All Rise...

Here's what Judge David Johnson has to say about this film: Yes, there is a party, and some people do get slaughtered. Beyond that you're better off looking the other way and using your time more wisely. Go read a book. Or run for a position on your local school board. Or yodel for 90 minutes.

The Charge

When midgets attack.

Opening Statement

Slaughter Party wears its Troma pedigree proudly: semi-attractive women running around in bikinis and taking showers, lots of bodily fluid pumped from gaping wounds, piss-poor camerawork, and a script that could have been written in between lay-up lines at your local junior high school boys basketball practice.

Facts of the Case

Three idiot friends decide to go to a supposedly haunted cave one day and see if there really is an oft-rumored killer on the loose. One of the friends, a little person (Mighty Mike Murga) lags behind and is captured by a blood-soaked wacko known only as the Mad Doctor (Ford Austin). The lunatic promptly dispatches the other two guys through repeat stabbings and eviscerations, then proceeds to anally rape the incapacitated dwarf. Yep, this is definitely a Troma movie.

Now our poor, abused little person has become permanently damaged psychologically, and transforms into a murderous knife-wielding, ankle-biting, madman. He soon kicks off his killing spree by tracking down oblivious blondes and jabbing his knife into their backs.

Hunting him down are two detectives, one of whom (porn director Seymore Butts) appears to use performance grade Valvoline as a hair styling product. Their investigation takes them to the same haunted cave system that we saw in the beginning of the movie, except this time there's a twist: a group of moronic girls have decided that this acrid, sandy landscape just off the side of the highway would be a great place to have a bikini party.

With the Mad Doctor still on the loose and the diminutive murderer stalking the girls, you can be assured blood will spill and at least a couple of breasts will be revealed.

The Evidence

Slaughter Party is an intensely horrible way to spend 78 minutes. Folks, this is garden shears-to-the-ear-lobes painful. Because it's a Troma release, that should lessen some of the suspense sight unseen. You know there will be crude and often unfunny humor, tasteless gags, lots of blood and gore effects, and at least a moderate amount of female skin. The fact that it's also an internal hemorrhage of a film shouldn't be that huge a surprise either.

Slaughter Party is shot in a digital format, part of Troma's new distribution initiatives to empower independent filmmakers. And while that's certainly all well and good, if Slaughter Party is a harbinger of what's to be vomited forth by this new endeavor, I shudder to think of what's currently in the production pipeline.

From top to way, way, way bottom, this movie is an amateurish attempt at shock schlock. Camera shots are awkward and too close, the acting is pathetic (Mr. Butts is advised to stick with the fluid-based performances), the gore effects are messy but uninspired, and the story is ham-fisted and ludicrous. Even the presence of Felissa Rose, the girl who played "Angela" in the cult hit Sleepaway Camp (an obvious nod to horror fans out there), fails to distinguish this film from anything other than a tired, inane horror retread.

It is, however, flush with many instances of laugh-out-loud stupidity, often found in Z-grade flicks like these. First there's the pointless bikini party. Do girls actually do this, clad themselves in thongs and two-pieces and sit on the side of the road talking about the size of their boyfriend's genitals? Apparently they do. Or how about when Felissa Rose's character is abducted by the Mad Doctor and brought into his mysterious cave, which happens to have drywall conveniently erected? Yeah, dumb as hell.

Look despite how hard director Buck Jones Jr. tried to make Slaughter Party as shocking and trashy as possible (not only does the crazy-ass dwarf stab his victims to death, he also has sex with them after they're dead! Wow! That's shocking and trashy!), the end result is a stupid waste of time sporting only nanoseconds of actual entertainment.

The digital source of the film translates into a decent-looking picture, though it still retains that low-grade, home-video feel. Lots of "Tromatic" extras on this disc: an annoying commentary track with star Ford Austin as the Mad Doctor, an interview with Seymore Butts (a.k.a. Adam Glasser), a Comedy Central spot, a look at the Troma original Poultrygeist (which I'm actually looking forward to), and few more trailers.

Closing Statement

Yes, Troma movies are usually pretty awful, but the memorable ones have at least one trait in common: they can be pretty fun. Sadly, Slaughter Party is neither fun nor memorable and should be avoided like the bird flu.

The Verdict

Guilty. The accused is locked in a suitcase and place-kicked into a commercial airliner's turbine.

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