Slaughter High (1986) Vestron/Horror-Comedy RT: 91 minutes Rated R (graphic violence, language, sexual content, nudity including male full frontal, drugs) Director: Mark Ezra, Peter Litten and George Dugdale Screenplay: Mark Ezra, Peter Litten and George Dugdale Music: Harry Manfredini Cinematography: Alan Pudney Release date: November 14, 1986 (US) Cast: Caroline Munro, Simon Scuddamore, Carmine Iannaccone, Kelly Baker, Sally Cross, Billy Hartman, Gary Martin, Michael Saffran, Josephine Scandi, John Segal, Donna Yeagar, Jon Clark, Marc Smith, Dick Randall. Box Office: N/A Body Count: 13
Rating: ***
FUN FACT: The original title of the slasher comedy Slaughter High was April Fool’s Day. It was changed when the producers learned that Paramount would be releasing a slasher movie of the same name that same year.
There’s no way Slaughter High is a straight-up horror movie. It’s too goofy to be anything other than a spoof of the slasher genre. How else are we expected to take a film that tries to pass off 35YO Caroline Munro (Maniac) as a high school student? Can we say “Stockard Channing in Grease”?
Although I saw the box often in my local video stores, I didn’t rent Slaughter High back in the day for the same reason I avoided other titles that bypassed theaters. At least it did in my area. According to Wikipedia, it opened on 38 screens in the US in April ’87 after a limited run the previous November. I have no idea where any of those theaters are or were. It doesn’t matter though; the point is it didn’t open in Philly. In any event, it took me over 30 years to reach a point where I was finally interested in watching it. I’m glad I did, it’s actually pretty good.
It all begins with a humiliating prank on school nerd Marty Rantzen (the late Scuddamore who committed suicide shortly after filming completed in ’84) by the popular crowd led by class sexpot Carol (Munro). Naturally, it involves luring him into the girl’s locker room with the promise of sex only to be embarrassed in front of the student body instead. Things escalate and one chem lab explosion later, Marty is disfigured and insane.
Ten years later, the gang gathers for a class reunion at their now-closed alma mater, a locked building slated for demolition. Class clown Skip (Iannaccone) and the others- Carol, Nancy (Baker), Susan (Cross), Frank (Hartman), Joe (Martin), Ted (Saffran), Shirley (Scandi), Carl (Segal) and Stella (Yeager)- show up only to find they’re the only ones invited to this reunion. They break into the school to explore. In one of their old classrooms, they discover a party- food drink and decorations- waiting for them. Their old lockers have also been moved to the room. So has Marty’s. They talk about what they did to him in high school. They eat, drink and do drugs. Then one of them chugs a beer that turns out to be nitric acid. His stomach explodes. SPLAT! Guts everywhere! Everybody tries to run, but somebody has locked all the doors. Could it be the creepy guy running around in a jester’s mask? And who is that masked man? Three guesses and the first two don’t count.
For me, the most important part of any slasher flick is lots of blood and gore. Slaughter High totally delivers on this front. It has some really cool kill scenes. A woman is dissolved in an acid bath. Why there’s a bathtub in a high school is anybody’s guess. One guy is disemboweled by a lawnmower. A couple having sex is electrocuted with a car battery attached to the bed frame. Somebody is stabbed in the eye with a syringe. Another guy gets it in the head with an axe. A woman gets a javelin to the gut. It gets pretty gruesome. HOWEVER, it goes down easier because of the tongue-in-cheek approach to the material by writer-directors Mark Ezra, Peter Litten and George Dugdale.
I’m not sure if I was supposed to, but I laughed a lot during Slaughter High. I couldn’t help it. The characters are all such damn fools. What kind of a dipstick goes outside in the dark alone and gets into a car without checking the back seat first for…. oh, I don’t know, MAYBE A DERANGED KILLER? You know there’s one running around, use your head! What’s interesting is that Slaughter High never comes off as a parody. It’s not self-aware like Wes Craven’s Scream. The characters don’t comment on the clichés of the genre. There’s no irony. It’s simply silly.
Caroline Munro is FREAKING HOT! How else can I put it? Look at her as Stella Starr in the 1979 Star Wars knock-off Starcrash. WOW! She looks pretty great here too. Scuddamore, in his one and only film role, makes you feel for Marty. The rest of the acting is fairly clownish. I wouldn’t even call them characters. They’re lambs lined up for the slaughter. It’s pretty much the same in most slasher flicks. BTW, did anybody notice that the score contains echoes of Friday the 13th? That’s because Harry Manfredini composed both scores. He’s good. It also has decent effects especially the Evil Dead-like effects in the acid bath scene.
As far as silly slasher movies go, Slaughter High is one of the better ones. It also works as a teenage revenge fantasy. What nerd doesn’t fantasize about getting even with everybody that made high school a living hell for him? It’s the kind of movie that makes you side with the killer. I know I did. These people deserve what they get. They were (and are) horrible. If I was in a crowded theater, I’d be cheering Marty on. For a slasher movie to do that is pretty cool. Now I really wish I had watched it way back when.
