Sunday, September 18, 2011
Bad/awesome flixxx review: Slaughter High (1986)
"We'll take my car... it starts every time..." - Carol
"Let's drink some beer!" - Skip
"Um... fuck. Ah, tits. Screw. Um... tits." - Frank
I first saw this film probably when I was in fourth or fifth grade on the saturday or sunday matinee movie on what became the local fox affiliate before they even did that. I used to watch all sorts of matinees or black belt theater, or mega monster theater. I wish they still did that kind of thing. I'd love to host a midnight theater on some station somewhere. That's like a dreamer job. This seemed like a very typical slasher film, complete with a nerd getting picked on and him exacting his revenge. But little did I know at the weird mystery surrounding the cast that happened soon after the film was completed. A cast of late twentysomethings and a few mid thirtysomething unknowns somehow star as teenagers in SLAUGHTER HIGH!!!
Initially this film was supposed to be called "April Fool's Day", until the producers learned that Paramount was coming out with a film called that later in the year. The film was shot in England with English actors, but set somewhere in the states. The plot revolves around a nerd dude named Marty who is being tricked in the beginning of the movie by the hot popular chick at school named Carol. There's some kind of ball game going on (I wasn't paying attention because I kept thinking they were about to show Carol's boobs) and Carol told Marty to come with her down to the girls locker room to bang. Marty is skeptical, but isn't about to pass up a chance to lay Carol down. She suggests they first take a shower. Little does Marty know but Carol has all the popular kids with a full fucking film crew waiting while he gets undressed in the shower. She gets him to come out and upon the big reveal (no prob with full frontal nudity in this one) (and on a dude too, you'd think we'd at least got to see Carol's boobs once. whatever) they start jabbing at him with a pole vaulting pole and then they shock him with something and then they give him a swirlie in the toilet. After being busted by the janitor, the coach comes down to chew everyone out.
I feel like if this really happened these assholes would've gotten more than after school detention. Anyway, they all go for their punishment except the one stoner dude and his buddy hang back and give Marty a joint full of seeds. And then while he's smoking it, the other dude who was the ring leader guy sneaks in the lab where Marty is and puts some chemical in some container. When Marty comes back, the whole thing blows up creating a lab fire. Freaking out and trying to clean up the fire, Marty accidentally knocks into a shelf where a whole gallon of acid falls on his face melting it off and making him look hideous. The kids watch in horror as he's carted out, Carol in particular feeling remorse. As she tries to tell him she's sorry, he jumps up and tries to rip her face off.
Fast forward ten years (I guess) and Carol is like a porn chick, and her and the others are invited back to the high school for a reunion. They all either have car trouble on the way or end up giving each other rides (similar to plots in a lot of slasher films) and finally they all arrive at the school but wonder whats going on, because only 8 of them have shown up. They all think they can't be on the wrong day, but then they all suspect that it was Skip who invited them because he's a prick that's always up to no good. For some reason they decide to go into the old school that has CLEARLY been shut down for a few years. Two go around back to find a way in while the rest sit out front. Finally they get in, and decide to party. Drinks and streamers and shit are all set up. I would've been out of there, no, I never would have even gone in in the first place. They all notice their old lockers with their old shit still in it. Like no other students ever went there to school after that. They see Marty's locker and wonder what became of him. Skip starts joking about him. Pretty soon after that, Marty just starts murdering motherfuckers. One of them drinks some weird chemical in a beer and his guts explode all over this chick. She decides to get all the way naked and sit down in a bathtub (? where is there a bathtub in high schools?) instead of just washing her face and arms. And then the water is red and I guess that means its hot, because she doesn't get out, she just stays in it, and it burns her skin off and then her face melts off the skull! AWESOME SCENE!
Then another dude is cut up to death by a lawn mower/tractor/truck, and another is hung, but doesn't really die, but then DOES die because the hot chick hacks him in the face with an axe mistaking him for marty! Another chick is electrocuted, another drowned in a septic tank, the stoner dude is impaled in his car, and then the one chick decides to cheat on her hubby after two people have already been brutally murdered. I NEVER get that. Some people are dead, let's fuck! WHAT?!? So they get electrocuted too, and then finally in the end we are back in the girls locker room where the whole deal started. Carol has escaped Marty over and over again, but finally he fucking gets her. BUT THEN WAIT: The weirdest cop out ending I've seen in years happens. And I don't know if I'm mad about it or confused. Marty just suddenly wakes up. HA! Matty and me were watching this and he goes, "oh that old trick, eh?" HAHA! But WAIT- there's more: Then Marty is like so pissed that it wasn't real, that he grabs a needle, stabs it in the eye of the nurse and then looks dead in the camera and starts ripping the skin off of his own face?!?! WHAT? I was pulling for Marty for so long, and he just goes nutso on me. Well, I guess you'd have to be nutso anyway. And who says he can't go kill all these people with what was left of his face ripped off? Other murderers have done more with less. So should you see this? I say yes. Hit a big one and turn it on. If you dig slashers at all, you'll appreciate it. The moral of the story? Don't go to your high school reunion if you were a dick. Preesh.
********UPDATE*********
I forgot to add this part in there, but the whole mystery thing that surrounded the cast afterwards went like this: while they were waiting on the flick to come out, the actor who played Marty killed himself by purposefully overdosing. There's a ton of mystery surrounding his death. Like where, when, wrong dates and all that shit. Anyway. Yeah, bummer.
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