Myers is at his worst when he tries to play “a regular guy,” which is precisely what he does for most of So I Married an Axe Murderer. His character is Charlie Mackenzie, an everyday guy living in San Francisco whose only defining characteristic, aside from performing really bad beat poetry, is his fear of commitment (he always breaks off his relationships with women because of ridiculous, paranoid fears like her being involved in the mafia). Yet, Myers has a hard time containing himself, so Charlie ends up doing and saying oddball things not because the character would, but because Myers needs to do something. Because Axe Murderer was released between the two Wayne’s World movies, most of Charlie’s quirks have a direct link to Wayne Campbell, especially when he belts out “Hello!” after a joke (there are a few preludes to Dr. Evil, as well).

However, Myers does get to cut loose during several scenes that feature Charlie’s father, Stuart Mackenzie, whom he also plays. Transformed with age make-up, thick glasses, and a slightly drunken sneer, Myers plays Stuart as an obnoxious, but oddly likable and instantly memorable character. Exceedingly proud of his Scottish heritage, Stuart is a scene-stealing caricature of national pride and blue-collar contentment, that is, when he’s not randomly mocking Charlie’s younger brother for the size of his “enormous heed” (the sheer randomness of Stuart’s cranial taunting is enough to make the movie worth watching).

Charlie’s mother, May (Brenda Fricker), contents herself with The Weekly World News, which she amusingly refers to as “the paper” because she insists that the stories are real. It is in “the paper” that Charlie first reads of a mysterious woman known only as “Mrs. X,” who marries men and then kills them on their honeymoon, which plants the seed of doubt for his latest girlfriend, Harriet Michaels (Nancy Travis). Although Harriet seems to be the real deal (beautiful, funny, self-reliant, etc.), there are a few things about her that don’t quite sit right. Her job as a butcher would just be odd except, if she is a killer, it means she’s exceedingly proficient with a knife. Then there’s her odd sister, Rose (Amanda Plummer), who seems to show up at inappropriate times for the simple sake of acting weird. And, of course, there are the various things in her apartment that conveniently link her to the locations where Mrs. X offed her hubbies.

In its broad parameters, then, So I Married an Axe Murderer is a satire of male commitment phobias and the extent to which men will demonize their exes as a way to mask their own inability to settle down, and in this regard it works fairly well. However, director Thomas Schlamme, whose primary work has been directing sitcoms and stand-up comedy concerts, seems more interested in trying to turn the film into a parody of horror-thrillers and littering the proceedings with attention-grabbing cameos that have no real narrative purpose other than to draw your attention to the actor (It’s Phil Hartman as an amusingly serious Alcatraz guide! It’s Steven Wright as an incompetent pilot!) From any angle, Axe Murderer is an odd movie. It has its amusing moments and one or two really good gags, but overall it can’t quite shake its slightly off-kilter sense of weirdness, which is perhaps why Myers had such a hard time just trying to be normal.

Copyright ©2008 James Kendrick

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