The Firelight Shocks DVD Review Section

Slaughterhouse Distributor: Program Power Region: 1 Ratio: 4.3 Sound: Remastered in Dolby Surround Stereo

A popular film with horror video renters in the late eighties, Slaughterhouse plays as a manic homage to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, with added shots of spurting arteries and an even less subtle approach to its gruesome subject matter. It is also firmly rooted in the teen-kill genre of Halloween and its various clones, and true to form many characters are introduced, in Slaughterhouse, with the primary reason to simply slash them away in some sort of 'novelty' fashion. I guess the horror viewer either laps this up or treats it as predictable nonsense. I have to confess that I grew up with these sort of films and, when I was ten years old, myself and my buddies would purposely seek out stalker films and sit in front of the television with a ghoulish sort of fixation as we watched limbs being carved away on screen. Perhaps it is a child's way of coming to terms with his or her own mortality or perhaps it is the intimidating shadow of puberty and bodily disgust that caused me to enjoy these movies as a child. I'm no psychologist, so I'm simply hampering a few ham-fisted guesses here. However, what is for sure is that watching Slaughterhouse was a wonderful, and welcome, trip back down memory lane. The movie begins with a couple of kids trespassing at an old slaughterhouse. As a result, they meet a big, hulking thug called Buddy who wastes little time in cutting them both down to size with his ludicrously enormous meat cleaver (I wonder what Freud would read into this!). Then comes the most unpleasant credit sequence that I've seen in quite some time. Basically, genuine slaughterhouse footage plays over the opening credits, whilst a bouncy little tune blips away in the background. To be fair, this is not as explicit as it could have been, and the pigs appear to have been put to death humanely. It is certainly a far cry from the horrendous, staged animal nastiness of Men Behind the Sun or Cannibal Holocaust, and it may even make some viewers reconsider pork chops so I guess you could argue that it has its merit. The main plot of Slaughterhouse mimics, of course, Chain Saw Massacre with a crazy old man and his backwards son Buddy put out of the meat business by the combination of new technology and wealthier competition. Those who are trying to buy the old man's land end up meeting a messy demise at the hands of Buddy who kills his enemies in a variety of increasingly sadistic and suitably insane ways. One chap is fed into a meat crusher and another actually has his face crushed together, Jason-style, in the film's gory highlight. Predictably, said death ends with a humorous remark about 'kosher meat'. In order to 'up' the body count further, the filmmakers have a few more kids trespass over at the slaughterhouse ('I bet you twenty bucks you can't last an hour in there'), and as you might expect they all end up dead. The only question left in my mind is just how this man and his son managed to run a successful business for so long when they are complete homicidal maniacs, but alas this is the bizarre logic of the stalk and slash genre. Slaughterhouse certainly covers all of the vices of the slasher genre - from a high mortality rate (check), to a few gory special effects (check) and from an appealing lead stalker (check) to a long, drawn out sequence of someone running away from the lead bogeyman (check). As such, the film hardly breaks any new ground, but in the character of Buddy, who can only snort like a pig, it has at least a frightening presence (trust me - this guy is scary) and some of the humour works well. I enjoyed the film, and would not hesitate to recommend it to those who just want to 'pig out' in front of a silly stalker movie and reawaken some memories of yore.

EXTRAS: Let's just call this 'everything you ever wanted to know about Slaughterhouse, but were afraid to ask'. The extras on this disc put many other horror efforts on the market to shame. Indeed, the wealthy studios such as MGM, Paramount and Warner would do well to pay attention to this DVD release. For whilst these companies have been pissing off genre fans with their no-thrills, no-effort releases of such popular titles as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, Friday the 13th and Gremlins, Program Power show the big boys how it should be done. The company really should be proud of the amount of extras that they have managed to cram on this disc... First of all we have trailers. Boy, do we have trailers! Try seven of them for size! All of the trailers for Slaughterhouse are incredibly entertaining and it's just great to see an exploitation film being advertised and marketed to a paying audience. The best trailer is undoubtedly the 'No Smoking' one where Buddy and his dear old dad sit in an empty theatre and tell the audience not to light up - Buddy even slices his dad's cigar in half for good measure. I have no idea how Program Power managed to dig this obvious rarity up, but I'm glad they did. The theatrical trailer is itself a lot of fun to watch ('Buddy - he's going hog wild at the Slaughterhouse'). Over and above the selection of trailers, we also have some 'raw, unedited footage'. This is basically some alternate takes, and also a wee bit of special effects mayhem. Again, this is really enjoyable to sit through. However, my favourite extras are the 'Buddy on Tour' sequences where Buddy and director Rick Roessler tour Georgetown University's campus and sign autographs and basically publicise the film. Buddy seems a nice enough chap, arm wrestling some students and posing for pictures. The footage has been shot on a camcorder and could have done with some editing, but it is still interesting to watch. Even better than this is the footage (also on the tour to publicise the film) of Buddy in Washington, where the big guy intrudes on a cinema watching the film - and visits many theatres showing the movie, all the time keeping a smile on his face and meeting the public. This stuff all amounts to over half an hour of footage and it is a great throwback to the days when films such as this were actually able to garner a cinema release. Now, you would think that these extras would be more than enough - but oh no! Program Power also give us behind the scenes pictures, a stills gallery and a lengthy interview with the director who is just bags full of enthusiasm and even shows us some of the props from the film! The director speaks about how difficult it was to get the film made and released, chats about his sadness at never having been able to secure the financing for a future movie and talks happily about how Slaughterhouse managed to make its money back. In a separate segment, the producer of the film also speaks about the making of the movie and advises viewers about how to market an independent horror flick. Great stuff! Phew! Now if this has whetted your appetite, then the director and producer also sit down for a commentary track. Yes, that's right - those guys at Program Power even managed to get a commentary track for this wee horror film! How cool is that? Whilst the producer of the film really needs to speak up (you can hardly hear him), director Rick Roessler is once again full of stories about the making of the movie and assures us that we're 'seeing the uncut version' (apparently the 'R'rated version was trimmed of some gorier shots). He also admits to inventing some of the names on the end credits to make it 'look like we had a mammoth budget'. Furthermore, if you have a DVD rom then this disc comes complete with the actual screenplay, more photos and promotional pictures, a 16-page working budget form for the movie and the original 34-page distribution contract for the movie's release! Besides that lot you even get some newspaper clippings, ads and reviews - how much more could you possibly want? Well, you also get all the spurting blood and gore that was cut from the movie's original UK video release! Yippee! Slaughterhouse is brought to disc in a full frame transfer that looks correct (the raw footage is also filmed in full screen). The picture quality is fine throughout - considering the budget of the film, you obviously cannot expect it to match the visuals of Jurassic Park, but I have no complaints. This is the best Slaughterhouse is ever going to look. The sound has been remastered in 'Ultra-Stereo Surround Sound' and the thunderstorms at the end of the film sound especially strong. This is a very worthwhile purchase for horror movie fans, and anyone who wants to learn about the making and marketing of a low budget film. Combined with a disc jam packed with extras, this DVD simply begs to take pride of place in your genre collection. In case you haven't guessed - this one gets an enormous recommendation. In the perfect world all DVD releases would be treated with this much care and respect.