Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

* Splatter University uses the basic tenets of the slasher film. There’s the escaped lunatic who murdered a doctor in his mental institution, taking his clothes, and getting out of the hospital holding him. You have the teacher at a university murdered for no apparent reason (“It seems to me if you’re going to kill someone, you’d at least know them real well.”), stabbed right in the heart, bleeding like a stuck pig. She bleeds out, and cut to a new teacher, fresh out of college herself, landing the same position (considered cursed by the students). Will she be next?

A key scene in Slaughter High (1986), when the group realize they're in for a night of hell if they can't get out of the building.

 **½   Unremarkable but decent anthology horror film has the wraparound story featuring a rather creepy "Psychology of Fear" professor, Edward Derek (Ramy Zada) offering a gathering to students in his class if they are interested in experiencing "real fear". He was going to have a unique class for the semester at the college of the film, but when he literally causes a jock to piss his pants (a diabolical gun experiment that *would not* be allowed in the schools today), Ed is told to dispense with the shenanigans. So some of the kids from his class gather at his home, and hence offered are tales which make up this late 80s omnibus. On the night of his birthday, Kevin (Marc McClure) agrees to take his wife on a "midnight ride". Well, sufficed to say, the car's tire flattens and the only place nearby is an old dark house [natch]. Five people were murdered in the infamous house, but Kevin's wife, Joan (Nadine Van Der Velde), scoffs at

A fun start to the Summer slasher series for me, and I think I chose correctly with this film as a beginning. Starting late in June, I needed a film that wasn't quite set entirely during the school year or at the end, considering May is long gone. A couple years ago, I started too early, but done so because Prom Night (1980) was the key film in the slasher series. This year, I will certainly factor in a slasher movie or two, I imagine, set during the school year, but I hope to add an eclectic bunch of movies to the slate in 2015. I think some of us, as teens (and, yes, adults), had (or, yes, have) "fantasy posters" we'd love to hang on a wall. I loved specific box arts when I come across them, and this for Slaughter High (1986) was definitely one of them. Before I finish up with closing comments on the film, I wanted to pay homage to the poster that caught my attention at Down's Video as a kid. I would go into this specific store which has two shelf aisl

Further thoughts of the film   I seem to complain about the Manfredini score, but with it so identifiable to the decade that is the 80s, it seems fitting for a slasher film like Slaughter High. When Caroline Munroe spends forever running from Mary throughout the whole damn school (the director gets a ton of mileage out of the location, as there isn’t a room, stairwell, or hall she doesn’t run through, down, or into), the score seems to fit it like a glove because every Friday the 13 th film has it. You know how characters make stupid decisions, and we always complain about it towards the screen. Munroe makes two critical doofus decisions that left me aghast. She has a bat, right? She takes a good two or three swings and drops the fucking bat right at his legs, walking away! And then, when Marty pursues her again, she has a javelin in her possession, and instead of using that to make sure he’s good and dead, she drops it down to him from a floor above! Dream logic is ofte

I was dwelling on what the first film for my Summer Slasher series would be, and I couldn't think of a better start than Slaughter High (1986). Right as the slasher genre was vomiting out the films right and left hoping to capitalize on the successes of the past, Slaughter High was just one of many. It has remained on the lips of slasher fans, though. You go through that check list, eventually a mark goes next to Slaughter High. I had forgotten how cruel the film is to Marty (Simon Scuddamore), the teenage "nerd" (he was almost thirty when he acted in this!). The teens who torment Marty might not have meant for the horror that eventually befalls the poor guy to happen exactly as it does, but they sure had their fair share of responsibility in it. The acid to the face and when he touches that hot pipe...Jeebuz! Asking us to believe the cast is a bunch of teenage cutups is requesting us to swallow a lot, but the opening sequence is primarily about fifteen or so min

While I think the film is merely okay (I have a write-up for the film forthcoming), I do think there’s some good stuff in “After Midnight” (1989). The preparation for the storytelling at the professor’s house, for example, is lit to exploit that old mainstay: the dark, stormy night. The thunder and lightning pick up, and soon the rain. The students gather at their rather creepy professor’s home to swap tales that bring a gulp to the throat (well, supposedly. I guess it all depends on whether or not this film’s tales will do that for you. Time will tell). The lighting is so that it hues faces and establishes the ominous confines of a man with a presence quite sinister. That’s the point of Jim and Ken Wheat’s casting of Ramy Zada. He is supposed to look and act like someone who could slit your throat and smile afterward. While I didn’t think much of Jillian McWhirter as the lead with a “bad feeling”, she does share this odd attachment with Zada th