Slaughter High (1986)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

High school nerd Marty is humiliated and badly mauled in an April Fool's Day prank at his high school. Ten years later, his group of tormentors are invited to a high school reunion at their now-abandoned school which they come to find is due for demolition. It seems no one is inside-at first.This late-eighties British-American co-production is one of the weirder slasher offerings because it has its hand in multiple baskets: It's a slasher, but it's also a quasi-spoof in some senses; self-aware, self-reflexive, and chock full of references to its numerous contemporaries. Why, exactly, I'm not sure, as it doesn't seem to do anything this-the allusions and references are just sort of dropped in there with what seems to have been little forethought-and that's kind of how the whole film feels.Part of "Slaughter High"'s lopsidedness may have to do with the fact that it was made by a trio of filmmakers who shared both writing and directing duties; it feels a bit all-over-the-place, and I assume this is why. The first half of the film is really full of nonsense, supported by stilted dialogue delivered in a melange of bizarre caricatures of American accents. The cast is full of rather attractive men and women, but the characters are profoundly unlikable from the first scene on. Bond girl Caroline Munro, who is known to horror fans for her role in the seminal American grindhouse flick "Maniac," is the only semi-tolerable character (which is good, as she's the final girl), but the fact that she's supposed to be playing a 28-year-old and yet has the hair and dress of a 55-year-old Southern divorcee is admittedly distracting. After the film kicks into its second act, the murders come on fast and strong, and some of them are gruesome and silly, but there is an ever-persistent tongue-in-cheek sensibility about them that leaves the threat ultimately non-threatening.Despite everything I've said which may lead one to believe I despise the film, I really don't-I do not love it, but I do believe it has two key elements that are fantastic: The first is its setting, which is a sprawling, Gothic, rundown "high school" (it was apparently really a sanitarium, which makes far more sense)-it's a phenomenally scary location that is used rather well. Unfortunately, the overall tone of the film belies its strong atmosphere and set. The second thing that I feel avenges the film is its last ten minutes, which are legitimately well-played-downbeat, surprising, and utterly weird, erring into "Carnival of Souls" territory. Again, it doesn't make much sense, but the logic of "Slaughter High" is not one to necessarily be made sense of. In any event, I found myself paying more attention at this stage in the film, possibly because it finally seemed like something interesting was happening-and it was, though I'm not quite sure what, or why.Overall, "Slaughter High" is a bit of a bricolage slasher flick that, though amusing at times, doesn't seem to know what it wants or what it's doing. What makes it worthwhile is its stellar setting and surprising conclusion, both of which demand far more attention from the audience than anything else in it. Mildly fun, though not endlessly watchable. 6/10.

This 1986 horror film stars Caroline Munro and Simon Scuddamore. This features a high school geek, Marty (Scuddamore) who is always getting picked on by his classmates. One April Fool's Day, Marty becomes a victim of a malicious prank that goes wrong leaving him humiliated and disfigured. Years later, the same group of classmates are invited to a high school reunion and they discover that the joke is on them and that Marty is their host who intends on getting the last laugh with deadly revenge. Munro (Maniac) plays Carol. This is a pretty good 80's slasher with gruesome make-up effects and chilling score by Harry Manfredini. My only gripe is that the film is sometimes very dark. It's from the makers of "Friday the 13th" and if you like that or horror/slasher films in general, I recommend this.

I guess one of the standout attractions to this shoddy horror is English movie goddess, Caroline Munro. Horrors like this were more admired or fun in their time. The acting in this film was very bad, save for Marty (this one film actor and humanitarian, suiciding just after), the coach, and the loud bully, passable, who sabotaged a chemical experiment, which went horribly wrong for it's creator/geek, Marty. Before this, a real low down (stereotypical) prank was pulled on Marty, in the girl's locker room, where he was coaxed into a sexual liason with Munro, before being photographed naked, then having his head shoved down a toilet. Personally these were the most heartless bullies/jocks/cheerleaders, I've ever seen and couldn't wait for their demises, as years later, they receive a secret invitation by (guess who) to a high school reunion. Here, Marty, disguised in a leprechaun mask, kills them off, some in uniquely clever ways, the first victim, dying a shocking death, in front of his peers. I felt no mercy for these dickhead victims at all, as they all got what they deserve, where now in the 21s't millennium, bullying as got worse. If you can remember the bullies blamed Marty when getting caught, during the locker room/sex prank, which for them was ground to teach Marty a lesson, with that backfiring chemistry explosion, which saw Marty, disfigured. What are you serious? They should of not of pulled that prior locker room prank, in the first place. SH is a crummy, awfully shot and acted film, some exterior shots of total blackness, where we lose the actors, briefly. I did like how one scene you thought was real, which cut to years later, with Munro having a bad dream. It's really sickening how people can just move on, from their dastardly deeds, with no conscience, though bad actions sometimes have fatal consequences. What really sucked was the way the film ended, as if it was all premeditated by the bandaged Marty, burning with fury. A stupid ending for a number of reasons. I really wanted Marty's revenge to be real.

Slaughter High is one of those slasher offerings that pretty much announces with its name that we're dealing with a very specific kind of movie. We have to give the film-makers extra credit for basically summing up the film in the title ("Slaughter" at a "High" school pretty much covers it), but in most other aspects, this derivative little gem gets a failing grade.This isn't to say Slaughter High isn't an entertaining romp, and its ineptness certainly creates the atmosphere for an enjoyably brainless splatter film. Every element fans of C-grade slasher films could hope for is here: atrocious acting, gratuitous nudity, several bloody murders, etc. What it's missing is anything resembling horror, and unless you're viewing this film as a comedy, the rewards are fairly meager.The generic plot is launched when a high school prank gone awry leaves a maliciously tormented geek named Marty hideously disfigured. We can't help but feel for the kid, and it's hard to tell why he is so unfairly singled out, since if you took his glasses off he wouldn't look any nerdier than the rest of the cast (his outcast status is especially strange since the popular quarterback character is named Skip). Ten years later, Marty stages his revenge by inviting the responsible parties to a reunion. When the clueless twenty-somethings arrive for the fête, they discover that their high school is now abandoned and condemned, at which point they do what any sensible group of adults would do: They break in to the building and proceed to get blitzkrieg drunk. This is where the fun begins in earnest, and I don't think you'd be reading this if you didn't already know that they're going to get hacked off one by one (no, "Slaughter High" is not a metaphorical title).This band of victims not only eschews making sensible decisions to save themselves, they seem to actively seek out being murdered. When the collective discovers with absolute certainly that they are being stalked by a sadistic killer, there are six of them left standing, yet instead of sticking together they still opt to wander off alone and greet their fates with open arms. Two particularly unfettered attendees break away from the group to have sex (because nothing stirs the libido like watching someone's guts explode out of their belly and finding the body of a friend whose flesh has been completely deleted by acid). Conveniently, despite the locale they find a bed to cozy up in, and we start to realize that this is one of the most progressive and accommodating high schools in the country. This seems to be confirmed earlier in the film when one of the girls wanders into one of the locker rooms to take a bath (because high schools are apparently routinely equipped with bathtubs).One of the best nonsensical leaps in the film is the assertion by one of the characters that "April Fool's Day ends at noon" (Wait... Are you sure, dude?). He's so convinced of this, in fact, that his entire survival plan involves merely holding up until then, at which point, ostensibly, the killer will leave them alone. Even better, once this is established it becomes the mantra of the remaining survivors.If you catch the unrated version, some of the deaths supply some fairly graphic gore, the best bit in the film being a particularly sadistic bit of tractor blade trickery. Other kills make zero sense, such as one that befalls a latecomer, in which the entire set-up is dependent on us believing that when Marty was preparing his cycle of revenge, he had the forethought to enlarge one of his high-school photos (a full body shot, mind you) to poster size and cover a door with it.The silly jester mask Marty wears throughout is by far one of the lamest articles of killer garb you'll find in the genre, and when the film-makers try to use the sound of the jingling aluminum balls on the tips of his crown to summon suspense, this is invariably a lost cause.Much of the music in the film is brazenly lifted from the Friday The 13th franchise (I don't mean it SOUNDS like it, I mean they literally re-used that same music), but the song that adorns the opening credits and repeats several times during the film is an original beast all its own, and it must be heard to be believed.Further supporting my assumption that all of the characters in Slaughter High actually want to be killed, the lone survivor's final showdown with Marty reaches a new high point of idiocy. When our heroine comes face to face with the man responsible for murdering no less than 9 of her friends, she hits him twice with a baseball bat... then drops the bat at his feet and runs away. A few moments later, when she manages to wrestle a spear from him, she throws him to the ground... then drops the spear at his feet and runs away.The final twist is particularly stupid (blatantly lifted from Maniac, which Caroline Munro also starred in, strangely enough), and the film ends with a resounding thud. Although, to be fair, nothing we've seen in Slaughter High up to this point seems to suggest that there's going to be a sensible conclusion, so perhaps the ending is perfect in the scope of this movie.Such a ludicrous outing can only rightfully be recommended for the most forgiving fans of '80s splatter. There were certainly worse films than this made during that very prolific era, but even the marginally effective offerings of the period provided something more than a noteworthy scene or two. Slaughter High isn't quite bottom of the barrel, but it definitely has the bottom in sight.