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The Slaughter (2006) DVD Review
The Slaughter (2006) DVD Credits:
The Slaughter (2006) Directed by:
Jay Lee
The Slaughter (2006) Written by:
Jay Lee
The Slaughter (2006) Cast:
Billy Beck, Brad Milne, Zac Kilberg, Jessica Ellis, Terry Erioski
The Slaughter (2006) Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
1
The Slaughter (2006) DVD Release Date:
6th November 2007
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The Slaughter (2006) Synopsis:

The Slaughter (2006) DVD Review:

KLAATU… BARATA… Uh… CRAPPO?

And with those three words Ash fails the incantation and unleashes the power of the Evil… Oh wait, you mean I’m not reviewing Army of Darkness? Yeah, yeah, that’s right. I’m reviewing a really cheap knockoff of Sam Raimi’s movies. In The Slaughter we follow the story of the female big bad from pre-history whom the film makers desperately attempt to make frightening by attributing Lovecraftian images to. Unfortunately for the Demoness and her audience their attempt fails. Truly The Slaughter is a desperate attempt by poor film makers to use bad visual effects and breasts as a smoke screen for a lackluster film. At this point you’re saying: “Wait a minute? We follow the story of the bad guy?” Yep. I’ll get to it.
We’ll start with the effects, since that’s what they started with, as in poorly rotoscoped hands reaching up from the ground. Really it just looks like the film makers thought “gee we have a computer that can do after affects, let’s use that!” Several generically attractive young girls proceed to a wooded clearing through a cartoon like storm. After dropping their robes so that the shaky hand held can get a good music video style shot of their chi-chi’s, the girls start chanting something out of H.P. Lovecraft. When it’s clear who the main evil chick is they all whip out knives and start molesting themselves with them. I say this because even though there’s blood flying and oddly framed shots of girls stabbing other girls, as soon as the see-through green-screen demoness appears they all stand up and get happy. Cut to some time later that the film makers think is the late sixties and a reincarnation of the main evil chick from the woods has apparently axed her own pre-pubescent daughter and falls over the railing to land on a conspicuously empty coat rack. Then “forty years” later the really bad acting begins as six college kids show up to the old house where all the mayhem occurred earlier as a clean up crew. The whole time this reviewer never once believed they actually knew what they were doing. Between the poor acting, bad directing, and cardboard cutout characters it’s absolutely impossible to care at all about what happens to them. Eventually they find the book of the dead. They don’t call it that, but let’s face it, bound in human skin, written in blood, with hideous faces all over it? It’s the book of the dead. So, they find the book of the dead, and the wanna-be Che Guavara of the group cracks it open and reads the spell. Hijinks ensue, people die, really bad make up effects occur.
But that’s not the worst of it. In the end Che and his brother’s girlfriend make the ultimate sacrifice to defeat the demoness. And of course that’s how she wins. Ack. I just cannot understand what the deal is with this whole evil wins thing. But I guess that’s kind of in line with their whole allusion to the Lovecraftian mythology of an ancient unstoppable evil. Frankly, this reviewer prefers something a little more uplifting. But hey, different strokes, as they say. In the end, however, it’s not the relatively sloppy storytelling that destroys this film. It’s the terrible acting. And one finds oneself asking whether it’s the fault of the actors, or if the director was unable to coax a performance out of them. Whatever the cause it was either over wrought or simply flat and the sub-par performances slaughter any chance the film has of allowing the viewer to suspend disbelief. So really, one can’t comment on whether or not there was any tension created by the film because if the characters aren’t sympathetic, the audience won’t care enough to be afraid for them. And it doesn’t help that the gore and make up effects were sub par. In fact, they were so bad that during a scene with a headless corpse, the open whole in the neck changed size and shape in nearly every frame. Additionally, this reviewer hasn’t seen blood this fake looking since acting in his friends short film in the mid-nineties. The zombie make-up barely passes muster, and the demoness in demon form is simply laughable, particularly in its resemblance to Raimi’s stuff in Evil Dead. In the end, The Slaughter fails in nearly every category and does little more than offer a severely tedious viewing experience broken only by mild chuckles at the overwrought performances. I will say that it is possible that I missed the point here, and that the whole Evil Dead 2 sensibility is what they were going for, in which case, they pretty much hit their mark then.
As for the DVD itself, well, don’t expect an upgrade in performance there either. It specs out in Widescreen with 5.1 Dolby Digital, but that’s pretty much it. No audio commentary, a couple of outtakes, and a single deleted scene round out the supremely lackluster special feature offering. There are several trailers, but mostly for films of little note that seem to fall into pretty much the same category as The Slaughter. The cover art is decent but unimpressive and is definitely professional quality.
In the end, if you like bad, campy horror flicks this is for you. Especially if you like a little breast with your crap. On the other hand this film has no less than five awards or commendations from various horror film festivals. So, either I have no idea what I'm talking about, or horror just plain sux these days.


The Breakdown:

*All values out of 5*
Film:
Overall: 2/3 (alternate score as Raimi style)
Story: 1/4
Cinematography: 2.5
Prod. Design: 3
Acting: 1/4
Gore: 2
Amount: 3
Quality: 1
DVD:
Overall:1.5
Specs. 3
Extras: 0

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The Slaughter (2006) DVD review written by: Joe Burns

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