"Just when you thought it was safe to putt," Vinegar Syndrome sharpens Troma's "killer lawnmower" horror comedy BLADES for Blu-ray.

Norman Osgood (William Towner) is hoping to breathe some new life into his newly-purchased Tall Greens golf club with a big tournament, hiring pro Roy Kent (Robert North) – much to the consternation of the club's would be youngest female pro Kelly Lange (Victoria Scott) and the pleasure of Osgood's sexpot wife Beatrice (Holly Stevenson) – but greensman Lyle (Peter Wray) trespassing teenagers and drunken players are turning up in the sandtraps in bloody pieces. Mindful of the revenue the tournament will bring to the town and of the election year, the sheriff (Charlie Quinn) determines that a maniac has used a power tool to grind his victims to death and quickly scapegoats embittered former greensman Deke Slade (Jeremy Whelan). Having seen the carnage up close, Roy has doubts that the real culprit has been captured when he discovers oil puddles around the crime scenes, but his calls to cancel the tournament fall on deaf ears. When a giant, sentient lawnmower cuts down the celebrity guest golfer, Roy, Kelly, and Deke join forces to hunt down the maniacal machine faster than you can say "we're gonna need a bigger golf cart."

Although explicitly patterned after JAWS with several scenes lifted directly from the Spielberg film, BLADES is not just another "JAWS on land" film like several of the "when animals attack" films of the seventies; rather, it is more like "JAWS meets CADDYSHACK" but the comedy is generally overstated and flat. While North is the film's Roy Scheider and Whelan is Robert Shaw, Wray is not Richard Dreyfuss but John Belushi while Scott is Sigourney Weaver (I guess). The film is less interesting on its own terms than on the level of ambition, planning, and scope compared to producer John Finnegan's earlier GIRL SCHOOL SCREAMERS on which director Rondinella and screenwriter William Pace previously worked, respectively, as assistant director/editor and second unit director/assistant camera. Taken on its own terms, BLADES is not a particularly rewarding viewing experience, more likely to appeal to Troma fans who also treasure its contemporary BLOOD HOOK.

Released direct to video by Troma in 1990, BLADES has been constantly available from the company, including a TROMA TRIPLE B-HEADER set with BLOOD HOOK and ZOMBIE ISLAND MASSACRE (both now on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome for better or worse). Mastered from a 2K scan of the original 35mm camera negative, Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray boasts rich greens, nice detail in the daytime exteriors and the better-lit night scenes, while the varying shades of blood seem to have more to do with the production than the grading. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track boasts clear dialogue, and a score more forceful than some of the sound effects. Optional English SDH subtitles are included.

The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by director Rondinella and writer Pace in which they note the early presences of low budget horror actor Jon McBride (CANNIBAL CAMPOUT) as well as Larry Stromberg who later attained infamy for the murder of his girlfriend and her mother and becoming a pastor and founding a church while in prison. They also note how they moved the camera more than in GIRL SCHOOL SCREAMERS but that plotting out some of the more showy camera movements and single-take coverage scenes ate up the shooting schedule, that the lawnmower prop did not show up until the fourth week of production, the feeling that North played his part too seriously, and spending more time on the romantic subplot that would be pruned down in editing.