Slaughter Day

Slaughter Day is quite the anomaly- a backyard SOV gore-fest rip-off of The Evil Dead made in Hawaii! Even better the main characters are a couple of long-haired, working-class White dudes who wear AC/DC shirts and light their cigarettes with other cigarettes! This is set somewhere in rural Hawaii and other than a few minor roles for native Hawaiians and a scene of a beautiful waterfall in a lush tropical rainforest this doesn't come off as very "Hawaiian". Most of the movie looks like it could have been set in any number of rural areas in the continental US. It starts out fast with the boys going to a job at a remote plantation only to be immediately attacked by a possessed person. Blood spurts and flows freely in this film with a generous helping of cheap but effective low budget gore effects including full body dismemberments and things shoved inside of bodies. Think more early Schnaas than Ittenbach.

The movie never lets up for long and there's a number of not very well choreographed fight scenes. There's quite the ambitious one towards the beginning which is a fight in the back of a moving pickup truck. Not something I was expecting to see in a amateur SOV film. The plot is a mostly typical Evil Dead rip-off with people getting possessed, trying to kill our protagonists and then getting hacked to pieces with even the parts being dangerous. The Necronomicon here is actually an artbook- H. R. Geiger's Necronomicon. If you watch the movie with subtitles you'll discover that it's hilariously called the "Microeconomic"!? Get someone with an at least scant knowledge of horror to subtitle your films please Visual Vengeance. The possession happens when a person puts on a demonic gasmask which is goofy but kind of cool I guess. It can also make a person invisible which happens once in the movie. For some reason they left in footage of the cameraman yelling at the person to move out of the shot after he's supposed to have turned invisible. An odd inclusion but it adds to the low budget charm. The acting is what you would expect and there's little character development. At the end the brothers take a yacht trip to dispose of the body parts. This trip probably costs more than most SOV films did. While we only get to see a small rural area of Hawaii here this is still more expansive than many films like it. Slaughter Day is a lost SOV almost gem with a thankfully brief 58 minutes runtime. The mostly frantic pace and threadbare plot don't really require anything longer. Visual Vengeance has only been around a few months but has already released a number of gems (well not the Chupacabra films, those are truly dreadful). This should be a Vinegar Syndrome "partner label" (sounds literally gay and lame, cohort or collaborator sounds superior) as it's better than just about any of their others outside of Satan's Core.

While going about their lives, a pair of friends find their community invaded by a spree of violence caused by the release of a deadly demon from a nearby construction site turning the residents into bloodthirsty maniacs which forces them to stop the madness from spreading.

This was a generally fun and entertaining shot-on-video effort. That this one goes for a stellar Action-film aesthetic here with the amount of energy put into the confrontations here is quite fun, leading to a great assortment of chases and battles. The stuntwork and planning for the scenes are quite impressive, with battles place on a moving truck, and various high-concept supernatural encounters with the demonic figures coming out of the summoning book to come to life attacking them which all allows for a ton of fantastic cheesy gore. With the battle in the cabin, a brawl in a cemetery, and the later ceremony that finds them captured by the possessed maniacs end up leading to several thrilling confrontations along the city streets, the reckless energy and enthusiasm that all this portrays manage to make for an imminently likable effort that has a lot to like about it. There's not much to dislike here but it does have some issues. Among the biggest drawbacks here is the film's high-energy style and approach don't leave this one with much explaining of what's going on. It jumps right into the exploits of the group who are thrust into trouble at their cabin not even five minutes into the film so it's immediately into the fray without much in the way of knowing what's going on. There's also little in the way of explanations about the cause of the possessions and how it all works so this one feels like it's just going along with the flow of things and forcing the viewer to have to go along with the point of everything. That goes along with the low-budget limitations featured here, with the flimsy production quality, camera tricks, homemade gore effects, and props sticking out quite heavily here to always remind the viewer what type of film this is. Overall, these are the main drawbacks to be had with this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Ah, yes: amateur horror, made with consumer-grade electronics, with brothers Blake and Brent Cousins (or are they, you know, cousins?) writing, directing, starring, producing, and editing, inasmuch as these words carry weight with features operating on this level. Needless to say the image and audio quality are highly variable, the stunts that the cast perform themselves are on the lighter side of things, and between how the chief characters are written and portrayed, we have the answer to the age old question of what it might look like if Jay, as performed by Jason Mewes in Kevin Smith's "Askewniverse," was a Dude Bro with a brother, and if they suddenly found themselves in an 'Evil dead'-style romp.

All joshing aside, I deeply appreciate what the Cousins put together here, and it comes across much better than it has any right to. The stunts aren't the top of the line, but considering that the folks here aren't exactly professionals, they look darn good - nay, surprisingly good. The practical effects are actually really fantastic as far as I'm concerned, including blood and gore. In fact, this may be definitive proof that the least tangible creations, realized with the lowest of budgets, are always and forever preferable to the best post-production digital wizardry that money can buy. In general the cinematography and editing are rough around the edges, but in select instances the efforts are pretty smart in how they're employed. Across the board the acting and direction say "we made this in our hometown where people were very generous to us and our friends," but the sincerity and enthusiasm that everyone brought to the project outweighs any specific questions of skill.

The writing meets the dictionary definition of "serviceable," or if you like your thesaurus, "perfunctory" - something something Necronomicon, something something cursed respirator, possession and chaos ensue. The story is fine just as it is, but doesn't matter all that much, because it's only a vehicle for the action, stunts, effects, and general horror violence and vibes. I'm pretty sure if Sam Raimi saw this he'd be really proud of what the Cousins and their friends made in the spirit of the man's own genre roots, and he should be. What the participants lacked in resources or capability, they made up for with bountiful heart, and for all the hard work they poured into it, 'Slaughter Day' is actually really fun!

These goofballs had some terrific filming locations in which to make their flick, which leads at points to the arrangement of some shots and scenes that truly emphasizes just what a blast everyone was having. (As if that weren't already the case with everything else here.) To my delight, the music that complements the proceedings really adds to the sheer joy of the viewing experience, and dare I say it, even offers a tinge of atmosphere at times. Really, when you get down to it, this movie is quite well made considering its amateur nature. It may raise a bit of a quizzical eyebrow at first, but once the reverie of violence, blood, and gore picks up it's easy to get swept up in the ridiculousness and enjoy it. Those who have a hard time engaging with such low-grade fare may not have their minds changed here; on the other hand, it genuinely comes off better than no small amount of what actual production companies have churned out before and since (consider The Asylum, or Uncork'd Entertainment). Yet if one is open to film-making where unbridled zest and earnest commitment take precedence over any notion of "production values" or "professionalism," I am all so pleased to say that 'Slaughter Day' is worth far more than it may seem from the outside looking in. It bears repeating: this is better than it has any right to be. Drop your pretenses and presuppositions about how pictures should made, and just embrace the moment - this 1991 slice of homemade horror is a really great time, and I'm happy to give it my recommendation!