DVD Review: ‘Slasher’ Screams For the Axe to Fall…
Slasher (2007)
DVD Release Date:May 5, 2010
Directed by Frank Montag
Review by Marc Patterson
I’m a big fan of senseless violence and gratuitous gore. I love the disgusting, sickening, and obscene. I feel that’s like stating the obvious. After all, nobody writes for a site called “Brutal As Hell” for anything less. But if there’s one thing I can’t abide by, it’s cheap, lazy filmmaking. I can take your cheese, and low brow and dumbed down ridiculousness, but don’t get lazy on me.
Slasher opens with a clichéd setup. A picnicking couple falls prey to the stereotypical backwoods chainsaw-toting hillbillies. (Please note: someone seriously needs to reinvent the idea of what a backwoods killer can be all about). This short scene boasts a pretty satisfying chainsaw hacking scene and lays down the foundation for the rest of the film. Kids who come into these woods get killed. On with the story proper. Instead of focusing on the two initial victims, we’ll be getting to know another group of kids who are about to go camping in those very same woods. On break from school they head out to party, party, party. What they are about to get is the same thing we’ve seen hundreds get before. Crazy hillbillies going psycho on their asses. Yawn.
I’ll just cut to the chase. There may have never been a more aptly named film. Slasher is as generic a name for a slasher film as you can get, and Slasher is, by all means, generic. It knows the formula and follows the formula, and even tosses in some impressive levels of gore, yet never gore that’s overly impressive in itself, just impressive in sheer quantity. For all its commitment to the formula of cheap slashtastic filmmaking, it utilizes too many shortcuts, and the gross inexperience with technical aspects of filmmaking shine through the final print in a negative way.
Yes, the key fundamental requirement of copious amounts of blood and boobs are present in spades, but so are all the signs of filmmaking on the cheap. The lighting is bad and inconsistent between shots and the film has a story so barebones there’s hardly a drop of meat to be consumed. And what is up with the annoying soundtrack? It swings from the most bizarre tunes within the same scene! One second kazoos are jamming out a twisted dirge, then we switch to a heavy riffed rock beat before we’re dropped right into porn grooves. Seriously, all in one scene! What the fuck!?
So the positives? They’re few and far in between. All the ladies were quite easy on the eyes, as any fodder for a faceless killer should be. There was even a rather sexy fuck scene in a tent. Complimenting the palate of nubile victims was some good gore, but I emphasize “some”. The bad? There’s nothing really groundbreaking or original going on. It’s a film I’ve seen hundreds (literally hundreds) of times before. The ugly? When the film starts relying on poorly constructed CGI gore, it slams the coffin door closed. I can live without a good story. Slashers don’t need story. They don’t even need good acting, but you can’t compromise on the gimmick. The gimmick of gore must shine through. You have to give the audience what they want, and that is some “Ewwww gross!” moments. Indie filmmaking cannot achieve that in a digital world. You gotta get practical.
I don’t want to continually harp on this, but I think I just may this year. Horror fans need to start demanding more. I know this is b-movie territory and all, but for fuck’s sake, horror isn’t that difficult. Don’t make it more than it needs to be. I’ll keep preaching it until filmmakers start listening. At 80 minutes Slasher isn’t the most torturous of terrain I’ve had to travel for a review, but it is ultimately one film I have to recommend giving the axe.
