Slaughterhouse (1987) *1/2 Directed by Rick
Roessler. Starring Joe B. Barton, Don Barrett, Sherry Leigh, Bill Brinsfield,
Jason Collier, Hank Gum, Jeff Wright, William Houck.
By 1987 the slasher genre of horror was starting to lose its
stride, mainly descending into sequels of already established monsters
committing mayhem throughout the countryside or the suburb. Apparently the
makers of Slaughterhouse not only missed the memo on how horror films were
progressing as the decade headed for its inevitable end, but they also decided
to make no attempt at making anything new, otherwise relying on not only the standard
tropes of horror films for the last decade, they out and out steal them.
The film does open with something unusual- the processing of
pigs at a slaughterhouse. We get a nice look at the shocker and the saws and
all of those fun things that go along with a slaughterhouse. Now I’m far from
being a vegetarian and I also know that this is a horror movie, but this is a
bit much to start with.
What the film amounts to is random people stumbling on the
Bacon family’s slaughterhouse (Yes, I know the irony of them being called “Bacon”)
and being wiped out by the resident psycho Buddy (Joe B. Barton), a large
hulking man that snorts like a pig and eagerly uses his splitter to dispatch
his victims. As progress has taken over the old slaughterhouse looks to be
going to either sale or foreclosure the patriarch of the Bacon family Lester
(Don Barrett) decides to use Buddy’s skills to take care of the people that he
feels are trying to steal is property and livelihood from him, while forgetting
that even by killing these people I’m sure that’s not going to stop the sale of
the property for back taxes.
You probably get the idea of how the film progresses from
this point. People get killed, other people look for them, and people stumble
by and so on and so forth. There are attempts to make a deeper plot to
Slaughterhouse, such as the deputy that is having an affair and the local Pig
celebration that gets a half hearted build up and an even less enthusiastic
execution. It’s your basic kill, kill, kill, which is fine if you have
something new to say. Slaughterhouse doesn’t do that. If you have seen Texas
Chainsaw Massacre or My Bloody Valentine you have seen this film as they are
the two main victims to the theft that is the plot of Slaughterhouse.
Slaughterhouse was lost in a sea of horror slasher boogey men
that were roaming the Cineplex’s and few remaining drive ins during the 1980’s.
A C bill film in a genre that at the time was B level at best. There are a few
parts that standout, such as one special effect and a line about being kosher
before that effect, but this film winds up being a pedestrian endeavor at a
horror film. Doing a bit of research shows that a sequel was planned and it was
set up (ala Friday the 13th), but that film never materialized. A person
should wonder why there hasn’t been an attempt to re-make this film, especially
after seeing the glut of horror films that fill or VOD streams (I watched this
on Vudu for free). It would be the perfect film to polish up, make with very
little money and put a few dollars in your pocket. Maybe that version would be
a better film, but we’re talking about this film not an imaginary re-make. This
film is mostly a waste of time and will be of interest only to people that have
exhausted all of the other horror films that use the same formula.
