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The Slayer Blu-Ray Review
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Cast:
*Sarah Kendall as Kay
*Frederick Flynn as Eric
*Carol Kottenbrook as Brooke
*Alan McRae as David
Story: Two young couples set off to a secluded island for what promises to be a restful retreat. But the peace is short-lived: as a storm batters the island, troubled artist Kay begins to sense that a malevolent presence is here with them, stalking them at every turn. Is she losing her mind, or are her childhood nightmares of a demonic assailant coming to terrifying life?
The marketing material for Arrow Video’s blu-ray release of The Slayer points out that the film plays the the concept of dreams vs. reality and predates A Nightmare on Elm Street by two years. While it’s true, there are themes here that Nightmare would explore to greater success, it’s also apparent when watching that there’s a reason Nightmare is remembered today and this isn’t.
The film follows a group of friends who go to an isolated island for a vacation. One of them, Kay, constantly has terrifying dreams of a monster that is hunting her and killing her friends. Eventually, they start dying one by one in real life while she happens to be sleeping. It could be her doing it, it could be that mysterious drifter or it could be the monster come to life. It plays like a mystery of sorts in that people are dying and no one knows who or why.
If you watch this movie expecting that mystery to be solved, it really isn’t. A monster does show up at the film’s climax, but that doesn’t really prove anything. Some may enjoy that level of ambiguity, in fact it’s considered by some to be one of the film’s strong suits. However, while the film tries to play fast and loose with the concept of reality, it also makes for a slog of a movie. We don’t really know what’s happening because in between the kills, not much is.
When a kill isn’t happening, we’re left with a group of well-off jerks who constantly bicker and don’t even seem to like each other. The heroine, Kay, is completely unlikable and never once comes off as sympathetic in spite of being haunted by terrible dreams. So naturally she’s the one we’re left with at the end and it makes things incredibly dull. What reason does the audience have to care about a character that is so hard to watch? Her companions aren’t much better, which makes their deaths somewhat satisfying.
Of course, their kills are also incredibly brief, a short sequence of suspense followed by an even shorter kill moment. This movie is a slasher, and yet it has kills so tame it would put even the strictest MPAA-edited Friday the 13th to shame. The special effects are actually decent most of the time, so it’s a shame that they’re so quickly dismissed in favor for more sniping and upset people. Even the titular monster is only shown for about ten to fifteen seconds! It’s frustrating and as the cast dwindles, we don’t even get dialogue to carry things. It was slow before but surprisingly enough as it gets closer to the climax it grinds to a halt. Even the finale is a oddly-paced chase sequence that only involves one person.
Outside of some good special effects and a decent score, The Slayer really doesn’t have a lot going for it. It’s a slasher movie with seemingly arthouse aspirations, but it doesn’t seem to accomplish anything that it’s trying to do. It’s not scary, it’s not interesting and it’s not something worth recommending.
Film: 3.0
Arrow Video presents The Slayer with a LPCM 2.0 audio track. It sounds good, especially with the score.
Audio: 7.0
The film is presented with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. It’s on par with the audio, as usual, and it allows the special effects (the best part of the movie) to really pop.
Video: 7.0
Special Features
Nightmare Island: The Making of The Slayer: An hour-long making of featurette looking at the entire production of the film, the story ideas and the problems during filming. It features interviews with several of the people involved and goes into everything from casting to special effects. A fun watch for movie buffs.
Return to Tybee: The Locations of The Slayer: This is similar to the “Horror’s Hallowed Grounds” segments that Scream Factory uses. It’s the various locations of the movie, one of which became the Tybee Post Theater, seen in the next featurette.
The Tybee Post Theater Experience: A brief introduction of the film before it was screened to fans in the town where it was filmed. You also get a nearly-twenty minute Q&A with the talent involved.
You also get a still gallery, a trailer and an isolated score. There are also two audio commentaries. The first is with direct J.S. Cardone, Eric Weston and Carol Kottenbrook. The second is with the podcast The Hysteria Continues. As always, the commentary with the people involved is always the better one. Finally, you can watch the film with an audience track from the Tybee Post Theater screening.
There’s a lot here if you do enjoy the film, as not every movie comes with an isolated score (although most should, as a rule) or an audience track. The documentaries total are feature-length, so it’s basically two movies for the price of one.
Special Features: 7.0
