Plot
Japan's number one reality show, is having its first all-American special. Six lucky contestants will have the chance to win millions of dollars in one of the sickest game shows on earth. Their only challenge is to survive the violent onslaught of the house SLASHERS. These SLASHERS will hunt, chop, gut, saw and skewer whoever gets in their way. There are no prisoners in this limb-severing, blood-soaked, extreme horror death game show only the living survive!
Analysis It's been a fair old time since I've seen a horror film that has been created to entertain without taking itself too seriously. The last few years has seen a host of titles that have tried a little too hard to become mainstream and have unfortunately lost a little of there charm in the process. What I love about horror is the fact that it encompasses so many different types of sub-genre each having an appeal to the consumer including fans of zombie's, monsters, ghosts and in this case humor laden cheese!
The future of television entertainment has taken voyeuristic viewing to the extreme and is airing a game show called Slashers. Big money awaits those contestants who can survive the shows running time without getting sliced or diced by the resident psycho's who's job it is to hunt down and slaughter our participants across a fun-house style maze of corridors and weird rooms. Slashers is a film that borrows a little from some great movies including The Running Man and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but manages to add a little spice of it's own.
The cast is mainly made up of young actors most of whom have never appeared in a film before and as such makes their performances more impressive. Inevitably there is a whiff of overacting during some scenes but it is much less that you would expect and never detracts too much from the action. Kudos has to go to Neil Napier for his duel performance as Chainsaw Charlie and the Preacherman with some great line delivery and very funny 'deep-south' accent, he sure makes a great character actor. Also thumbs up for the choice of female actors, all capable and all very sexy.
The effects for the slashers were pretty effective being achieved by the use of facial masks and eye/mouth makeup producing very cost efficient results that looked more expensive than I'm sure they were. The main playing area for the game show was created from an indoor paint ball arena which was the perfect location to help make that chaotic look but a few key scenes are shot in rooms that have been clearly designed to fit with the story such as the 'Love room' and the 'Clown room'.
As I mention earlier, what we essentially have here is a funny piece of digital cheese which is not meant as an insult but instead a positive comment. Maurice Devereaux clearly expected more from his project but got bogged down in studio politics and licensing wrangles to the point that, when he got the green light, his shooting time and budget were tiny, so to have created any kind of entertainment was in reality a miracle. And lets get one thing straight, this movie is good fun, it's not 28 Days Later and it's not Red Dragon but it is the DVD equivalent of a few pints and a little slap and tickle.
Key Area |
Rating (out of 5)
|
Comment |
Action
|
|
When the cast are not talking or being killed you can guarantee that they will be running away from a tight situation. This makes the action for the most part but we do get a few scuffles thrown in.
|
Tension
|
|
Corridors of wooden palates and dark dungeon like rooms make the tension increase once the suspenseful music kicks in.
|
Violence/
Gore
|
|
I love low budget gore and Slashers efforts have not gone in vein. Head chopping, body sawing, eye stabbing and face slashing are all drenched with my favorite colour. Blood red.
|
Bare Flesh
|
|
One bizarre scene has the actors playing pass-the-parcel with their tops leading to the inevitable unveiling of male and female flesh. But it is only one brief scene that actually shows a full funbag or two in the guise of Sarah Joslyn Crowder. Sarah has the unfortunate task of having her top ripped off twice resulting in prolonged periods of running whilst cupping herself for modesty.
|
Plot
|
|
The story is based upon a game show which, by their nature are pretty shallow things anyway, but enough energy has been put into making the plot energetic and to keep it interesting for the duration.
|
Verdict I like movies like this. It never attempts to be anything more than it is. It raises it's head and say's "I'm a movie with blood and boobs, and if you don't like it then f*ck off". Not everyone will like this movie and I'm sure that the horror purists will roll their blood shot eyes at the very premise, but my mind is open and I say bring on Slashers 2, let the carnage continue.
|
|
|
Movie Pictures (Click picture to enlarge)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What other people thought of this film: - |
Jon-T |
I saw this with some mates and was horrified that such dirge actually made it onto the Blockbuster shelves. It's a bit bloke-ish to say it, but it was a bit pointless to get the girls to spend half the time taking their tops off and not actually show their boobs properly; it would certainly have improved the damn thing. And why was it made to look Japanese? That was just superfluous, and the attempt at social/political observations on what viewers want to see or whatever were just naff. Good effort, but pathetic achievement, if you ask me.
|
Pat |
This movie is well done and the gore does not look half bad. The attractive girls don't hurt either. All in all a cool idea that is well executed entertaining, definetly worth a rental if not a purchase.
|
|