Slaughterhouse, l'abattoir de l'angoisse

Don Barrett is certainly one of the funniest actors in history. Just about every word that comes out of this man's mouth is a perverse joke. As for the plot, it was a typical slasher that had pretty good acting, great music, and a sadistic killer in Buddy. The opening credits scene was absolutely beautiful. It'll probably reassure all the vegans out there that they're doing the right thing, though it didn't bother me one bit. ***1/2out of****This film has to be one of my personal favorites and is worth a couple of looks. It certainly deserved the DVD treatment that it got.

This film was good. That's really what I can say about it. Some of the parts (look for one part with a man being ground up, for instance) were a little over the top gory... but who doesn't like a little gross out, now and then? The acting wasn't anything to be raved upon but was good enough to be overlooked. Overall, this movie was really great to me (though, many others would disagree) so I'm giving it a 9 out of 10. WARNING : The beginning is NOT for the squeamish!

Lester Bacon (Don Barrett) and his grunting, meat-cleaver wielding son Buddy (Joe Barton) aren't very happy about the foreclosure of their abattoir and decide to use their slaughterhouse equipment and butchering skills to deal with the swine responsible. The meat-hooks become even more crowded with bodies after a group of teens visit the old meat-packing factory during a thunderstorm for a dare.

With its all-pervading aura of death and decay and its hulking mentally challenged killer (mentored by his demented father), Slaughterhouse is clearly aiming for a Texas Chain Saw Massacre vibe, but at the same time it also caters for the audience of the day, delivering inane teenage characters, predictable jump scares, some reasonable splatter, a few pig-related puns (Lester is described as 'pig-headed' and calls his son 'hog-wild'), and a couple of typically cheesy '80s scenes in which the youngsters act all wild and wacky, their zany antics accompanied by a tacky pop/rock soundtrack.

The result is a fun slice of stalk 'n' slash, a spirited blend of mean-spirited nastiness and tongue-in-cheek silliness that ticks all of the genre boxes with the notable exception of gratuitous female nudity. The suspenseful rain-drenched finalé is particularly well handled by one-time-only director Rick Roessler.

This was directed by Rick Roessler, his one and only attempt to make a flick. Made in 1987 it surely looks like it was made earlier. It even looked like a drive-in flick.

The acting was okay, no big names here. Joe B. Barton (Buddy) was also seen in Blood Diner made in the same year. Don Barret (Lester) was seen in two more flicks. maybe the one who made it was Sherry Leigh who did stunts for a lot of B-flicks.

The story is very simple, an abandoned slaughterhouse is the ideal place to party for some youngsters but naturally it turns out awry. Not only that, the place is for sale but the owners don't want to sell it and are out for some revenge. The killings aren't gory but they do have some red stuff. But it's low on killings, only in the beginning and the end, in between it's blah blah. Easy to see it was low budget. Just have a look at the end, it stops with a freeze, up to you to guess what is going to happen. Some say it's a slasher, for me it isn't. It was clearly made out of that era and nothing is added to name it a slasher, no points of view or whatsoever.

Pure fun to watch if you can dig low budgets, otherwise leave it on the shelves.

Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

This bizarre B-movie oddity has a couple of things going for it. First of all there's the splatter, this movie really is pretty messed up. People get crushed, chopped up and grounded, all in a day's work. Then there's the Bacon (clever writing there) family itself, which reminds me a lot of "Texas Chain Saw Massacre". Sure, there are only two people in it, but those two are really awesome. Don Barrett is great as the insane father who's out for revenge and also tortures some random people on the side, and Joe B. Barton is actually pretty menacing as the son who does all the dirty work and for some reason makes pig noises. The people who play the teens aren't really any good, but if they were they would probably be in another movie. They're just there to get killed anyway, and they do a good job of that. Because this movie is really short the pace is pretty fast, and the bodies pile up quickly, which leads to a pretty inspired finale. The ending may be disappointing to some, and can probably be best explained by budget cuts, but really I kinda like it. It definitely makes this movie stand out from the others. "Slaughterhouse" is a lot better than what I gave it credit for.