"Slaughterhouse" -this film is a bizarre cross mash of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"(grimey meat packing settings, hillbilly vengeance) and teen romp aka "Flashdance" (teenagers goofing around in 80's montages, going to dance and doing pranks) but it somehow works. It's a damn fun movie -by far my favorite part (and it's attention to details like this that make the film work) is the sheer dedication to craft of being a meat butcher the evil dad character(Lester) had. It would have been exceedingly easy to paint him as corrupt, burn and run old coot, but they gave him pride and a purpose in his plan, and that really goes a long way -pages and pages of moments and dialogue, culminating in Lester noting how a butcher must "have a text book knowledge of anatomy, and the skilled hands of a surgeon"to make the right cut. Incredible -but, truly, the best part of his religious fervor for meat is his sheer aghast at the new kid meat packer, screaming at him about how he sells inferior goods; "you call yourself a butcher?!? 30% fat? You're clogging the arteries of the children!!" -as you might expect from the above, there is a good deal of humor in this film, but none of it comes at the cost of the suspense or the tone of the film. + some of it is pun heaven (it uses every variation of the word hog) but a lot of it is context; human hubris in the middle a situation where the characters want to be in control but can't -in truth this is one of those films where there is a fair amount of rambling. But it never comes as disconnected. It's the kind of filmmaking I admire, the ability to takes pauses and breaks from the main action, but never lose the importance of what is going on +a example scene would be where the giant hillbilly son (Buddy) kills a cop, puts on the much smaller man's clothes(ripping them in the process), then goes driving around in the police car like demolition derby, and killing the cop's secret lover. It firmly establishes what a lawless, small town it is, and the frightful homicidal glee Buddy partakes in, like the other killings -the killings are excellent, and the long row of bodies hang up like pigs near the end when the final girl is being attached is fantastic -I like the part about the final girl shooting a horror film, and the scenes her best friend and boyfriend trying on masks and playing around in the meat plant in the daylight is great -shadow puppets; always a good film trick -the use of locations, from casual Sunday lake pier, to the frayed fenced cylinder, is excellent -fantastic cut away from throat slicing to tomato dicing -the soundtrack for this film is totally jarring, the sleek 80's rock not really matching the more rural settings. It does help give the teem romp part of the film its own vibe though -that part at the beginning of the film with the actual slaughterhouse use and footage is stomach churning -I just realized this film has a total EC Comics vibe. It really works -there is little doubt the filmmakers had fun with this film, and it's throughly contagious to the audience
