I wouldn’t exactly call all three of these slashers, even though there’s hacking and slashing in each one. It’s everything else going on in between the kills that kept me watching: werewolves, witches, ghosts, gut aliens, violent new wave band members…
SLICE (2018)
When a horror comedy starring Chance the Rapper hits Prime, it’s added to my watchlist and watched the same day.
With a perfectly goofy premise, Slice had me expecting something better than I got. There are just minor blips of great humor, resulting in an uneven comedy that doesn’t sustain its entertainment value. The film also dances around its horror theme for a majority of the running time before at last delving into it during the final battle.
The opening scene stars the director as a heavy metal pizza delivery dude. Dare I say it’s a killer opening that segues right into my favorite type of intro credits—animation set to old school “spooky” horror music.
The odd plot involves a group of friends at the pizza parlor setting out to find out who killed the pizza guy. Thing is, in their town mortals and ghosts co-exist…so some of the friends are dead.
Meanwhile, cops on the case believe the killer is a werewolf that just rode into town on a motorcycle: Chance the Rapper.
There’s a whole lot of talk and very little humor that worked for me. My favorite parts are the ones in which Chance appears. He gets all the good scenes. If only there had been even more good material for him to deliver.
By the end, witches are thrown into the mix and there are even some cheesy fun supernatural battle effects right out of the 80s. Unfortunately, Chance’s transformation into a werewolf (finally) isn’t one of them.
HALLOWEEN MIND MASSACRE (2018)
This 64-minute movie is as home-brewed as it gets, with cheesy 80s special effects, loads of 80s lighting, an 80s style score, food coming to life in stop motion, and a totally bizarre storyline. What I’m saying is, I couldn’t help but watch.
A white trash hitman who seems to battle people that come back from the dead (yes, quite a bit of Evil Dead love here) gets taken over by a little alien slug creature that slips into him through his belly button.
We get interior shots of the alien inside him as it tells him what to do…which is to go out and kill people on Halloween. We do get a brief but festive Halloween montage scene of trick or treaters.
Meanwhile, there’s another dude across town who performs an occult ritual and summons a demon. Pretty soon, the bizarre worlds of the two men will collide, and there’s even a mad scientist thrown in just for the fuck of it.
It’s so oddly entertaining and I can’t help but admire the dedication of everyone involved in wanting to make a movie and just going for it. I’m not saying you should watch this film, but I couldn’t stop.
PSYCHOTIC! (2016)
A film about a bunch of potheads partying in an apartment while jamming and fighting over who gets to stay in their band, this bizarre slasher will make you feel like you’re stoned and hanging out with them.
The opening killer POV scene totally sets up not only an intriguing situation, but a vibe that is both 80s slasher and 80s Euro horror all at once.
While there’s a lot of disorienting filler here (it’s 42 minutes before the second kill after the opener), I just got completely sucked in by the vibe and the whole “what the fuck is going on” of it all.
The film is drenched in neon light, the score is perfectly 80s, the killer’s mask is freaky, the kills are brutal—and often reminiscent of Argento’s style—and the practical effects are gory good.
I’d definitely like to add this one to my collection if it hits DVD. My only complaint about the film is that one guy in the band wrote this kickass new wave song that gets sung by several different people in stoned stupors throughout the movie, and none of them can sing. I was really expecting the closing credits to have a studio version of the song being performed by an actual band, but it never happens.
