Editorials
[It Came From the ’80s] Forgotten ‘Slaughterhouse Rock’ Plays Like a Demonic Music Video
With horror industry heavy hitters already in place from the 1970s, the 1980s built upon that with the rise of brilliant minds in makeup and effects artists, as well as advances in technology. Artists like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Tom Savini, Stan Winston, and countless other artists that delivered groundbreaking, mind-blowing practical effects that ushered in the pre-CGI Golden Age of Cinema. Which meant a glorious glut of creatures in horror. More than just a technical marvel, the creatures on display in ‘80s horror meant tangible texture that still holds up decades later. Grotesque slimy skin to brutal transformation sequences, there wasn’t anything the artists couldn’t create. It Came From the ‘80s is a series that will pay homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
The anything-goes era of practical effect driven movies, fueled even more by the home video boom, delivered all sorts of bizarre horror movies that wouldn’t get greenlit today. Sometimes that resulted in gems we cherish today, and sometimes that resulted in movies that slipped through the cracks and were forgotten. Often for the better. Weird prison horror film Slaughterhouse Rock belongs to the latter. Because it’s often far too easy to look back the decade’s horror with nostalgia-tinged rose-colored glasses, it’s worth examining some of the films that didn’t work. Slaughterhouse Rock breaks the mold for the typical prison horror formula, but it’s also a dated time capsule of horror that plays more like a music video than feature film.
After an extremely limited theatrical release in early 1988, Slaughterhouse Rock slipped into VHS obscurity for decades until Code Red released a Blu-ray just a few short years ago. As for plot, it opens with a montage of demonic madness that reels you in immediately, but it’s punctuated by the realization that it’s only a dream sequence for lead protagonist Alex Gardner. Alex is a college student who has been having reoccurring nightmares of people who have died at the hands of a deranged murderer that lived on Alcatraz Island long before it became home to a prison. Those dreams are beginning to seep into his waking life, so his occult teacher convince him that he must confront those dreams head on by going to the island. Once there, he and his friends become trapped, his brother possessed and rendered homicidal, and only Alex and a friendly ghost (played by pop star Toni Basil of “Mickey” fame) can stop the evil.
Sounds pretty entertaining, right? It’s a little bit A Nightmare on Elm Street and a little bit Night of the Demons (though Slaughterhouse Rock was released months earlier), but it’s a whole lot of ‘80s. I mean mullets, mustaches, and overall neon production design in pre-Alcatraz sections of the movie. A good chunk of the film’s music was done by Devo, and I should reiterate that Toni Basil was the most prominent member of the cast. She plays Sammy Mitchell, heavy metal singer of Bodybag and a ghost trapped on the island. She never sings in the movie; she dances. More than just a pop star, Basil was a prominent dancer and choreographer, which somehow made its way into the movie. When coaching Alex through astral projection, Sammy Mitchell does so through interpretive dance? It’s something.
Once the characters get to Alcatraz, the movie becomes very similar to Night of the Demons. In terms of plot it’s coincidental, but in terms of the look of the possessed that’s likely due to special makeup effects artist Bill Forsche (Critters, Dolls, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master). He worked on the special makeup effects for both Slaughterhouse Rock and Night of the Demons, in very close proximity to one another. But save for one super evil possessed brother, and one flashback centric bad guy, most of the monster fun is relegated to music video style montages and dream sequences. There are some fun deaths, at least.
Slaughterhouse Rock does hold comedic value, though, and does attempt to break the “executed prisoner returns from grave for revenge” tropes of typical prison horror. But it also relies on a lot of fog effects, not so great lighting (to be fair, there was no electricity available to the crew on Alcatraz), a bizarre dancing ghost, and relegating much of the horror to highlight reels over Devo’s soundtrack. In other words, it’s a kitchen sink approach to horror, merging all sorts of ideas, plots, and tropes that works in many other ‘80s horror films but not so successfully here.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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