Reviewed by Melissa Garza
“My God, boy what have you done.” – Lester (Don Barrett)
Lester (Don Barrett) is an old man who owns an old run-down slaughterhouse in a small town. What once was a prominent business had devolved into a local embarrassment. Les hadn’t paid taxes for quite a while but because of the long history, the residents let him slide until they finally have no choice but to foreclose.
Meanwhile, Les’s slow son Buddy (Joe B. Barton) who has no communication skills outside of snorting decides to start murdering teenagers. When his daddy sees how great Buddy is at slicing and dicing, he instructs the lad to take revenge out on those closing down the business.
Soon, a car filled with teenagers who intend to film a horror movie decide to make the picture at the old slaughterhouse. As any horror fan knows, this will help jolt the body count; and of course it does. A body count does not make for a good movie. Neither does the violence, or the supposed dark humor.
For some reason, “Slaughterhouse” has a decent cult following. It isn’t original. Many of the scenes are stolen right out of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” From the dead animal bones used to decorate to the way in which Buddy slams open the slaughterhouse doors. Some may claim that this is an homage, but aren’t homages supposed to offer something? It’s slow paced, the dialogue is awful and the villain is dumb. The creator most likely thought that having Buddy grunt would be cool considering he was raised with the animals. It wasn’t. It was lame. Either have him silent or have him speak. The pig noises were annoying.
There is only one interesting character in this film, and it isn’t Buddy. Les is the only redeeming quality of the entire production. In the first few scenes, the movie actually shows promise. If the focus was on his feeling of being wronged, it could have been salvageable. After all, there was a time when Lester had employed much of the community. He had paid his taxes when the business was running properly. He blames the Sheriff (William Houck) for the slaughterhouse going under. If this since of being owed something had been the emotional drive for the murder throughout, the movie would have played much better. Instead, they went the route of the bizarre, but it just didn’t quite fit.
“Slaughterhouse” is a horrible movie. Though it had an adequate budget, it was obviously wasted. The lack of compelling characters mixed with the overabundance of “actors” made everything drag out even longer. The setting is too close to “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” to think of it as atmosphere building. Instead of thinking, “wow, that’s disturbing,” one is inclined to say, “Hey…TCM did that too.”
Scared Stiff Rating: 2/10
