Slaughterhouse

Slaughterhouse (1987)

Lester and his son Buddy have an appropriate last name of Bacon because they are or at lest were in the pig slaughtering business. But Lester refused to mechanize and lost out to his competitors, one of which is now trying to buy his land before the county forecloses on it. Lester refuses and simple-minded Buddy takes his father’s anger as permission to start killing off the locals. When Lester finds out he is angry, not that Buddy is killing, but that he isn’t killing the right people. To that end Lester starts to lure his enemies to the old Slaughterhouse so that Buddy can deal with them.

This isn’t a bad little slasher movie. The story is very simple and isn’t anything new to genre fans. I did like the twist of the father/son killing combination. Also Buddy is probably the nicest slasher you will ever see on screen. See he is really a nice guy as long as you don’t mess with his dad or his pigs. It was also interesting to see that not all of Buddy’s victims were going to be teenagers off doing things they shouldn’t, but actually end up being people in the wrong place at the wrong time. I do have a couple complaints about the movie. First of all they keep hitting us (the audience) over the head with the fact that there is a big storm coming. Yeah I get it and it might play an important part in the movie, which it does. I just kind of found this annoying. Also after a really cool opening and first couple of kills the movie takes too long setting up the rest of the kills and the story. But if you can get thru the slow part after the opening the movie does pick up again pretty well. The cast is adequate for a slasher movie. Some of the actors are a bit rough and have difficulty getting thru their lines. But for me this is more than made up for by Joe B. Barton who plays Buddy as a child, a demented child with an axe, but still a child nonetheless.

Can’t talk slasher movie without mentioning the gore. This is a low budget movie, but manages to deliver some decent practical effects. While it isn’t up to the quality of the best of the slasher genre it still is way better than what most of the lower budget efforts from the 80s gave us. The decision to not cover Buddy in makeup and let him look as normal as a huge man-child in overalls can works well for the movie as well. The look of the killer can make or break a movie and here it worked nicely. I also have to mention the camera work, which is really good. It makes great use of the locations, which themselves are almost characters and bring much of the atmosphere to the movie. I mean you had better have a good slaughterhouse if that is the name of the movie. Another thing that I got a big kick out of was the music. There is no doubt what decade the movie was made in, because the music is pure 80s. For me that is just icing on the cake.

I’ve been on a real slasher kick lately. While being far from perfect Slaughterhouse is still worth checking out if you dig these kinds of movies. While slow at spots the movie does deliver enough of the goods to earn it a recommendation for at least a rental.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer