Slaughter Night

Have you ever seen a movie, loved it, waited a while to re-watch it, and found it wasn't as great as you thought it once was? The same goes for the opposite. Well, I feel the need to test that theory. I worked at a Blockbuster for a while, and I can't tell you how many "good" movies I saw. But enough back story, follow me back to 2007 for one of my favorite films: Slaughter Night.

I used to be really into horror movie magazines and websites, and I found out about Slaughter Night finally coming to the states. I fell in love with it. It was gory, the story was great, and I just thought it was very interesting. I saw it again today. I must've been out of my damn mind 5 years ago. Either that or this film was edited to death, but I'm 99.9% positive that didn't happen.

What changed my mind? Growing up and realizing what goes into a good slasher flick. This movie has none of those qualities. The first thing I have to mention is the shaky cam. It's not just one or two scenes. Any time there is a party or someone is about to die, it looks like the camera man is having a freaking seizure. Before I get into that, I should probably back up a bit.

We start the film with a little girl being kidnapped. It then cuts to (turn away now if you're extremely squeamish) the killer violently decapitating another child and sticking her head on a pike. The police catch the killer and save the other child. Then we get opening credits. Seems a bit abrupt, doesn't it? Get used to it. After the credits, we end up at a rave. People are doing drugs, the music is loud and nothing really interesting happens. We're introduced to the Dutch version of Kristen Stewart named Kris. She has what is probably the most obnoxious friends I have ever seen. Nothing continues to happen for 10 minutes until she starts arguing with her father about going on a trip to Australia. I'm guessing he runs a red light because they get hit by a huge semi truck. Kris' father dies in a explosion. The entire time she has this completely blank stare. I don't know much about acting, but if it's an emotionally charged scene like seeing a parent being turned into barbecue, act like you actually cared about him.

We're then treated to 20 MINUTES of her, her friends and her mother mourning. What does this have to do with the killer? If you guessed anything except nothing, I applaud you for being so optimistic. Then we're treated to more bad editing and Kris is just with her friends on a road trip. Are they going to Australia? Nope. Where are they going? An abandoned mine. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. And that right there is one of the biggest flaws of this movie: No continuity and no real plot. All the characters are just lumped together only to be picked off one by one.

Things might seem a little jumbled from here on out. There was so much shaky cam and bad lighting that I honestly don't know what happened. They use a Ouija board to contact spirits, they unleash psycho child killer, and psycho child killer kills them one by one by possessing them. The kills suck, and it's the same one over and over. Now I don't have a problem with decapitation, but when it's the only form of killing in a 90 minute movie it does become quite predictable.

Long story short, everyone except Kris and the dude she made googly eyes at survive. The end. I gotta be honest with you... This isn't how I was planning to start my new segment. I picked this movie because I remember it being so awesome. But, that's the whole point of this: ideas and preferences change. What I thought was awesome 5 years ago is just a shaky cam filled train wreck. Let me also say that I don't completely hate shaky cam. I just absolutely hate when filmmakers use it to build suspense or terror. If you have a good script, everything else should come naturally. That didn't happen here, so it gets a huge goose egg. Now it's time for me to take Advil and pray that the room stops spinning.