By Geno McGahee
For years, I wanted to see SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK. It had some neat cover art and was released in 1988…a great time for movies. For a while, it seemed like it would be my destiny to never see this film. I had gone to the video store when I was much younger and I saw the cover art but the VHS tape was not behind it. Some asshole had rented it out. Well, he’d have to return it sooner or later, right? He kept it and those assholes at the video store would not buy another. If he kept it, it had to rule.
After all these years, I was able to get my hands on a copy of this film and thought back to that asshole that probably still has the VHS tape. I finally won. If he only knew that he no longer deprived me of my chance to watch this obvious masterpiece. Well, as I watched this, I realized that the dude kept it for one of two reasons. One, he realized that he had to rid the world of this terrible thing or two, he had really bad taste in films. Sad to say, SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK was incredibly terrible.
The film starts with some cool visuals. There’s some creature trudging through some water and he chops off the hand of Alex Gardner (Nicholas Celozzi). He wakes up screaming and then looks and his hand is chopped off. He wakes up screaming from that double nightmare. It was amusing and I had really high hopes for this. It was off to a good start.
The film falls apart after that. The repetitive dream sequences and terrible dialogue make this nearly unwatchable, but I am an optimist and I was waiting for it to get good. The score and entire storyline is a bad NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET knockoff. This was more than inspired by it, but it has none of the edge and isn’t in the same universe when it comes to quality. I love a knockoff every once in a while, but they have to at least be watchable.
It is decided that Alex needs to go to Alcatraz to help this demonic presence and that’s when Alex runs into the ghost of former rocker, Sammy Mitchell (Toni Basil). I remember Toni Basi from that horrible song “Mickey.” What I always respected about her was that she had no reservations about surrounding herself with fat women to make herself look better as she sang the song. I was like “wow, she’s hot…especially compared to those cows she has prancing around behind her.” She was hot. I’m sure the fat ones would be hot too if they surrounded themselves with fatter chicks. Well played Toni. Well played.
Sammy convinces Alex to allow his soul to leave his body and go after the evil demon. She performs some weird ritual to make it happen and Alex tells bad joke after bad joke. It was painful. This entire movie was painful. I am so disappointed in SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK. It did not rock.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK is NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET if Wes Craven was beat over the head with a brick ten dozen times and was then handed a pen and was told to write a screenplay. It is nearly unwatchable.
Rating: 2/10
