On Slaughter High - A Review

Marty majored in cutting classmates. And chemistry. And auto mechanics. And plumbing. Home economics and decorating? Not so much. Oh, and also math, physics, and disguise. Marty, the Overachiever.

Slaughter High is better than I remember it, because I beat the living hell out of it when I first saw it (probably back in the early '90s, though it may have been the late 1980s), and some of those riffs have remained staples in my witless arsenal for... wow.

It occurs to me that I should get out more.

Don't get me wrong, Slaughter High is, by no means, a good movie -- even for a slasher -- but it plows through bodies basically from start to finish, and that's pretty much what it promises, so I have to cut it at least a little slack in my old age. But only a little. Slaughter High barely even tries; even its little variations on the omnipresent cliches (which include a perplexing full-frontal scene early-on) are limp noodles, left dangling before the audience as if to say, "Huh!? Didn't expect that, now did you?" It has enough to work with, but never manages to rise to the occasion. Swinging cock.

It is a stellar example of the mid-to-late 80's approach to the slasher, and a testament as to why it died. By the time this movie was released, there had been five or six Friday the 13^th films, as well as at least one Nightmare on Elm Street, and audiences not only wanted more from their horror films, we expected it. Five years into the sub-genre, the slashers had become more pop-culture icons than villains, and Slaughter High would have worked better if the creators had capitalized on the sympathy the viewer feels for Marty. But said creators simply don't have the chops.

Slaughter High is a rote joke told by a tired comedian: There is exactly enough setup to barrel-through to the inevitable conclusion, and though there are flashes of low-key brilliance along the way, the reliance on the audience's knowledge is less shorthand than hackery.

The kills are creative, but that's literally all Slaughter High has going for it.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010