Slaughter

Make no mistake, this one is an absolute horror of a movie. And not even in a good way. I'm quite a fan of low budget horror flicks because if they are really bad I can get some kind of perverse enjoyment at picking them apart. But there wasn't even anything to find funny in this.

Firstly, the acting wasn't very good, but not laughably awful. Of course, even good actors would have struggled with such a witless and contrived script. The pace of this film was also all wrong. It took so long for anything slightly interesting to happen. And when it did happen (yes it was only slightly interesting) the film descended into a farce.

Perhaps the makers of this thought they were going for a crazy 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' family thing. But the lead protagonist's attempt at acting crazy was woefully under par. Lovers of gore will be disappointed, too, as the bits that were quite nasty were done with very poor effects.

I already think I've written enough about this although there are many more words which could be used to demonstrate its awfulness. The one thing I don't understand is why it was made in the first place. Surely the filmmakers new they were flogging a dead horse. I would have preferred watching a horse being flogged for 2 hours than watching this.

Really? This made it into the After Dark series? This really strikes me as odd. I won't go into plot details because it's already been talked about. I'll just state my opinion. See below if you wish to compare your taste to mine.

As a fan of the genre since I was 5 years old (I'm 35 now), and as a fan of the After Dark series, I do have to say that this is probably the worst movie I've seen in awhile. And I've seen some really bad stuff. I own about 3000 Horror movies and I've watched at least 200 in this past year alone. I've watched all of the ADH movies since 2006 and IMO it just keeps getting better every year. -Except for this one. Wow. It DRAGS. It's BORING. And not in the way that a decent psychological horror is slow. Nothing in this movie was done well and it wasn't even slightly entertaining to me. I found myself twirling my headphone cord and looking at the clock thinking, "What? There's still almost an hour left?!". This movie gave me the same feeling as I get sitting in the waiting room at a doctor's office. And again, not slow in a good way like Rosemary's Baby (with build up, character development, decent performances, good dialog, and an unraveling plot). This was quite the opposite actually. It tried to be a psychological thriller, but had absolutely no heart. It was very mechanical and redundant. Obviously, I was quite disappointed because I love this series.

Please do not judge the After Dark series (Especially the third series) by this one. It's nowhere near as good as the rest of them. All of the others had something to grab a hold of, and many of them went far beyond that. This felt more like a made for TV movie that was rejected or something (and not because of the lack of gore, there are plenty of dead and tortured pigs in it). Very amateur, and again, not in a good way. Not in the way that we B-Movie hounds love so much.

I feel bad writing this because whoever made it at least gave it a shot, but I really recommend skipping over this one and choosing something else from this series. I really hope this one doesn't turn people off to The After Dark Horrorfest, because most of the other movies in the series are extremely entertaining and fun! Examples of Horror That I Like: Phantasm, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, They Live, 28 Days Later, Night of the Living Dead, Eraserhead, Texas Chainsaw, The Shining, Sleepy Hollow, Alien, The Amittyville Horror, Creepshow, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, The Ring, MBV3D, and all sorts of other classic, new, and/or low budget horror.

(2008) Slaughter HORROR

Straight-to-rental horror film co-written and directed by Stewart Hopewell starts out promising, about a teenage girl, Faith (Amy Shiels) attempts to be independent again from an abusive and controlling boyfriend, finally settles to living on a farm with another teenage girl, Lola (Lucy Holt) and her eccentric family, holding with her some dark secrets of her own.

It says that it's inspired by actual events, but the film gets more convoluted as the film progresses! This is one of those films where the protagonist is nosy on one area without her being curious enough to checking other places, full of coincidences.

This movie is okay. It's not a gore fest, and it's not a heart-pounding thriller. However, it has some blood and violence in the end. It's kind of slow moving, though, and the ending, while climatic, doesn't keep the viewer on the edge of his/her seat. But, the ending does have an interesting twist.

The two lead actresses are okay. I give them a six out of ten for acting skills, but they get a ten out of ten for being gorgeous, which is pretty much mandatory in a horror movie. Both characters build a decent story for themselves which certainly helps the movie progress. Supporting actors don't provide much for story development, with the exception of the youngest brother. His acting/character is actually the best of all of them, in my opinion.

Camera work, lighting and sound are all okay, except for a couple parts in the slaughterhouse, when the lighting could've been a little better. Scenery doesn't offer much to look at, but there aren't any wide shots of the land, either. All of the shots are done on the farm property, in the city or in a building somewhere. There are some errors in continuity, but they aren't bad enough to interrupt the story development.

All in all, it's not a waste of time to watch this movie, but it won't be the best one you've ever seen.

If you like horror movies, then I will be doing you a favor by telling you before you buy it that it is not a horror.

The movie succeeds in raising your curiosity towards the slaughter in the farm. And this is the only good thing about the movie next to the little kid indeed as one of the viewers said.

The scene when she pulls her friend's teeth is good, to be fair it was really good. The big brother who gets killed later in the movie, I don't know why you expect him to have a different role.

Nothing really much to say about this movie but it's really not a good movie.