Blades Movie Review: Jaws On A Golf Course

Blades Movie Review: Jaws On A Golf Course

Blades Movie
on Amazon
Grade: C+
Teacher’s Comments: A lightly humorous parody of Jaws set on a golf course. Guilty fun.

A movie about a killer lawnmower on a golf course? Sign me up.

Blades is a 1989 low budget horror-comedy film that from start to finish is a parody of the movie Jaws. The movie’s subtitle — Just when you thought it was safe to putt — tells you everything you need to know.

The movie is surprisingly well-made, and while lacking in both chills and belly-laughs, it’s good for some wincing at the (obviously fake) gore and a few chuckles at how close it hews to the Jaws storyline — copying scene after scene.

In fact, as the movie played out, I found the most enjoyable part was remembering which scenes in Jaws was being parodied.

It even takes a stab at the pop culture that has grown up around Jaws

At one point, the golf course owner admonishes the pro who is trying to tell him there’s a killer on the loose: “what do you think this is? Killer lawnmower week?”

Shark week, indeed

There isn’t really much to recommend the film from a golf point of view. The pro’s swing is atrocious, and the course is not much to look at. But the mere existence of a golf-themed Halloween movie is something to take not of

Blades Movie Review SPOILER ALERT:

Blades is set in the days leading up to the biggest event in years for the Tall Grass Country Club: The Nevada Bob Pro-Am. The course’s entire season is riding on the event.

But then golfers start disappearing.

Sound familiar?

As with Jaws, you don’t see the killer lawnmower throughout much of the movie. There are signs of its presence — such as a mowed path through some tall grass, and a ball boy sucked back into the woods while the horrified students in a group golf lesson look on. Instead of wakes in the water, the director shows us rather creative “mower’s eye” views as it races across the fairways and rough.

Rather than a local police chief, the protagonist is the course’s golf pro, Roy Kent (Roy, as in Roy Scheider, get it?). The Quint character is Deke, a groundskeeper. Hooper is mirrored with Kelly Lange, the assistant pro.

Scene after scene parodies those of Jaws

At one point, convinced that there is a serial killer on the loose, a large posse of hunters on golf carts is assembled to hunt him down. Just as with the armada of amateur fishermen in Jaws they manage to bag a suspect: a groundskeeper with a lawnmower. Everyone is satisfied that the danger is over and the tournament can go on.

Later, however, the pro takes the mower apart to find out — slicing open the bag and dumping the leafy contents on the floor — that the mower they caught has not been used in a murder.

There’s even a scene where an old woman slaps the pro because her husband has died and she blames the pro for not protecting him. Exactly like the one in Jaws.

Jaws opens with a bunch of teenagers at a campfire on a beach. Blades opens with a bunch of teenagers at a campfire near the golf course.

A scene where the mower (with only the blades showing) plows through a group of spectators as they run in panic looks exactly like the scene in Jaws where the beach

Instead of a boat, there’s a van with a weapons platform mounted on top. The groundskeeper tells stories of a mysterious past related to the mower, just as with Quint and the Indianapolis.

Instead of tossing chum, they toss bales of hay with balloons attached.

When the mower finally makes its full appearance, though, the writers miss the opportunity to say “You’re going to need a bigger van.”