Slash

The rising rock-n-roll band Slash faces terror when they go an isolated farm for the funeral of a relative of the lead singer. This film, written by Gus Silber and Stephen Ronald Francis and directed by Neal Sundstrom, thankfully manages to entertain as long as they keep the cast away from their musical instruments. (Why do all the bands in movies suck? Two notable exceptions: The Wonders in "That Thing You Do" and Stillwater from "Almost Famous." Tangent completed.) Granted, the relationships are completely overheated and unrealistic, and characters are constantly making choices only stupid people in horror movies make, but the movie kept me engaged throughout and even managed to inject some wry humor at the expense of traditional stereotypes. The production values are very good for what is essentially a straight to video picture, and Steve Railsback doesn't bring any everlasting shame upon his name for his performance. (I am such a fan of his performances in "Helter Skelter" and "The Stunt Man" that I almost didn't rent this movie. I hate the idea of him being reduced to making low budget films.) One of the most fascinating aspects of this film is that it is South African, but works very hard to convince you that it is an American movie – even to the point of importing American-style racial tensions. Personally, I would have preferred the film to have been set in South Africa and dealt with South African racial tensions. That would have made it more unique.

While in a tour with his rock band Slash, the lead singer Mac (James O'Shea) is informed that his aunt died and his family is expecting him in their farm, where he spent his childhood, for the funeral. The group travels in their bus and meets the weird patriarch and Mac's father Jeremiah (Steve Railsback). The local Billy Bob (Nick Boraine) tells about an old tradition called "harvest of blood" used to improve the harvest. Their bus has problems with the injector and they get stuck in the farm, while a serial killer chases each one of them to collect their blood.

"Slash" is a rip-off of many others similar slasher movies in a cornfield, with scarecrow, harvest and axes, but it is watchable. The story is predictable and has a huge flaw, when Mac uses a fake knife to stab his girlfriend. How could he know that the knife was false, if he had no contact with the owner? My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Slash – Rock do Terror" ("Slash – Rock of the Terror")

Rock band ends up stranded on the family farm of it's lead singer. So what's next? A fight to stay alive when a scarecrow-ish killer starts stalking!

While Slash may not look or sound like anything new, it does serve horror fans best by being a completely entertaining and fairly thrilling ride. It makes the best of it's country setting by being a bit reminiscent of such classic rural horror flicks as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Children of the Corn. Director Neal Sundstrom gives us a musty atmosphere of dread in the movie's nicely rustic filming locations.

At any rate, there's plenty to enjoy in this film. The story provides for enough good thrills and spills, along with some occasional bloodiness. The cast is pretty game, Railsback probably being the best as Mac's gruff father. But such unknown stars as O'Shea and Dukas prove that they are capable as well. There's also a fairly good rock soundtrack, after all, the movie IS named after the band.

Genre fans may find it a fun trip, while others will likely call it silly horror. Either way, it's a fun watch.

*** out of ****

When the beginning of the film came on,You see mac as a boy about seven In the barn and his dad is there doing the killings to woman.Mac sees this and he sets the barn on fire killing his grandpa jethro so he thinks

James O' Shea is charming,sexy and interesting to watch as he goes through so many emotions through out the film.We first see mac grown up with his band slash on stage at a club singing.He has a girlfriend suzi and best friends that he considers family.

Billy-BOB who works for macs dad comes to see him one night after their holly ween concert.In which they land a showcase with hetic records one week from that day. So they go to the farm and think they are just staying for ediths funeral but they get car trouble The van gets wrecked their wires get cut so on the farm for two more days.

I won't tell you the rest but It has many plot twists and secrets revealed.

Lets just say somethings are better left buried.

Rating: 1/2 out of ****

Behold, what we have here is quite likely the worst slasher flick of the new millennium (but not the worst horror film, as we can't forget Legion of the Dead). The unimaginatively titled Slash is a new display in complete and total incompetence, and it's about as poorly made as films get.

After dispensing with an obligatory black-and-white prologue, the film makes a quick segue to two teenagers (apparently a couple)driving to a party in the middle of nowhere. Showing off its ineptness from the start, the movie gets into its first stalk-and-slash sequence when the couple in the car swerve off the road to avoid hitting a CGI cow! They crash into a cornfield, with the girl seemingly unconscious and the boyfriend seeing this as an opportune moment to feel her up. Turns out she's faking unconsciousness, and is a lot less angry than one would think she ought to be for her boyfriend showing more concern for her boobs than her well-being.

Anyway, the boyfriend is quickly dispatched by a masked killer with a scythe, so the chick quickly runs to the nearest house, this whole chase accompanied by annoying pop rock music. She hides in a nearby barn, and proves to have nothing in the way of peripheral vision as she fails to notice the killer being right in front of her! The whole scene caps off with her begging for her life as he very slowly approaches her. For crying out loud, why not just run? And the sad part of it all is that despite how terrible this opening is, it boasts the only nice thing I can say about the movie; the chick being chased is pretty hot.

The rest of the movie focuses on a rock band, whose lead singer is called to the very same farm in the opening scene because his aunt's passed away. He hasn't seen his father (Steve Railsback) in fifteen years, so one can expect their reunion to be a little awkward. The rest of the band (one of whom brings his groupie, who's a tarot card reader, no less!) also tags along, doing little things like playing trivia games over how famous singers passed away to entertain themselves. No points for guessing the band will likely serve as fodder for the scythe-wielding killer.

The cast that composes the band is likely the most obnoxious group of protagonists ever assembled in a slasher. Among the lot of them, there's not a single redeemable factor to be found; they're loud, impatient, disrespectful at every turn (especially the token black guy), and they don't even seem to get along as a group, something you'd think would be vital in a rock band.

Director Neal Sundstrom is horribly incompetent in staging and filming scares, suspense, or humor. He gives certain scenes a strange color composition, sometimes desaturating the picture for no discernible reason. Any time the stalk-and-slash scenes look like they might just pay off, all the murders take place off-screen and are even sometimes filmed with annoyingly choppy slow motion. Sundstrom's idea of atmosphere is covering the locations with lots of fog, but all that does is give the impression we're watching a stage play.

The movie actually attempts to build some sort of mystery in regards to the identity of the killer by delivering obvious red herrings, but when the killer is later revealed, he's not even unmasked. The climax is moronic, with a few of the survivors deciding to hide themselves in a cellar that was revealed earlier to them to be the killer's hideout. The lead character also formulates a plan involving a prop knife, even though he had no way of knowing the weapon was a prop (to add further insult, the killer himself should have known it was a prop).

No question about it, Slash is a terrible movie at every turn. It takes a mildly promising slasher concept-which I hear was utilized to much better effect in Scarecrows-and comes up incredibly short in all aspects. I heard this was a South African production, which does help explain some of the cast trying to cover up their accents, but it only proves that filmmakers overseas take too much inspiration from America's own cheap and awful low-budget slashers.