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SLAUGHTER HIGH

BULLIES LAUGH AT AN ANGRY NERD'S PENIS



★☆☆☆☆ (Kill It With Fire)

Directors: Mark Ezra, Peter Litten, George Dugdale

1986


Pardon my shock and disgust as I discover that Slaughter High is an equal opportunity exploiter. Rarely do I come across vintage horror films that treat men as poorly as women in the meat department, but full frontal male isn’t the only selling point to this lump of C9H9N. For all you sadists out there, there’s a slick cruelty throughout this “comedy”/origin story/slasher flick/pyromaniac’s wet dream, and if you think all this makes for a confusing film, you’d be right. Slaughter High had three directors and three screenwriters and this patchwork quilt of incompetence still wound up with an IQ of twelve.



Speaking of IQ’s, we’re led to believe our main character, the geeky Marty, is some sort of science genius, but his behavior is so infantile, the movie can’t even sell a basic nerd to us. There’s not much to an 80s nerd, but here, the character is Poindexter on steroids, and actor Simon Scudamore* oversells him as if the rent is due tomorrow. Scudamore’s not alone. Every actor in this movie—with the exception of the coach and Wise Black Janitor—fails so badly at delivering their lines that I wondered if they were the producers’ kids. Almost every scene feels like the directors gave up and kept the first take to hurry things along.


Slaughter High begins with a prank. Throughout the film, you are inundated with April Fools. April Fools…April Fools… Yes, I know that’s the original title of Slaughter High, but no one cares about that one random day as much as the writers think we do. Anyhow, this is why a group of popular 40-year-olds, er, teens decide to trick Marty into getting naked in the girl’s locker room. As he cries and tries to run, they drag his nude body across the floor, give him a swirly (where we almost see his butthole), and yell, “where’s the beef” so many times Burger King should sue. You don’t feel anything for Marty because he’s such an idiot, but you do feel something for the actor. There’s a grossness and sense of neglect in this scene. I don’t care if Scudamore signed up for this, there’s no reason why any actor would play the role knowing this is what it encompassed. These questions add an extra layer of seediness.



Later in the day, these kids pull another prank that ends with Marty being severely burned by chemicals and taken to a hospital where he will live out the rest of his days. Years later, this lynching posse (and no one else) gets invitations to a class reunion, and they’re very confused as they arrive at their old high school. I don’t know what they’ve read about class reunions but they don’t usually involve rolling up to an abandoned building with no other cars and no lights. The school is vacant, but instead of getting in their vehicles and driving to town while complaining about the waste of time, they break in and discover an elaborate set-up, and it dawns on someone that the only people in attendance are the ones who hurt Marty. This is when the kills begin, and the situations are as dumb as you’d expect. While everyone’s getting murdered around them, a couple decides to go off to have sex (a bed in a school?) before becoming victims. One lady has a few drops of someone else’s blood on her face, but instead of washing off in a sink, she gets naked and crawls into a tub (a bathtub in a school?) so the directors could get a close-up of her cleaning habits. There is a neat little shot of a guy’s intestines coming out, but one fun effect does not a competent movie make.


SPOILERS. We never find out why these people had such a violent hatred for Marty. This isn’t normal bullying behavior, but after a time-jump—when the 40-year-olds, er, teens become successful "20-somethings"—we’re expected to believe they are well-adjusted adults. Age does not magically turn a teenager who enjoys physically torturing someone into an empathetic individual deserving of our empathy. Could the movie be revenge porn? I don’t think so, only because the writers treat Marty with as much contempt as his bullies. Before the time-jump, he snorts and makes ridiculous comments about being a sex machine; after the time-jump, he’s a raging lunatic murdering random people and no, I didn’t ruin anything for you. If you think Marty being the killer is a twist, you’re probably dazzled when someone plays “got your nose.” Much like the characters, Slaughter High has no redeeming qualities. There’s no joke here. This film is terrible.



*Simon Scudamore committed suicide right after filming for Slaughter High wrapped.






GENRES: Serial Killer


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