Slaughter High (1986)

Simply A Masterpiece

hyped garbage

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Slaughter High will never win points for originality, characterization, acting, or really anything that makes a so-called "great film", but if you turn off your brain for 90 minutes, you'll find a lot to like.The plot is your typical "abused teenager stages fake high school reunion to lure his classmates into a death trap" kinda thing, but the death scenes are surprisingly creative and delivered with a certain amount of panache. The FX work happens to be rather solid, the atmosphere of the deserted school is on point, and there are several amusing performances to enjoy.Oh, did I forget to mention that everyone in this film is at least 10-15 years too old for their roles? Hell, Caroline Munro was pushing 40 by this point. These have to be some of the oldest looking high schoolers I've ever seen.Despite its goofy premise and performances, there's an aura of mean spiritedness that hangs over the film like a dark cloud, which helps give birth to some spooky and haunting moments here and there.Slasher and b-movie fans will find a lot to love.

Another high-school-prank-gone-wrong-disfigured-victim-seeks-revenge slasher movie from the 1980s. If you can put up with a horribly amateurish first half hour, this one has a few decent moments and a couple of fairly gruesome and imaginative kills. It also has instances of head-slapping stupidity, such as Caroline Munro knocking down the killer with a baseball bat and then dropping it beside him and running away (!), of the fact that all the characters can quite easily leave the school building as one of them demonstrates but never even try to. Speaking of Munro, she is surprisingly convincing playing a teenager despite being 37 (!) at the time, but this was a big career comedown for her - she was in a James Bond movie less than a decade earlier, for crying out loud. One amusing line: "if a caretaker takes care of the place, a janitor....janits?" ** out of 4,.

"Slaughter High" has been given an official DVD release but, going by the quality, you'd never know that. If it wasn't for the Lionsgate branding, trailers, and cheap trivia track "special feature," you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a bootleg. The full-screen video is ripped off the same VHS copy all the YouTube video pirates use. The image is almost indecipherably dark at times. The picture is grainy, scratchy, washed out, and full of tracking errors. The audio is tinny and frequently distorted. They even maintained the Vestron Video logo at the end! You could criticize Lionsgate for the shoddy release. Actually, you should do that. Yet, when I pressed play at the menu, a rush of nostalgia washed over me. I remember this world of scratchy VHS-rips and barely watchable uploads. (By the way, if you want a decent disc of the film, import Arrow's Region 0 release from the UK.) Anyway, the actual movie. "Slaughter High" begins in a high school. Duh. Thirty-six year old Caroline Munro plays a high school student, part of a group of the school's "cool" kids playing a prank on resident nerd Marty Ratzen. Marty is seduced, stripped naked, strapped into a bizarre condom, photograph in the nude, sprayed with cold water, and has his head dunked in a toilet. Afterwards, the gym teacher yells at Marty for being in the girl's bathroom. His humiliation isn't over yet, as another one of the bullies hand him an exploding joint. This goes horribly wrong and the nerd is splashed with acid, deforming his face. A decade later, the same group of bullies are invited back to the now-abandoned hospital for an April Fool's Day party. Predictably, a lunatic in a jester mask begins murdering them in gruesome, contrived ways. Gee, who saw that one coming? The film was produced by Dick Randall, the same man behind "Pieces" and countless other low-budget trash offerings. While "Slaughter High" is neither as sleazy nor hilarious as "Pieces," it comes awfully close at times. Aside from the thirty year olds cast as teenagers, the film is full of ridiculous slasher nonsense. Somebody just drank and acidic soda, their stomach literally splitting open. What is Nancy's first course of action after that? To take a bath in one of the dilapidated building's tubs. Surprise, the tub is full of acid! Her face melts via stop-motion animation. Despite their friends dying left and right, two of the invitees decide now is the best time to have sex. The woman implores the man to talk dirty, leading to him grunting out "T**s!" and "F**k!" The killer drops an activated lawn mower on a victim. The guy never thinks to roll out from under the vehicle. Characters play practical jokes, a rat leaps out at someone, and the creepy old janitor dies first. If you want clichés, "Slaughter High" delivers swiftly with its own demented sense of humor.The film's hilarious oddness is exacerbated by an unexpected mean-spirited streak. None of the characters are likable. Yes, Caroline Munro's Carol expresses some guilt over the accident, but just a little. Marty, at first, might be a victim. Yet his cluelessness, awkwardness, and overwhelming dorkiness make him hard to root for. The other victims show such astonishing stupidity that they endear no sympathy. "Slaughter High" quickly dissolves into awful people doing awful things to each other.But a devoted stalk-and-slash fan can find something worth-while in any thing. Honestly, when it comes to grimy, Z-grade slashers, "Slaughter High" is a better example. It's certainly better then, say, "Blood Cult" or "Honeymoon Horror." The empty hallways of the high school provide some decent atmosphere. Directing trio George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, and Peter Litten throw in one or two inventive shot, like a close-up of Marty's hands bursting through a picture of himself or a POV of someone falling from a robe. The kills are ridiculous but quite creative. I mean, any maniac can stab someone, and Marty does, but it takes a real creative mind to melt someone in an acid bath. The final chase sequence goes on for way too long but admittedly hits the horror fan sweet spot for me. The jester mask and letter man jacket combo is actually a pretty cool get-up. When many slasher films were content to stick their killer in a ski mask, that one sticks out. Henry Manfredini's score is pretty terrible but his fans will probably enjoy it.Ultimately contributing to "Slaughter High's" atmosphere of nastiness is that Simon Scuddamore, the actor playing Marty, committed suicide from a drug overdose not long after filming wrapped. Apparently, he suffered from depression. It's easy to imagine that his character's torment added to his real life depression. The film's thrown together, nonsensical ending features slow-motion murder, self-mutilation, and character's forever stuck in mental anguish. Dude, what a bummer. So "Slaughter High" is not a good movie in any traditional sense. Yet those with a stomach for the stupid, senseless and cheap will find it has an indelible atmosphere all its own.

Slaughter High was the only slasher movie I saw growing up. It was harmless fun for the most part, but had one death scene that really bothered me. In recent years, I've become more interested in horror movies, so when I came across a good copy of Slaughter High, I decided it was time to revisit it to see how it held up.The story is about a nerd who gets painfully disfigured when a group of popular kids keep picking on him. He gets them back years later by trapping them in the school and killing them off.Watching it today was almost like watching it for the first time, since I didn't remember much of it. My verdict: it holds up just fine. It moves along at a decent pace and does what these movies do fairly well. The scene I remembered most vividly--the shower scene--is still pretty disturbing. It ends satisfyingly enough, and kept me entertained throughout.