Slashers

I watched it and though far from great it didn't exactly suck either. It's a B movie with decent gore it's basically "The Running Man meets Saw" I wouldn't be handing out any awards for this but if you have absolutely nothing to watch there is worse than this out there.

Slashers would probably do well as a theater play, though the audience would probably have been hard to find. But we'll get back to this in the end of this review.

First let me say that it was interesting to watch a movie filmed with only one camera, and from what I was told they didn't do any retakes at all. One take per shot, to create that feeling of live tv. The trouble with single take scenes is of course that any mistakes from the actors (or any other mistake) becomes even worse, and the acting here is on a low level from the start.

The story is weak and very predictable, and the characters are pretty lame, making the actors look even worse. The twist at the end (that seems to be a rule for horror movies) is very unnecessary in my eyes, I won't give it away but I'll just say that the story would have been better without it.

But what really made me feel less for the movie was that you really had to use your imagination to see more than what was shown. That's what I mean when I say it would have been better off as a play. In a play you are used to imagining that the scenery is just there to give you a general idea of how the scene looks, but in a movie I want the scenery to be complete. For instance, why did the characters say they where trapped in a room when the walls where only pieces of cloth hanging down from the ceiling, or maybe a paper-thin wall? Why did the characters stand a couple of inches in front of the bad guys without doing anything like trying to hit them or something, and why did they just watch when one of the characters where killed right in front of them? Sure, you could imagine that the walls where really made of concrete (or whatever), and you could imagine that if one of them would have tried something they would have been killed, but this was not what was shown in the movie, you had to imagine it for yourself.

I can't really see what kind of movie audience that would really like Slashers. The horror fans will be disappointed by the lack of story, the splatter fans will be disappointed by the cheesy gore and effects (or lack of them), and the fans of japanese style ultra-violence are way better of with a film like Battle Royale or something. But if you're just out to see a different, easy-to-watch and violently funny movie, Slashers could be worth the 2 hours. But not more.

My vote is 5/10, i.e. barely worth the time.

This is one brave direct to video feature. The director chose to present the film as one long shot, with invisible edits like Hitchcock did in "Rope". The acting is pretty good considering all the actors were non-union amateurs, and this has a nice take on the whole reality TV show phenomenon. The characters all run around in a maze trying to avoid being sliced and diced by a bunch of masked killers. The winner of the contest gets millions of dollars. The film takes the whole disgusting "Fear Factor" thing to its logical conclusion, making some good points about the blurring line between entertainment and reality, and the danger of introducing cruelty into the mix. Deveraux obviously wanted to use Freddy, Jason and Leatherface here, as he has villains that resemble them. What he does with his limited budget is really clever and he sets himself apart from the hacks with this one. I can't wait till he has some real money to work with.

i have to admit, amongst all the overabundance of reality shows and reality rip-offs i.e. Blair Witch Project; Series 7; The ST. Francisville Experiment..i more than expected, i automatically assumed, that $LA$HER$ would be completely a waste of time after reading it's review in Fango. I mean, with lame character names like PREACHER MAN and CHAINSAW CHARLIE, i was sure this was going to be as horrible, if not worse than, THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING. However, i came across a screener and sat down to watch it less than 3 hours ago and was surprisingly impressed. As a whole, the movie isn't the best thing i've ever seen but it had some unexpected charisma (one being the commercial break situations).With the exception of Chainsaw Charlie, who could possibly be a descendant of Jar Jar Binks, the villians or slashers, if you will, were at times over the top but not too annoying. The story played out quite frantically and the actual contestants weren't bad actors at all. Don't get me wrong, i don't see OSCAR knocking on any of their doors for this one, but they were pretty good for a B-movie cast. What i found to be the best part of $LA$HER$ was the fact that it focused on the characters more than the actual hunting. Most B-movies attempt to do this to keep their films from being gorey fluff, but fail because the dialogue is as bad as the frights. This one captured something special though, perhaps it was because there weren't many stereotypical characters. All the blue prints were there to elaborate on, but instead we see these characters for who they are through their stories told in between being hunted. They could have had the "token" personalities but they didn't. The writing could use some touch ups, but for a B-movie it's better than most. Who knows, you may watch this movie and totally hate it. Maybe, ultimately, i'll be the only one that considers $LA$HER$ a few notches above the usual camp. That's fine by me.

A true work of Genius. I found "Slashers" to be a magnificent film. It's social comment was fantastic. I loved the concept of people killing one another for money. I also liked the idea of the women having to remove their clothes to become more popular, a great satirical comment about today's "Big Brother"/Jodie Price generation. Some of the dialogue was so clever, for example lines like "those dollar bills that you worship do not bare the face of the lord" really reflect the true intellect of the writer. This film was a great piece of social satire, reminiscent of George A Romero's "Dawn Of The Dead."

10/10