I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

MOVIES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN GREAT BUT GET MUCKED UP


Slasher House (2012) UK

Surprise surprise - we've got a pretty good movie from the UK that is very VERY low budget (5,000£ or $8219.50) but with solid performances, great saturated color (that makes most of the movie) of mostly reds and greens and at 85 minutes it's just right for a trip back into the world of the pure slasher film. 

BUT then they try to stuff to much into it and we get something too complicated - if they had left it alone, it would have almost been perfect. And the ending... whoa. WTH is a mild way of putting how they slap an ending together to finish the film. And there's a sequel ready to go in 2014 but we'll get to that.

The catch phrase is 'One Girl. Four Killers... Welcome Home'. That's - a bit misleading. This contains spoilers but the movie would still be a good view for those who are tired of the same old paranormal BS and wish there were a movie that goes back to the good ole' slasher routine (and not about a bunch of teenagers getting whacked one by one).

We start with a girl with impossible red hair (but I loved it - I'd have it in a second if I could) and heavy makeup lying naked in a cell. Just the way you want your slasher film to start. We only know her as 'Red' for obvious reasons. She finds a red dress and puts it on. She looks more like a doll than a person. Red was played by Eleanor James (who I first erroneously identified as Nikki Webster, sorry about that and thanks to MJ Dixon of MYCHO.CO.UK who pointed it out), who did quite well in this movie. I just wish they would have stopped meddling with it... but that's later.

The building is supposed to be an abandoned madhouse, which I guess is the UK term for abandoned mental asylum. She wanders through and as she does, she finds clues, weapons and other items by seeing red arrows on the walls and other objects, leading her through the place. Trouble is, she has no idea who she is, or why she is there. 

But others are there and they do, at least for themselves. And there is where is starts to bog down, although the slash scenes are well done and finally we get some real gore for the slasher film lover. And whoever did the color for this film, bravo. It is intense, surreal and makes this film even more interesting.

Somebody, somewhere is controlling things as randomly a loud alarm sounds which usually means doors have been opened or closed - and most probably another killer has been let loose. But this doesn't really start until almost an hour into the movie - that's a whole lot of 'What am I doing here?' to have to wade through before getting to the (forgive me for this one) meaty part of the movie.

Three were obvious and the movie tried to give a short backstory on each but that just bogged down the movie and was puzzling because it told you nothing about the why and where and how they got to Slasher House. Red teams up with a normal looking guy named Nathan and she finds there were 'files' on each of them - except for her. 

Nathan found his file but it was empty. The first to be 'let loose' is a killer clown they name Cleaver and they show a brief scene of him snatching up a kid into an ice cream truck in the middle of the night (?!?) and he is sufficiently creepy and scary - the scariest clown I've seen since Stephen King's It. He is right in character as he hunts the two down - only to meet his demise.

We then meet one who simply tells them (he wears a baseball cap low, you really never see his face) that they don't want to know him and they're right - they show the backstory for 'Corben' for a couple of seconds and soon he has them captive and strapped to operating tables. He had captured the clown and... like I said, there is gore aplenty in this film. 

But even he is not evil enough... when Nathan screams as he gets a saw to the head our final baddie is released from his cage - he had sat there sobbing like a child but a cage comes from above with his, uh, persona in it. He is Thorn, and when his mask is on, he is one big badass (and instantly gets his own sequel called 'Legacy Of Thorn' coming in 2014 - Red will also be there). Corben gets distracted from his torture of Nathan and Red and they escape as Corben is ripped to pieces by Thorn.

Aaaand the movie bogs down again. See, they have to have some kind of explanation for this and some kind of ending and their time is getting short so things seem really rushed. Nathan turns out to be not an innocent at all, but some kind of... I dunno... schizo character who can't control his 'evil' side I guess. So the three of them kind of go around for a while and soon Red is running from both of them as Nathan's 'evil' side keeps taking over.

Who wins? Well that's kind of obvious but the why is where they REALLY went waaaay to complicated. Red set it up. Why didn't she remember? Dunno... just know that her family were the victims of a serial killer and since then she has dedicated her life to executing all serial killers. In the media world she is known as the 'Red Angel' and we see her going after assorted baddies with a Katana blade. Uh huh.

So even though it appears that Thorn was defeated by Red in this movie, apparently the movie maker liked him so much ('cause there wasn't enough time for this to be a decision by audience approval) that they immediately made a sequel to this movie. Let's hope for less backstory, more gore and please keep that color scheme! It was both gorgeous and disturbing. But the idea of caging up a bunch of serial killers and letting them have at it with each other? Brilliant.

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