An absolutely bizarre project, Slaughter High is a USA / UK co-production, which is set in the USA but was clearly filmed in England, resulting in a messy culture clash!!
On April Fool’s day, a group of students play a prank on gimpy Marty. As expected, it all goes terribly wrong and Marty’s life is ruined.
Years later, the students all return to the school for a ‘crummy class reunion’. On arrival the party seems a lot quieter than expected.
Seeing as a storm is brewing the group decide to stay for a drink. After the first one bites the dust, the group panics and tries to escape, but discover that they are trapped!
Routine slaughter then ensues, but it is anything but high.
I was honestly wetting myself during this. For a start, the locations are so obviously British, that it was hilarious to hear an English actress doing her best attempt at an American accent and saying things like ‘I decide to hike and see America the great’…..please luv, you’re in East Sussex!!
The cast including Caroline Munroe and ‘Terry’ from the popular UK soap ‘Emmerdale’ are largely British and have been forced to put on some of the worst ‘New York’ accents I have ever had the displeasure of hearing.
The whole plot is so stupid that I simply couldn’t let it slide. The building has been derelict for 5 years, so when one lady gets some blood splashed on her face, she takes off all of her clothes and goes for a bath ALONE in an UNLOCKED room!! That bitch deserved what she got!!
Similarly, one of the characters who is trying to get an old tractor to work in an attempt at escaping, asks to work ALONE because he can’t concentrate!!
His friends then decide to have a heart to heart and some sex after witnessing the death of half of their friends!! ( I could have done without seeing ‘Terry’ from ‘Emmerdale’ in the buff and talking dirty…….tea time will never be the same again now!!)
On the plus side, the scares, location and deaths are great. It’s just a shame that they had to try and be American. As my review for ‘Anatomy’ stated the genre isn’t exclusive to the states!!
The biggest annoyance for me was the god awful music by Harry Manfredini of ‘Friday the 13th’ fame, although the cues borrowed from the ‘Friday the 13th’ films were welcome, and it allowed for the best ever ‘Jason’ reference in a movie.
OVERALL SUMMARY
The film is pathetically stupid, but has a great get out clause. Be sure to watch out for the entrance of Emmerdale’s favourite whinger in what has to be the best motorbike stunt acting ever!!
