Slaughterhouse (1987)

	Director: Rick Roessler
	Starring: Joe B. Barton, Don Barrett
	Run Time: 85 mins
	Certificate: 18
	Rating:

Plot
When the owner of an old slaughterhouse finds out that he is facing foreclosure, he sends out his 300lbs psychotic son to kill those who want his land. A group of teenagers who are filming a cheesy horror movie at the slaughterhouse are caught up in the carnage.

Review
Clearly borrowing elements from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Slaughterhouse is a surprisingly entertaining independent slasher film from 1987. It's repetitive, predictable and pretty low budget but it's got a tongue-in-cheek likeability which helps it overcome a multitude of problems. Can you go wrong with an inbred maniac offing people in a huge slaughterhouse?

Slaughterhouse's biggest assets come in the form of the two main characters, Lester the owner of the slaughterhouse and his son Buddy.

Buddy, the mentally-challenged, lard-ass killer is a right hoot who channels the spirit of Leatherface with his penchant for making weird squealing noises and his knack for brandishing unhealthy weapons. The filmmakers try a little too hard to turn him into the next big slasher but he does have his moments, notably the scene in which he pretends to be a cop driving around in the cop car.

The biggest crime that Slaughterhouse commits is it's skimping of the classic slasher ingredients. There isn't a huge amount of gore and the bulk of the red stuff comes from the gross scenes of the slaughterhouse in action right at the start, with pigs getting sliced, diced and hung upside down. Oh and if you think you'll get through this without seeing someone being thrown into the meat grinder than think again! Buddy does get to see a lot of action with various methods of dispatch including The other absent element is the lack of nudity.

The ending is grossly anti-climatic and they either ran out of money or just simply couldn't be bothered filming it.

Verdict
If you don't know what to expect from a slasher film, then I don't want to know you. But if you do know and like it, then Slaughterhouse is a decent entry in this saturated genre. Just don't expect anything original.