Slaughterhouse begins promising enough. Right off the bat, you get stupid teens doing stupid teen things in the middle of nowhere. A couple of the kids split off to go get themselves killed in the woods. You don’t see much, but it is, after all, only the introductory killin’. It’s enough to make the audience believe (or hope) each money shot will top the last. The cold opening smash-cuts to its credits, which overlay actual footage from a real-life slaughterhouse. This disgusting scene is scored to silly music. It’s at this point you think the movie could very well be a decent dark comedy.
So the killer of the film is Buddy, a giant of a man who doesn’t bother wearing a proper mask until the end of the movie. He’s the dimwitted son of Lester Bacon, an old farmer whose house is being foreclosed. Lester isn’t just aware of Buddy’s killing spree, he encourages it.
The teenagers in the film have nothing to offer other than the promise of deaths. They’re under no threat until the end, when their pointless subplot finally crosses paths with Buddy. In the meantime, Buddy kills the town deputy, dons his uniform, and goes for a joyride in the film’s funnest scene. If only the rest of the movie were so good.
Other than the teen stuff, Slaughterhouse isn’t a maddeningly slow movie. There’s decent acting, dialogue, and an oddly effective pace. You hold out hope the opening set the bar low in order to top itself. It never really does, at least in no spectacular fashion. Yet it’s still kind of likable for reasons that escape me. I guess I just like the concept of Buddy.
I will complain that the final kill shows even less than the first kill did. What a cheat.
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