SlaughterHigh

Slaughter High (1986)

Like so many slasher movies before and after it Slaughter High starts off with a prank that goes horribly wrong. After a bunch of the popular “kids” (all clearly in their 30s!) get detention for a prank played on Marty the nerd they plot to get their revenge. But their second prank causes a lab accident (because that is where nerds chill out!) that disfigures Marty and drives him nuts. A decade later they are all invited back for their reunion in the now abandoned school where they are killed off one by one. Who is the killer and will any of them survive?

Let me say right up front that many slasher movies are light on plot and make some pretty big leaps in logic to get the characters separated from each other so they can be knocked off. But Slaughter High takes this to an entirely new level of the absurd. First of all we have some really stupid characters doing some incredibly odd things. After one of their friends is killed one of the characters finds a bathtub and takes a bath to wash his blood off of her! I mean everyone else is trying to get out of the building, but she decides to get naked. Okay I suppose, but then the killer somehow knew to rig the bath up with some elaborate acid trap to kill her. Really? Oh and after a few more bodies pile up a pair go off to have a rendezvous (guess how that works out for them) and another character chases everyone off so he can fix the lawnmower that is going to help them break out. If that weren’t enough the most well-known cast member (Caroline Munro) was well into her mid 30s when making the movie and looks it! But really none of the supposed High School kids look like they are that young at all.

So it might seem that I didn’t like the movie. The truth is that in spite of all the really bad lapses in logic and terrible casting choices the movie is still a blast. Slaughter High delivers some fun and inventive kills that are fun and well executed. We get to see a melting stomach from some bad beer, a hilarious kill involving the amorous couple I mentioned before and a metal bed plugged into a wall socket, and a creative kill with a riding mower. And these aren’t the only kills. The movie has a respectable body count and spreads them out so that the movie is never slow or boring. Toss in some decent nudity and you have all the requirements of a decent slasher flick. Heck the killer runs around in a creepy Jesters outfit and has one of the more memorable looks from the glut of 80s slasher movies. Which makes Slaughter High all in all not a bad effort.

Speaking of effort I do have to mention the recent DVD from Lionsgate. Slaughter High was a long time coming to DVD and when I heard it was finally getting a legit release I was sort of excited. It was on a fairly short list of movies that deserved a release, but had yet to have one. Now I know the movie was released uncut, which is cool, but it is a terrible transfer. Really it looks like it is taken from a VHS tape (wait for the end to see the old Vestron Video logo)! That might have been acceptable back in the early days of DVD, but in 2009 I think not. Oh and for the love of God the thing isn’t even widescreen? Toss in the complete lack of special features (no the trivia track isn’t a special feature) and you have a DVD release that in my opinion is a smack in the face to those of us that love the horror genre and more specifically the slasher subgenre. Truthfully I would recommend that everyone pass on this terrible release if not for the fact that the movie really is worth checking out. So be warned the DVD sucks, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Slaughter High is a dumb slasher movie that delivers the goods and ends up being really entertaining. So if you are in the mood to turn of the brain and kick back for some boobs and blood grab this is the one for you. I recommend Slaughter High.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer