FROM THE ORIGINAL CINEMASTERS ARCHIVE
Slotherhouse
I think it probably stands to reason from the title of this movie that it’s not a good one. I can personally vouch for this. It’s a genuinely stupid and horrible movie. The problem I’m finding myself dealing with at the moment is how exactly to account for this. I don’t believe this movie necessarily intended to be a good movie and just missed the mark. It is listed as a horror comedy after all. But that’s one of those things where I have to beg the question of whether or not the comedy is intended to be in the content itself or in the fact that the movie is just bad all around. I feel like it’s supposed to be the former and not the latter. For instance, Shaun of the Dead is probably the quintessential horror comedy. The comedy comes in the form of traditional comedy. The movie itself is funny. It’s still a horror movie. There’s real zombies and real danger. There are even moments where the film is downright scary. But the funny part of the movie is not that you laugh at how stupid the movie is presented. It’s in the jokes. It’s in the satire. This movie is not the same. At least not in my estimation. It’s not a funny movie because it legitimately makes you laugh. And if it intended to be some kind of parody or satire, it’s not directly explicit. I think that’s why the movie falls apart the way that it does. It’s a movie that’s meant to be scary and it’s meant to be funny but it’s neither in the way it means to be. It’s scary how someone allowed this movie to be made and it’s funny that I wasted the time watching it.
Slotherhouse IMDb
At this point I’ve entertained a handful of horror comedies in my 31 Days of Horror and I’ve seen plenty more in the past. One of the things that is a bit of a phenomenon is a movie like Killer Klowns from Outer Space. I can see how a movie like that would somewhat present itself similarly to a film like Slotherhouse. At the time Killer Klowns might just be a ridiculous movie that’s meant to play off people’s fear of clowns in a budgetary capacity. Decades later the film finds itself ensconced in cult classic status which makes it a horror comedy that everyone finds endearing now just not then. I do not feel that Slotherhouse will find itself in that same class years from now. In fact, I can’t imagine anyone will even be talking about this film years from now. Actually, I don’t think anyone is talking about this movie now when I really think about it. I might be part of a very small collective that has actually sat down and wasted the time on this film. Fortunately I loosely paid attention to it and was able to catch up several of my other entries in the 31 Days of Horror while I was watching the film.
I don’t even know how to break down the film. It’s a movie about a sloth that kills girls in a sorority house. There’s even a moment towards the end of the movie where one of the characters actually uses the word “Slotherhouse” in a scene where even the characters in the film groan at how cheesy that is. Only it doesn’t really hit as a meta joke. It just confirms that the last 90 minutes have been a huge waste of your time and the movie is simply pointing this fact out to you. I honestly don’t think there’s a legitimate joke that hits in the entire film. I don’t know that there was a real moment of the film that was any kind of actual entertainment. It really was just a movie to put on to pass time. Truthfully I did have some degree of intention of watching this movie before it debuted on Hulu. I had seen it online in it’s blu ray format and while I was not interested in actually purchasing it, it was a movie that made me some kind of curious. I knew it wouldn’t be a good movie but I thought it might be fun. Maybe it might be a little silly. But it looked some kind of fun. Now that I’ve watched it, I can’t say that it’s really worth anything. I’ve watched really bad horror movies before. I’ve seen Terror Toons. I’ve watched Gingerdead Man. I’ve seen genuinely stupid horror movies that were still some kind of fun while they were otherwise unwatchable. There just wasn’t anything about this movie that felt like it had any redeeming qualities. To call it filler is demeaning to filler. This is just a bad stupid movie that isn’t funny and not worth your time. I don’t need to keep beating around the bush. It’s another 1 out of 10. I don’t need to go over the plot. I don’t need to list the scenes I liked. There’s nothing about this movie that was really enjoyable. It just shouldn’t be watched. Don’t waste your time. That’s my recommendation. Even if you want to watch some bad horror movie. Go find a better bad horror you won’t be entertained in any way, ever, at all by this movie. So on that note we will conclude our broadcast day. Until the next time, I’ll catch you on the flip side.