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Slaughter High
(1986)
Plot
Eight people are invited to a ten-year high school
reunion at their now closed-down school. There, a former student, severely
disfigured from a prank that they played on him, plans to extract his revenge on
them all one-by-one.
Review
Originally titled April Fool’s Day (but hey, didn’t someone do that
already?) Slaughter High is another mid-80s slasher which unfortunately
allows a high level of campiness and cheese to ruin any sort of fear, suspense
or atmosphere that the film should have been trying to aim for. The story, about
a prank gone wrong, is one of the genre’s most overused clichés but you’re not
going to be too worried about that because Slaughter High is so goofy and
daft, that it’s hard to see anything else.
Like the majority of the mid-80s slashers which played out more for laughs and
gore than serious scares, Slaughter High is full of the silly splatter
which sent this genre into free fall. Deaths here include disembowelment by
tractor engine, a couple die having sex on an electrified bed, a melting in an
acid bath and some unlucky guy has his stomach and intestines explode when he
drinks from a booby-trapped beer. If you’re a fan of over-the-top kills, then
Slaughter High should satisfy your demand but some of them are just too daft
to enjoy, not to mention some of the make-up effects are a bit on the tacky
side. There’s no real set-up to the deaths either. Marty doesn’t do a whole lot
of stalking. He simply allows the characters to split up and spread out before
picking them off. The jester outfit he wears would probably have been
intimidating had he been confined to the shadows until the finale but we
constantly see him in broad daylight, thus eliminating any potential the costume
had. He’s hardly the most imposing killer either but seems to have grown
superhuman strength and resilience since the prank back in high school!
Tragically, the actor who played Marty, Simon Scuddamore, took his own life soon
after it was released. It’s a pity because even though the role is cartoonish
and he hams it up in every scene, there was potential for a trashy sequel as the
character has something about him. The film could have done without his full
frontal shots though! Fresh from being stalked in Maniac, Caroline Munro
stars. Not really known for her acting ability but her stunning looks, Munro is
way too old to be taken seriously as a high school student in the beginning (she
was in her mid-thirties when this was made!) but thankfully the film shifts
forward ten years to allow her real age to better reflect the character. Despite
the fact that her character was involved in the prank and broke his heart (come
on, as if he believed he ever had a chance with the hottest piece of ass in
school!), the script at least allows her a chance to show some compassion for
Marty. But in reality, this is a film which gets the audience to side with the
killer. Despite the horrific revenge he commits on each of the perpetrators, you
never once feel remorse for them. Marty is the hero of the piece and the
audience relishes every drop of blood that is spilled from his victims, though
how over-complicated some of his set-ups are bears no scrutiny on closer
inspection (like the girl who takes a bath in an abandoned school for instance –
could he really have seen that coming?). The rest of the cast are downright
awful in their roles and most of them are interchangeable so it doesn’t really
matter which male or female gets killed off first because you’re never really
sure of the differences between them.
Verdict
Slaughter High is a daft entry in
the slasher cannon. Despite the dreadful acting, lack of true thrills and
suspense, overly elaborate death scenes and a real whiff of stale cheese, it’s
not the worst one out there and is a solid example of how childish the sub-genre
had become by this time. A real 80s horror film if ever there was a definition. |
