Sunday, October 21, 2012

DVD Review - Slaughter




Slaughter
Director: Stewart Hopewell
Written By:  Stewart Hopewell
Starring:  Lucy Holt, Amy Shiels, David Sterne
Studio: Liongates
ASIN: B001P9N9A8
Release Date: March 31, 2009
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rated R for Disturbing Violent Content, Language and Some Sexuality


Slaughter was released to theaters back in 2009 as part of the After Dark Horrorfest III (aka 8 Films to Die For). As of writing this review, it is only the second After Dark movie I have viewed.

The film opens up with a twenty-something Faith (played Amy Shiels) arriving in Atlanta and leaving her small town life, her horrible mother, and her abusive ex-boyfriend. At a nightclub, she meets a twenty-something Lola (played by Lucy Holt), who is care-free type person. They chat and exchange numbers.

Just as Faith starts to adjust to the city life, she receives dozens of hateful emails from her ex-boyfriend. Not having anyone to turn to, she befriends Lola, who lives outside of Atlanta on her family farm with her father and brothers. Faith moves out of the city after she recognizes her ex's truck parked near her apartment and she ends up living with Lola in the upstairs part of the barn that has been turned into an apartment.

Lola lives a wild life; letting rich older men buy her stuff in exchange for a one night stand. The men are always gone by the time Faith gets up in the morning, but then she notices strange things. One of the men left his watch behind and Faith finds a set of car keys in the weeds.

Faith finds it odd that Lola doesn't talk to her father, who spends most of his time near the hogs' slaughterhouse. She starts to wonder if these men Lola has been dating are really leaving in the mornings or is something else happening to them.

One day while nobody is looking, Faith slips into the slaughterhouse and unlocks the backroom. What she finds might just end her life?

I had absolutely no expectations when I started watching this movie, in which I had never heard of before. A lot of low-budget horror movies have horrible camera work, but not here as every scene is top-notch! After the movie ended, I googled for reviews about it and I was shocked to learn that many people didn't understand the movie. Especially, the part about the teeth being removed.

Spoiler Alert: Someone in the movie pulls someone’s teeth out and then pulls their own teeth out, that way when the authorities find the disfigured body they will think it belonged to the killer as they can only confirm the identity of the body with the teeth! 

I also read a few reviews that thought the movie was so boring! What was boring? I'm sick and tired of horror movies or what some people call torture porn, like the Hostel movies, that rely on graphic violence every five minutes as it leaves no room for the viewer's imagination.

The movie's plot is about abusive women and how they react to the aftermath of it. Faith tries to move on with her life by moving to the city, where as Lola...whoops, I said too much.

Yes, most modern horror films are predictable and, unfortunately, Slaughter has a few predictable spots, but then again it doesn't. I thought I had figured out what exactly was going on (aka Texas Chainsaw Massacre), especially when the father keeps going into the slaughterhouse and Lola's lovers keep going missing, but then there are several twists and turns that changes everything and builds up the suspense until the not-so happily ever after ending.

Slaughter isn't a perfect film, but it is an underrated horror yarn with decent acting, decent writing, and great directing. With Halloween around the corner, I would recommend others to rent or buy (I bought it for five dollars at Walmart in an eight movie set.) the movie, turn off the lights and enter into the slaughterhouse.



No comments:

Post a Comment

I adore reading reader feedback! I will, however, remove all spam and pointless comments.

Please take note that I have the right to delete comments from this site. Please only post constructive and respectful feedback.