Ax 'Em (originally titled The Weekend It Lives) is a 1992 American slasher film directed by and starring Michael Mfume, son of United States Representative Kweisi Mfume. The film follows a group of friends on a weekend retreat at a remote cabin in the woods who become the targets of a crazed killer.
Plot
In 1990, a man named Mr. Mason came home from work to his wife and three children. Mr. Mason proceeded to arm himself with a shotgun, shooting and killing his wife, his daughter Christine and son Chris before turning the gun on himself. When the police arrived to the scene of the crime, the bodies of the children, along with the surviving child, mentally ill Harry Mason, were missing.
In 2003, college student Michael, a childhood friend and neighbor to Harry Mason and his siblings, decides to take his girlfriend Kea and their friends to his Granddad’s house in the woods for the weekend. Joining Michael and Kea on the trip are Kevin, Michelle and Tonya, along with couples Shawn and Erika, Tony and Kendra, and Rock and Nikki.
The night before the group departs for their trip, Harry Mason, now grown up, returns to Granddad’s house, breaking in and killing Granddad with a hatchet as he tries to arm himself with a gun. The following day, the group arrive to Granddad’s house, with Michael and the others not questioning where Granddad is. Nikki and Erika discover a revolver in one of the kitchen drawers before deciding to put it back.
Later that night, Michael takes everyone to the backyard, starts a fire near a stone wall structure, and recounts the story of the Masons for everyone. Michael explains how him and his Granddad were among the search party looking for Harry in their own backyard 13 years prior. During the search, Michael got distracted by a coin tossed on the ground towards him, and when he looked up, the bodies of Harry’s siblings were propped up on the stone wall. Michael ran to get his granddad, but when they returned, the bodies were gone. The story spooks some of them out, and they all turn in for the night.
The next day, a group of young adults named Brian, Sarah and Breakfast are riding in their car when it runs out of gas. Sarah stays behind in the car while Brian and Breakfast venture out in the woods to look for a house with a phone to call for help. The men stumble across the dilapidated Mason house. Breakfast hears a voice inside the house, telling them to leave, but Brian doesn’t hear it. Breakfast runs out of the house, leaving Brian behind, who is then killed by Harry when he smashes a rotary phone over his head. Breakfast runs back to the car, trying to convince Sarah to run away with him. Sarah holds her ground and decides to wait for Brian, and Breakfast runs back to the city, never to be seen again.
Back at Granddad’s house, Rock and Tonya sneak away to the woods nearby cheat on Nikki and make love. As it becomes nighttime, Harry slashes Rock’s arm offscreen, forcing Rock and Tonya to run back into the house, alerting the others that there’s a machete wielding maniac in the woods.
Harry throws Brian’s body through the door, alerting everyone to his presence. The group tries to leave in the cars, only to find out they were tampered with by Harry. Harry barges in the house and hacks Shawn in the arm with a machete, before hacking him to death offscreen. The group run out the backdoor of the house offscreen, and split up offscreen.
Nikki shows Rock and Kevin the revolver from the kitchen drawer that she managed to take while they were escaping the house. Neither one of them wants to take the revolver and wind up dropping it as Harry appears behind them with a baseball bat, scaring Nikki and Kevin away as he knocks Rock unconscious, before taking the revolver for himself and walking away.
Back at Granddad’s house, Tonya, who apparently hid in the house the entire time instead of running away like the others, tries to exit the front door before Harry appears and kills her by striking her in the face with the machete. Meanwhile, Sarah has finally gone looking for Brian, only to continuously trip and injure herself, before being scared away by Harry, who may or may not have proceeded to kill her offscreen.