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| Release: 1986, Rating: R, Run time: 90 min. |
You in the mood for a good time? You want a slasher film that doesn’t take itself seriously? How about one that is completely hilarious in an unintentional way, with extremely bad acting and an ending that comes out of far, far left field? If you said yes to any of those questions, boy do I have just the thing for you…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: Eight different people are invited to their 10-year high school reunion at their now-closed down high school where a former student, disfigured from a prank gone wrong, is there to seek revenge.
Slaughter High is the definition of cheesy 80s slasher film. If you opened up the encyclopedia and looked for ‘cheesy 80s slasher’, a picture of that awesome poster above, would be smiling back at you! That isn’t to say Slaughter High is a bad movie, hmm wait, no it is, let me rephrase that. That isn’t to say Slaughter High is a slasher movie that you would want to pass up. (There, that’s better). It’s got plenty of inventive kills, that make you laugh until your sides split open, in a good way. The acting is like fingernails on chalk board, it made my ears and eyes bleed. People do some of the dumbest shit possible. So, it’s basically a fantastic time well spent, except for that terrible ending. It’s one of those endings that almost ruin everything good before it.
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| Poor Marty (Simon Scuddamore) is about to get an April Fool’s joke put on him, that he won’t forget. |
Look at me, here I am praising this movie and I haven’t even told you what it’s all about. Here’s the quick rundown. Several years ago, a bunch of mid 30’s high school students, loved pulling April Fool’s jokes on who I assume is the only nerd in the entire school, which seems to consist of 20 people. The nerd’s name is Marty and these semi-retired students, torture the poor guy, with swirlies, naked photo ops (full frontal nudity for the ladies!) and joints with firecrackers in them. Unfortunately, the jokes go a little too far and poor Marty gets in an accident.
Jump to several year’s later, the prankster’s are all headed back to the school for a high school reunion. It’s going to be a grand ol’ time, until they realize that no one else is showing up and the school has been shut down for 5 years. Cue the mayhem, as a masked “joker”, is running loose and exacting sweet, sweet revenge. Could it be Marty? Does he still hold a grudge after all those years? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out!
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| The killer in all his masked, joker glory. |
Slaughter High is in no way a good movie, but boy did I have a blast. The movie is full of murder and and cheesy mayhem. The kills are pretty damn gnarly, with the movie I saw, being the uncut version, so, you’ll see some nice gory bits here and there (loved that shocking bed scene!). Also, the music was performed by none other than Friday the 13th alum, Harry Manfredini. I assume he was told to make the music sound exactly the same, with only slight differences, as there are times I swore I was watching a F13th movie. (Side note, watch out for the sweet F13th nod, music and all.)
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| No amount of screaming is going to get you out of Slaughter High! |
Okay, so we know Slaughter High has terrible acting, a cliche story and an ending that was just beyond stupid and almost ruins the movie. Why give it a good review score then? Well, that’s because I like my 80s slasher flicks to be fun, stupid and gory and this is actually what this movie delivered. Slaughter High get’s a passing grade in my opinion and I look forward to getting my invitation to the reunion down the road.
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