might put you to sleep. It's not really a very exciting film.

Actually, Christopher Lee IS here, in a way. He is sitting at a desk and spouting some mystical hocus-pocus at the beginning and the end of the film. I was about to say "I hope he enjoyed a nice paycheck for this", but then I read the trivia section for this movie on IMDb and it seems that the exploitation of his name to fool the paying audience was not his idea and was done without his permission. Anyway, "Meat Cleaver Massacre" doesn't have enough story to support a feature-length film, and the killings are not interesting, memorable or explicit enough. As for the actors, I doubt most of them ever worked again in another film. Avoid this schlock, even if you are an avid horror fan. (*1/2)

When I saw Christopher Lee was starring in this film I thought to myself that it cant be that bad. But it was!First off all Mr Lee doesn't star in this film, he only does a prologue and an epilogue to it. The thing is that what he says in his parts, have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film.The plot? A teacher embarrasses a pupil who is mocking his lecture. Is that a reason to kill all the poor guy's family?!?!?Then the teacher,who lays in a coma in hospital, and is apparently paralyzed from the waist down, summons a demon to take revenge on the killings. But how can i paralyzed person toss and turn in his bed?And why does the demon, look like the monster from "the swamp thing"???And last but not least, why oh why is this film called "the meat cleaver massacre" when there is absolutely no meat cleaver used in this film??The plot is stupid, the FX are stupid, the acting is stupid. The whole film is stupid. Avoid!