1/5 One of the Worst After Dark Horrorfest Releases
  by Tim Janson (Michigan)
When you see that a horror film has been written and directed by the same person, you can almost be assured that it's going to be bad and Slaughter doesn't fail to disappoint. It's not only one of the worst of the After Dark Horror films of this year, but one of the worst in the three years of the series. The fact that it was even included is stunning. Have the pickings become so scarce? Slaughter barely qualifies as a horror film and the only thing slaughtered here is your attention span as you fight to stay awake during this snooze fest.

Amy Shiels plays "Faith" a young girl who is running away from an abusive relationship. She moves to the city but Jimmy still manages to track her down. When we finally meet Jimmy later, you'll shake your head as he is completely unconvincing as sweet Faith's boyfriend. Faith meets Lola (Lucy Holt) at a club and the two become fast friends. Lola invites Faith to be her roommate on her family's farm. Lola has her own living space above the barn and she is disconnected with her own family, particularly her stern father. Faith soon learns that Lola isn't the sweet farm girl she makes herself out to be. She has made a habit of meeting rich men and using them for whatever she can get, often luring them to the farm for one-night stands.

What Faith thinks is just promiscuity turns more sinister as she begins to explore the slaughterhouse and the secret locked room inside. It excited me for a moment as there haven't been any really good hogs in a horror film since "Motel Hell" in 1980. Unfortunately the plot turned out to be far less fun than that cult classic and devolved into a stupid tale of child abuse. If it was supposed to make us sympathize for Lola it failed miserably as she was dim-witted and unlikable.

The only redeeming part of the film is its last 10 - 15 minutes which provide a modicum of action and suspense but even here, Faith has numerous opportunities to escape and yet manages to make one dumb move after another.


2/5 There is potential . . . but it's DEEPLY buried! One of the worst of 2009's "8 Films To Die For"
  by Steve Forsyth (Denton, TX USA)
If Hollywood has taught us anything, it's that when two young girls move in together, things are going to go bad! One of them will inevitably be a psycho. SLAUGHTER doesn't break that rule, and in fact comes off as a blend of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and SINGLE WHITE FEMALE.

Faith, on the run from an abusive husband, is out on the town with her friend when she spies Lola being accosted by a male suitor. After rescuing her, the two become fast friends, and Faith eventually moves out to the farm where Lola lives with her father and two brothers. But as the film (slowly) progresses, Faith begins to wonder what happens to the one-night stands Lola brings home every weekend. And she wonders what's going on in that locked barn out there. Why do Lola and her father never speak to each other? Unfortunately, by the time she figures it all out, she's tied to a gurney and is now the subject of a devious plot to help "recreate" Lola's life.

Now, while this all sounds very interesting on paper (or not), the film manages to choke any suspense out of the setup with its slow-as-molasses pacing and subpar writing. The two girls never seem to gel as "BFFs" for me, and I think it is less to do with acting, and more to do with writing. The scenes leading up to the "third act twist" seem mostly to be filling time, as if the writers had a lot of ideas for the final 20 minutes, but couldn't think of what to do until then. Indeed, you could really cut from the end of the first night Faith met Lola, to the moment she wakes up on the gurney, and really not have missed much. It's like a generic 60-minute chick flick, with a thirty minute horror short tacked on at the end.

The big problem is that the shift in story is so sudden, and isn't really set up - that is, the change in Lola's character comes out of left field, and doesn't really seem earned by the first portions of the movie. A better script would have had some glimpses into this shift, some lead-ins, well before the final turn. The twists and turns during the final half-hour make that portion exciting and worth watching, but the final turn of the table is so ridiculously contrived, I found myself groaning at our heroine, who had AMPLE time to fire the gun! And, call me a horror-prude if you want, but the final moment of the film I found reprehensible, even if it is a sad reality of the world we live in.

The cinematography is slightly above average, and the lead actors are better than you at first think they are. Lola, at least, does a good turn when her true nature is revealed. And the opening and closing moments are actually pretty damn good, as if they almost belong in a different, better film.

Of the 8 Films To Die For this year, I have to put it near the bottom of the heap - not as bad as PERKINS 14, about on par with DYING BREED. I will give them this, though - of all the films, this one by far has the most cringe inducing moment, involving teeth and pliers, pulled off nicely even with very little blood! That's saying something, I think.

4/5 "Everyone deals with pain their past..."
  by P. B Rubalcaba (Redlands, CA USA)
Superb character development of Lucy Holt as Lola and Amy Shiels as Faith. Two wayward lost souls searching for a new meaning in life...or is that "death"? No spoilers here. You need to let this film/story unfold. It was inspired by true events and is definitely a testimony on running from something you can never hide. The best quote in the film sums up this 90 minute nugget from the "After Dark Horrorfest III" series: "Everyone deals with pain in their past differently. Some choose to run from it by having as much fun as humanly possible. Others choose to run from it and hide."

1/5 Probably the worst Dark Horrorest film so far!
  by gucchiri (NY, NY USA)
Like another viewer's comment, this movie sucks in many parts.
I knew the farmer's daughter is the troubled one already when last victimized girl met the daughter at the bar, her behavious and eyes betrayed her.

No one could see how the daughter chopped off her male victim's arm, and we might be convinced he was bleed to death, but the latter guy was alive when the city girl found him lying on the ground inside the room, but why he wasn't killed like the other guy? Weird. And this guy had a chance to get away for his life with or without the city girl, but was strangled by the daughter so easily before he could open the truck's door, and I really could not believed such a big and strong guy like him was actually that darn weak and strangled to death like this, absolutely not convincing!
The scene that the city girl's boyfriend suddenly showed up from nowhere together with another girl was pointless, and he was stupid too.
When he was questioning the daughter what had happened and what she had done with his girlfriend, the city girl still had a mood to fight with this boyfriend instead of telling him how monstrous the daughter is, how many people she had killed, and how crazy to removing teeth from her mouth, that is upsetting and frustrating.

The girl could have killed the derailed daughter, and could have saved the child and got away, she was weak! rifle being taken by the daughter, and she was just lying down, waiting for the daughter to shot her, how could that happen in real life?

It tells me that everyone wants to be killed by the daughter, and no one seemed to know what basic self-defense instinct is.

The ending is terrible that the daughter also killed her own son after she killed all the others, this is so very negative.

What was the director thinking???

Everything is made up reluctantly and does not make any sense at all!

Don't even waist money to rent neither, 'cos it will waste your time!



1/5 It sucks!
  by Avi (Miami, FL)
This movie sucks 100%
One stupid girl removing teeth to herself and to her friend.
That's the only scary scene in the movie.
The end is one of the worst I have ever seen in the horror genre.
Do a favor to yourself and avoid this title!