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The Slasher
SCREENER/APPROX. 93 MINS/2000/USA UNRATED
SCREENER/APPROX. 93 MINS/2000/USA UNRATED
With a title like this, the kind of film you’re about to see is a bit of a no-brainer…
So, a girl is walking down a quiet country road and she’s being stalked. Ungood, and we all, as a horror literate audience, know it! Weirdly enough,
for a horror-literate audience, we don’t even question why she’s out there, we just accept it because we’ve seen similar scenarios in a million
billion other slasher flicks. Oh, wait, now I get it…
Stupid horror movie logic starts to take effect: girl thinks to self, “I’m being stalked! I’d better get off this road where someone might find me and
be some kind of potential aid, and plunge head-long into this forest where any old shit could happen!” And they let them out alone…
Credits roll and then more really stupid behaviour ensues that only a zero-budget horror flick could provide. We get a bunch of inept coppers and a
sensationalist exploitative news reporter (if I hear the phrase, “the public have a right to know” again, I’ll go out and kill my local newsie), and
then when girl number two initially escapes the slasher – narrowly avoids death – her first act? Run a bath. Yeah, ‘cos we’d all do that. Call the
cops? Bollocks, I need to be naked and vulnerable. And can you believe a woman who has just avoided murder at the hands of an obvious nutter
would, not five minutes after the evasion answer her fucking door without checking who it was??!! And the murder scene is so terribly acted – the
knife gets about as close to the victim as I’ve gotten to Angelina Jolie’s cooze. I’ve seen Joe D’Amato films with better and more sensible action
scenes.
Mindless pop-culture references? We got ‘em. The two detectives engage in some banal banter about wanting to shag Mary-Ann from Gilligan’s
Island, and when called up by dispatch, one of them responds with the call sign “Inspector 71” (Dirty Harry’s number), neither of which advance
either the plot or the characterisation. Even Eli Roth manages to slip these kind of things in with greater subtlety. Oh well, we live in a post-
Quentin Tarantino/Kevin Smith world, I guess. We have to expect this kind of thing.
The comedy, such as it is, is equally as vapid and unentertaining as the action. If this is a film written by fans of the genre, it’s been written by fans
of Silent Night, Deadly Night and Slumber Party Massacre, not Halloween or Deep Red, despite having some of the trappings of both.
The romantic sub-plot, such as it is, is even more excruciating and tedious than the comedy. The scriptwriter needs to give themselves an uppercut
for foisting this nonsense on the public at large. Obvious, forced and with all the flair and grace of an epileptic rhino in the midst of a grand mal
seizure, I could write better dialogue if I was tied to a spit and being slowly roasted over an open fire.
You know you’re watching low budget when one of the actress’s hair colour changes in between scenes and then back again in the next one. It
screams, “We don’t care! We really don’t give a shit!” Minor detail? Sure, but also a glaring one. I’ve watched enough Ted V Mikels, Ed Wood and
other such zero-budget schlock-fests to really give a shit about continuity, but those films had a quaint charm that isn’t on display here. This is that
most unforgivable of crimes: sloppy film-making.
And so the Slasher continues on his merry way unhindered by any little minor detail, like tension or interest, or meaningful investigation by the
police – these knuckle-heads and bozos just sit around with their dicks in their hands waiting for him butcher another victim without actually
investigating anything for over an hour, and when they do get off their butts and start looking around, the answer gets dropped in their laps for
them, without them even expending a calorie. And as such, this is a deeply dull film. No, scratch that, it’s actually so deeply dull, I’d sooner dig out
my eyes with rusty hooks and pour boiling lead into the sockets than watch it again. I have no idea how anyone responsible for this shambles
could look their family or friends in the eye afterwards.
Even the climax (tension nullified thanks to a crap Van Halen reference), which I’m sure would be shocking for an audience raised on Hollywood
horror is a poor riff on that of Park Chan-Wook’s bravura payback in Sympathy For Lady Vengeance – again, been there, seen that – and more to
the point, seen it done immeasurably better.
Look, make a low-budget horror film by all means, but if you must do so, then at least get a tenth of the budget required to do so, and don’t just
hire your mates as actors; they will do a shit job; just watch this turkey to see what I mean – I counted the boom mike in shot once, and the
DP/cameraman’s shadow twice, not mention Inspector Brown’s moustache and beard combo lengthening and shortening with a frightening rapidity
between shots; let’s see what your tally is.
And I’ve got to ask, where is the fucking volume? I had to have my TV cranked up to nearly full blast to be able to hear anything – and at times,
even totally cranked up, it was literally practically inaudible. I realise this is a screener, but surely the purpose of such is to promote the film, not to
want to make the audience turn the movie off in despair. I like silent films, but only when they’re intended to be so.
So, a girl is walking down a quiet country road and she’s being stalked. Ungood, and we all, as a horror literate audience, know it! Weirdly enough,
for a horror-literate audience, we don’t even question why she’s out there, we just accept it because we’ve seen similar scenarios in a million
billion other slasher flicks. Oh, wait, now I get it…
Stupid horror movie logic starts to take effect: girl thinks to self, “I’m being stalked! I’d better get off this road where someone might find me and
be some kind of potential aid, and plunge head-long into this forest where any old shit could happen!” And they let them out alone…
Credits roll and then more really stupid behaviour ensues that only a zero-budget horror flick could provide. We get a bunch of inept coppers and a
sensationalist exploitative news reporter (if I hear the phrase, “the public have a right to know” again, I’ll go out and kill my local newsie), and
then when girl number two initially escapes the slasher – narrowly avoids death – her first act? Run a bath. Yeah, ‘cos we’d all do that. Call the
cops? Bollocks, I need to be naked and vulnerable. And can you believe a woman who has just avoided murder at the hands of an obvious nutter
would, not five minutes after the evasion answer her fucking door without checking who it was??!! And the murder scene is so terribly acted – the
knife gets about as close to the victim as I’ve gotten to Angelina Jolie’s cooze. I’ve seen Joe D’Amato films with better and more sensible action
scenes.
Mindless pop-culture references? We got ‘em. The two detectives engage in some banal banter about wanting to shag Mary-Ann from Gilligan’s
Island, and when called up by dispatch, one of them responds with the call sign “Inspector 71” (Dirty Harry’s number), neither of which advance
either the plot or the characterisation. Even Eli Roth manages to slip these kind of things in with greater subtlety. Oh well, we live in a post-
Quentin Tarantino/Kevin Smith world, I guess. We have to expect this kind of thing.
The comedy, such as it is, is equally as vapid and unentertaining as the action. If this is a film written by fans of the genre, it’s been written by fans
of Silent Night, Deadly Night and Slumber Party Massacre, not Halloween or Deep Red, despite having some of the trappings of both.
The romantic sub-plot, such as it is, is even more excruciating and tedious than the comedy. The scriptwriter needs to give themselves an uppercut
for foisting this nonsense on the public at large. Obvious, forced and with all the flair and grace of an epileptic rhino in the midst of a grand mal
seizure, I could write better dialogue if I was tied to a spit and being slowly roasted over an open fire.
You know you’re watching low budget when one of the actress’s hair colour changes in between scenes and then back again in the next one. It
screams, “We don’t care! We really don’t give a shit!” Minor detail? Sure, but also a glaring one. I’ve watched enough Ted V Mikels, Ed Wood and
other such zero-budget schlock-fests to really give a shit about continuity, but those films had a quaint charm that isn’t on display here. This is that
most unforgivable of crimes: sloppy film-making.
And so the Slasher continues on his merry way unhindered by any little minor detail, like tension or interest, or meaningful investigation by the
police – these knuckle-heads and bozos just sit around with their dicks in their hands waiting for him butcher another victim without actually
investigating anything for over an hour, and when they do get off their butts and start looking around, the answer gets dropped in their laps for
them, without them even expending a calorie. And as such, this is a deeply dull film. No, scratch that, it’s actually so deeply dull, I’d sooner dig out
my eyes with rusty hooks and pour boiling lead into the sockets than watch it again. I have no idea how anyone responsible for this shambles
could look their family or friends in the eye afterwards.
Even the climax (tension nullified thanks to a crap Van Halen reference), which I’m sure would be shocking for an audience raised on Hollywood
horror is a poor riff on that of Park Chan-Wook’s bravura payback in Sympathy For Lady Vengeance – again, been there, seen that – and more to
the point, seen it done immeasurably better.
Look, make a low-budget horror film by all means, but if you must do so, then at least get a tenth of the budget required to do so, and don’t just
hire your mates as actors; they will do a shit job; just watch this turkey to see what I mean – I counted the boom mike in shot once, and the
DP/cameraman’s shadow twice, not mention Inspector Brown’s moustache and beard combo lengthening and shortening with a frightening rapidity
between shots; let’s see what your tally is.
And I’ve got to ask, where is the fucking volume? I had to have my TV cranked up to nearly full blast to be able to hear anything – and at times,
even totally cranked up, it was literally practically inaudible. I realise this is a screener, but surely the purpose of such is to promote the film, not to
want to make the audience turn the movie off in despair. I like silent films, but only when they’re intended to be so.
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