I almost knew exactly what I was going to see when I put Slaughter High into the dvd player. What I didn't know was how very familiar it was going to be. And how bad. It starts in with a red title on a black background, just to remind you that, yes, this is the eighties. The orchestral sting when the title apeared reminded me of something but I couldn't say what just yet, and before I could think of it, the most annoying synth riff ever started. It made me want to kill the person resposible, (and in retrospect I still do as this riff has been through my head 80 times in the past week) and luckily the credits instantly betrayed the culprit: Harry Manfredini. Mr. Friday the 13th should really stick to the violins.

While the credits of people you know not of nor care not for continue to passively just be there, we are shown shots of a "high school." I use quotes because this is the most obvious English boarding school I've seen in any movie, not that I've seen a lot of English boarding schools. High schools just aren't built like this! Also, for some reason, this "high school" seems to have been built in the middle of the woods, just like the one in Graduation Day. I guess the school board just didn't care if anyone could access their high school.

Once the credits are over interiors of the school are shown. It still looks nothing like a high school. And down through the halls come my favorite two stereotypes! The nerd who is school-smart in every way but naive beyond belief and girl who uses her "sexiness" (used kind of loosely here) to prank and/or get her own way. Guess who's getting killed later!?

Anyways, in a Toxic Avenger-esque prank the sexy girl (hereby dubbed Ms. Hookerface because I forgot her real name) is going to lead Marty (the nerd) into the girls locker/bathroom thing (everyone calls it a locker room, but all it seems to have is showers and toilets) under the pretense of having sex, but instead humiliate him on tape with the assistance of approximately 11 of her friends. What good-spirited fun!

Of course Marty somehow never suspects anything is up with Ms. Hookerface randomly seducing him in spite of the fact that she seems to be friends with every single person that hates Marty in the whole entire school. As he's getting undressed in the shower and Ms. Hookerface is standing outside waiting, Marty tells her today's the best birthday he's ever had. Wow, this movie's really going for the jugular with this pitiable nerd character thing. He's kind of like the black cop with the wife and kids, you just know something's going to kill him, and it ain't going to be old age. Ms. Hookerface seems to be having second thoughts upon hearing this, but not enough to call off the eleven or so friends moving in around the shower with a huge eighties camera and all other insidious pranking odds and ends. She tells him that she's ready and Marty steps out, naked, and, yes, you see everything. I'm not going to speak ill of the guy since he committed suicide after the movie, so instead I'll attack the director. Why would you include that in the shot, especially if his crotch looked that... odd? Nude scenes are usually one of a few things, comedic, disturbing, or beautiful, and this isn't any of those. Well, maybe disturbing.

Well, the camera crew begins to harass Marty by electro-shocking him, eventually giving him a swirly. The black janitor, taking what appears to be his routine peek into the girls lockbathroom, sees this going down and hurries to tell the track coach. I really love how the janitor totally understates the problem in this scene. He's just like, "There's a bunch of people in the girl's bathroom doing things" (the coach makes the witty response, "so, what's new?") instead of spazzing out and being all like, "Holy $hit, there are about eight guys in the girls bathroom and they're f_cking drowning a kid in the toilet! Holy $hit!" He just kind of seemed underwhelmed by the whole thing.

Coach @$$hole arrives at the girl's bathroom where they are STILL giving Marty a swirly. Shouldn't he have drowned by now? That's like a full on five minute swirly, you just don't survive something like that! Coach Dickface takes his time getting over there and breaking up the posse that are kind of killing Marty and stuff. Even while the Coach is talking to them they don't let Marty up. Wow. And Coach Douche doesn't even say anything.

He tells the toilet club to get their asses to the gym in five minutes, or else. He just tells Marty to get dressed. Not even an "are you ok?" after five minutes under water? Ok, whatever. Marty gets his clothes back on and heads back to his locker. It's all in a day, for him, I guess. But the two people who were not moments ago holding him by the ankles over a toilet come up to him by his locker. They say it was all just a big joke, them trying to kill him and all, and to prove they're swell guys they give him a joint. They suspiciously ask him which classroom he'll be in as they leave. And,we, the audience, know from their comic bookish comments to each other that it's a tainted joint.

So hold on for a second here. You're the nerdiest kid in the school by far. Today, as of yet, has been the worst birthday ever, particularly because of the two kids who held you upside down over a feces encrusted toilet. These same two people give you a joint then whisper and elbow each other as they leave, as if sharing a good joke. Are you going to smoke it, let alone smoke it at school not five minutes after it's been given to you? That's what Marty does and the logic here blows my mind. The kid's supposed to be smart! Even assuming that he just doesn't tell a teacher straight away, is the A+ student really going to risk losing his scholarship just so he can get high for the first time ever. Oh and Marty also decides to get high as he stays late to perform highly dangerous chemistry over a gas burner. A student my ass.

Pretty soon the effects of the bad pot hit and Marty gets diarrhea. I'm no expect on pot, but I'm pretty sure that isn't what bad weed does to you. Another student, Skip, sneaks out to go put something into Marty's chemistry experiment. All this makes me all the more glad my high school is as tame as it is.

While this is going on Coach Screwhole is giving his detention "I hate kids like you" speech. This performance is probably the best in the movie, and conveys more than what the $hitty dialogue could ever. Whoever this guy was, he should have appeared in movies more often. I'd actually have to say this is the highlight of the film, and in a horror movie, when a monologue is your highlight, that's never really a good sign.

Marty returns to his mad sciencestry and pours some powerful acid into his concoction, which he left ON A LIT BURNER WHILE HE WAS IN THE BATHROOM. He then returns the acid to the HIGHEST POSSIBLE SHELF. I really doubt Marty could make it to a D, and I'm not talking about grades, I'm talking about when he says his ABC's. Anyways, whatever Skip put in Marty's concoction makes it explode, loosening the burner, and causing a gas leak which flame throwers all over everything!

The detention kids hear the disturbance and come running. You'd think they wouldn't be able to hear it considering the fact that they're in the gym, which would be padded for noise so classrooms wouldn't have to hear basketball practice, but whatever. They run into the classroom just in time to see Marty desperately trying to put out the raging inferno with his own arms. Way to go Marty. He then bumbles into the shelf with the acid on it, causing the container to fall and spill all over his face. Finished scarring his tormentors for life, he lets out a final death scream.

Cut from disturbing scene of violence to Ms. Hookerface 10 years later showering. Great job director. Oh and take one guess what Ms. Hookerface's job is. If you said prostitute, you were close, she's only a porno star. A rich, b*tchy one too. She has a conversation with her agent in which she has trouble keeping her southern accent from turning cockney for more than four sentences. Her agent, who has a poster for schlock film Pieces behind him, a movie that was better because it was worse, wants her to do a movie, but Ms. Hookerface says no. In fact, she says, she'd rather go to that dumb high school reunion than make that movie. So she does. Ok, just because you say you'd rather do something, doesn't mean you have to do either. If I said I'd rather bite my tongue out than watch this movie, I wouldn't proceed to bite my tongue out.

But enough "character development", we need our characters in that high school and we need them there fast! All the main characters proceed to meet up on the way to the high school, using only two cars (and one guy comes in later on a motorcycle) to get there, as one fails on the way. There's a lot of "comedy" in this scene, but sadly the funniest thing that happens is a character calling their car by a stupid nickname like Agnus or Betsy. Come to think of it this is the funniest thing that happens all movie.

All the characters arrive at the high school together, only to find that it's locked and boarded up. The logical thing to do now would be for them to have their own "high school reunion" at the pub with a few beers, but instead they stay. After a LONG time, a couple of guys decide to look around back and see if there's another way in. Brilliant.

Now it's dark. For some reason everyone has just decided to wait around because they have nothing at all better to do. The people waiting also find it in no way odd that their friends haven't come back after a few hours. It starts to rain so everyone decides to, shock, ACTUALLY TRY THE FRONT DOOR. That's right, they were just out there milling about for a couple of hours and no one had tried the front door. And just to prove things CAN get stupider, the friends who went to try the back door jump out and scare them with a hockey mask and machete. Yeah, so they just waited there for hours, counting on it to rain, and counting on their friends to just wait, rather than call the cops and report them missing.

Also this development reminds me of a little movie, anyone seen Friday the 13th, parts 3-8? This is the biggest problem with this movie, that it is all stuff you've seen before, everything that's familiar, but done much, much worse. I really can't think of a better one sentence review than that.

From their the gang of stupid bungholes proceed to some sort of room in the middle. And someone set up all their old lockers in this room too, along with Marty's! How nice! Oddly enough all their old lockers contain the things that were left in them, as if the high-school didn't have anyone else after their class. Oh and someone also set up beer and a banner, how quaint!

It was also at this point in the movie that I realized virtually none of the actors could keep a straight accent. They kept switching region, like from Manhattan to Boston to Texan. I believe this was because they were British people desperately trying to sound American, and failing in every way possible.

We are now given some exposition as to what happened to Marty after that fateful day. He remained in a hospital for years, and no skin grafts would take so he looks horribly disfigured now. Some of this dickwads have the gall to laugh at this, proving that douchery knows no bounds. The person telling the story, Skip, even has the balls to make a prank out of it, pretending to get pulled out into the hallway by Marty, in one of the worst false scares ever. Are you kidding me? Skip, you have no soul.

Well we fade out yet again, and now the party's in full swing. These time lapses are a huge problem when reviewing because you have no idea how much time has passed.

The caretaker, the ex-janitor, gets wise to the party and catches Skip in the hallway. Skip bribes him with a beer and sends him on his way. Out of nowhere, though, Marty comes out a nails up the janitor like Jesus. Talk about being blatantly racist, the janitor was the only guy who ever helped Marty! But he was black, so he had to be the opening kill.

But, anyhow everyone's acting like an idiot, and a couple of guys are having a beer chugging contest. The one who wins however, suddenly starts spasming like he's about to puke and everyone just freaking books it out of there, except for one girl who stands sensibly far back and asks him if he's ok. At which point his guts explode all over her. It didn't make sense to me either. What kind of poison does that?

From here everything degenerates into a level of stupid so dumb it actually transcends the brainlessness of slime molds. Instead of going back to their cars and motorcycle and driving away and reporting this to the police, they try to bust through an electrified window Marty set up. Why not just exit through one of the two ways you got in through? Oh, that's right, because that would make SENSE. Instead they send one lone guy (read cannon fodder) out there to get into one of the cars and go for help. Why?

While he's doing this half the crowd gets bored and begins meandering throughout the hallways of their old school. Talk about having a short attention span, they couldn't even wait thirty seconds to see if their idiotic plan worked or not? And why are they so intent on separating? Have they ever seen a scenario where separating helps things in the slightest?

To make a long story short, car guy gets killed. Yeah, who saw that coming?

The girl who got the blood spilled all over her goes to take a bath (yeah, this "high school" has a claw foot bath tub, hard to believe, right?) and the bath turns into an acid bath! She bites it too.

After this things actually manage to get MORE brainless. Zombies envy these people nothing. Someone gets the brilliant idea to use the mowing tractor on school grounds to escape and tell the authorities. There are SO many things obviously stupid about this "plan." Why don't they use the other car or motorcycle? If they have a way out, why not just find some weapons and walk? Are they really so lazy/fat where they'd rather sit on a riding mower that gos less than 3 mph just to avoid walking, in spite of the fact they're in a potentially lethal situation? Would a riding mower really be safer than walking? Not to mention, the lawnmower/tractor thing would create a lot of noise atracting the attention of the killer. The mower is in a state of disrepair too, so the group leaves the single mechanically inclined guy (read cannon fodder) to fix it up while they go upstairs.

At this point the movie briefly segues into a soap opera. The other slut of the group wants to screw nameless guy. "But what about "Brad" (guy fixing the lawn mower downstairs)?" "He can't satisfy my needs like you can!" "I'm pregnant, and you're the father, nor Brad!" Eventually the guy, tired out from the watery dialogue, agrees. They find an appropriately sleazy looking bedroom (in a "high school", fancy that) and the festivities begin. I lied before this is the funniest part of the movie. When asked to talk dirty the guy starts mumbling and spewing out random dirty words, "uh uh screw! ummmm penis!" Then, just as the girl climaxes, the backboard gets all zappy with electricity and kills her. The guy jumps, off, startled but penis still intact. He's probably wondering how he's going to explain this one to "Brad", who at this very moment is being lawn-mowered to death.

I blacked out for a bit after this. Things happen, people die, and through an odd twist of "logic" the three people left believe that if they survive past mid-day Marty will just stop trying to kill them. Ummmm, sure, the guy you scarred for life with your sh*tty pranks, just going to randomly put down his weapon because it's mid-day, and that would be breaking some sort of killer's kode of konduct? Whatever...

They hole up in a room and state firmly that they have to stay awake until mid-day, an hour away, or else they could die, upon which all three of them promptly fall asleep. What are they, like narcoleptic 80-year olds or something? Skip gets dragged out to the gym and hung.

From there we're stuck with our two survivors, nameless paranoid girl, and Ms. Hookerface. Guess horror movies don't always have to kill off the whores. These two wake up and begin to meander around the school together, in spite of the fact it still isn't twelve! They wander into a darkened room and nameless paranoid girl sees her photo exed out in a yearbook, and books it out of the school so fast light asks her to stop for a second so it can please catch up. I'm serious, she's in the school one second, then, pow, she's out of there. She runs across the school grounds when suddenly she falls into a trap hole. How Marty ever guessed she'd step on that exact patch of grass is up to anyone, but damn did he fill it with nasty sh*t! This scene really reminds me of the god-awful "Sleep-Away Camp" where someone is stuffed into an outhouse hole. It's gross and in no way a good kill.

Finally we're only left with Ms. Hookerface. The music here kicks into full Friday the 13th mode, and it's time for some extended chase montages. After around five brief skirmishes, she thinks she killed Marty, so she goes to shower. Wow. Not only that, but she goes to shower in the exact same shower they pranked Marty at. Doing something like this is just tempting the gods of Karma. So sure enough, Marty comes and kills her. The end.

Just kidding, that would make too much sense. So the film-makers decided to tack on a second part to their ending. Marty wanders around the school (there was so much wandering in this movie my feet hurt by the end) gloating over his victory, when he starts to hear odd noises. He goes into the gym, where a fog machine has conveniently began its work, and suddenly the dead bodies of his victims surround him, taunting him. Now it's the end.

Not! Disfigured old Marty wakes up in a hospital bed screaming. A nurse comes to comfort him. He uses trickery to escape the hospital, killing the nurse and taking her uniform. Now we know where Dark Knight got the idea! Finally it's really the end, and I have to say, I'm conflicted.

On one hand you could look at this like it's a so-bad-it's-good movie, but on the other the kill sequences all resembled mini-snuff films and were disturbing in the "I need to take a shower sort of way." No matter what way you look at it though it's still a bad movie. Some people enjoy it far more than others though, so here's an alternate take from Stacie Ponder at the Final Girl blog.

At least I took one thing away from this movie with me and that was killers always stop at.... *snore*