THE RETURN OF 31 DAYS OF HORROR: #19 Slaughter High

This is part of Final Girl’s Film Club. It’s like being in the Superfriends except you don’t have to worry about fucking gleek, and we’re led by Stacie Ponder who I’m pretty sure could kick Wonder Woman’s ass.

Slaughter High is to bad slasher movies what The Burning and Friday The 13th Part 2 are to good slasher movies. The ultimate. A movie so completely unconcerned with character plot or anything other then The Red Red Kroovy, that it could almost pass for surrealist art. And despite the fact that the movie does not feature Megadeth’s mascot running around killing people, as the poster so clearly promises, it still manages to be a whole hell of a lot of fun.

Come On How Cool Would That Be?

It’s a grand tradition for horror movies to start with a group of kids pulling some dick move on some unfortunate so as to justify the spree of murder that’ll last for the next eighty minutes. Slaughter High though is the only movie I know of that begins with an epic EIGHTEEN MINUTE DICK MOVE.

As an April Fools prank a bunch of jocks decide to play a joke on a nerd. They make him think he’s going to make out with a hot girl, then strip him naked, spray him with goo, videotape him in said state, stab his junk with a javlin, and electrocute him. Then they shove his head down a toilet, which I gotta say can’t help but come off as anti climatic after the junk stabbing and near fatal electrocution. But not to worry they pick up steam later by giving him a laced joint, splattering him with acid and then setting him on fire. As far as slasher movies go this origin is right up there with The Burning. You’ve got to give it Marty he’s got a legitimate reason to be pissed.

Ten years later the same group of students (Including one who looked so disconcertingly like Michael Imperiolli that I could barely keep from yelling CHRIST-UPH-FER) come to a school reunion, to which only they have been invited to. They find their school shuttered abandoned, scheduled for demolition, and for some reason situated on an English moor (The movie is actually an English production, which might explain it’s rather dim view of the American fodder). Determined to have their obviously fake reunion they break into the school, where they find a big feast laid out for them. Not having any brains at all they all wait around calmly waiting to be killed.

Slaughter High takes the kills about as far as they can go. When the most minimalist murder in the movie is a gruesome crucifixion you know you’re in for a wild ride. This movie is so crazy that it made Fulci shake his head and go daaaaaaaammmmnnnn. It’s a gore hounds paradise, stomachs explode, people get crushed under cars, hung, the javelin makes a triumphant return, and someone gets dissolved in acid.

What keeps Slaughter High from being a really good Slasher movie (or in all fairness any good at all) is the utter hateablity of every single person in the movie. There has to be some rooting interest in a slasher movie, even if it’s a rooting interest in seeing everyone die. Both the slasher and the slashees are deeply unpleasant people.

The film ends with a twist that I’ll admit I did not see coming. Which in all fairness was probably because it wasn’t actually coherent. It kind of sums up the film as a whole, it might not actually be good, but you’ve got to admire its nuts.