SLASH (2002)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: Struggling band (stop me if you heard this) gets stranded on the lead singer’s father’s farm while a scythe-wielding masked killer stalks them.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• I’m hoping this has to do with Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash but I’m sure he has less important things to do.
• This barn has a room with 4-5 cadavers in it. A young boy is snooping on the guy bringing in the stiffs as if he never knew of this room existing. Despite it being in a barn. The man is also appalled that the boy discovered his secret out of an open barn room full of bodies.
• Enter two dopey kids driving fast in the country to a Halloween party. The guy driving is wearing some sort of cheap knock-off Ghostface mask and the girl says she’s dressed as Sheena Queen of the Jungle. I am really shocked that this chick actually knows of the 1984 Tanya Roberts adventure flick.
• The two idiots in the speeding car nearly hit a cow in the road and crash the car into a wheat or corn field. The guy actually grabs the breast of the seemingly unconscious girl until she stops her playful ruse of being hurt. Man oh man, they could’ve died and they’re both screwing around.
• McDonald’s farm. Cute. Not really. Fuck. Me.
• The band’s name is Slash? I know it’s a fictional movie band but I think Mr. Saul Hudson should contact a lawyer.
• So the band went on stage at this hole-in-the-wall club without their other guitarist? He’s still banging his girlfriend backstage. Was he banging her before the band went on stage?! Why would the band go on without him? This makes zero sense.
• The crowd looks fucking thrilled. They are as entranced by the soothing sounds of Slash as I am.
• “What a bunch of useless zombies.” Is what Bassist Susie says of the audience. Maybe if you didn’t suck like an airplane toilet they’d be more interested.
• Not a good sign that there’s a Creed poster hanging up on the wall. Or maybe it is.
• The band sound like the kind of band that would appear in a low budget horror movie about a killer on a farm. In other words, just like Nickelback.
• Some yokel interrupts the band after the gig to tell lead singer/guitarist Mac that his aunt just died. Couldn’t he call him instead of drive out so far to give him a note from his father. And how did he find him at this club?
• “The funeral’s tomorrow…on the farm.” Do they really bury people on farms?
• Other posters on the wall include Coldplay, System of a Down and Hootie and the motherfucking Blowfish! 
• Lead singer of the group inherits a farm. Hilarity and terror ensue.
• The band is playing a trivia game all about famous musicians demises. At least they debunked the idiot for thinking Mama Cass choked on a ham sandwich.
• The background music sounds like Macy Gray or some soft rock easy listening bullshit. It does not fit the band’s style at all.
• Railsback plays Jeremiah, Mac’s father, and as a joke when they meet for the first time in many years, he threatens Mac with a rifle saying he had a lot of nerve trespassing on the farm. Not sick and twisted at all right?

Steve Rails-back to the unemployment line.

• Can I just mention how much I can’t stand Steve Railsback.
• The corpse of the aunt is laying on what looks like the dining room table. In a close-up of her you can see her breathing. Is it too late to review something else? Can I watch Rocktober Blood again for old-time’s sake?
• The reverend conducting the funeral services is also the county sheriff. Is he also the postman?
• After toasting to the farm (they already toasted to the dead aunt and to Mac so what’s one more toast right?) the guitarist and keyboardist start singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm and Railsback smashes his glass with his fist. He must really hate that song. Maybe he wrote it years ago and never copyrighted it and now it’s a childrens’ classic.
• If Railsback says “I’m just yanking yer chain” one more time, I’m gonna yank a chain around my neck.
• The token black guy is complaining about sleeping on a couch when the band has a huge tour bus outside the house. Speaking of, how did this unsigned club band get a tour bus?!
• Susie is seducing Mac while he’s resting in his dead crazy grandfather’s old room and she says, “Think of it as a threesome, me, you and Jethro.” Ewwwwwww.
• The farmhand’s name is Billy Bob and the lead singer’s grandfather was named Jethro and his father is Jeremiah. A lot of thought went into the naming of these farm characters.
• Keith the keyboardist, who happens to be African-American, quickly draws a pistol on the annoying crowing rooster that woke him up. Keith is the “tough guy” of the band, despite him being the keyboardist. Think of any keyboardist in any band. Now imagine he/she shooting a gun. Yeah, it’s ridiculous.
• Jeremiah just cock-blocked his own son getting it on with Susie in the barn. Susie made a rather clever double-entrendre about the safety of cocks around the farm.
• Ooh! One of the girlfriend’s of the group is a tarot card reader. No good horror movie is without one of those around.

Will someone please pass the plot of the film?

• Does anyone in this band like each other? They are constantly insulting or belittling each other.
• I just realized that the entrance doors to the band’s tour bus opens on the left side. I just looked up the filming location of this film and it’s filmed in South Africa of all places. Go figure. 85% of the films we watched this month were Canadian but the one you’d think would be most Canadian being on a farm is set in Africa. What a topsy-turvy world we live in.
• I never really got to introduce to you Carl. Carl is either a roadie, groupie, toadie or driver. He’s obsessed with his video camera and is a huge pervert; filming the members of the band having sex and getting close-ups of Susie’s tush. The band knows this and they still keep him around. He drives the bus and that’s the only thing he’s good for so far. And the band treats him like garbage, harassing him and bossing him around every chance they get. He looks like a weasel too. 
• So of course when the band wants to hit the road back the bus breaks down a few miles away and they force Carl out to get help while they wait on the side of the road. While they wait there’s this awful hip-hop song playing in the background. Why so many awful musical genre’s in this flick?
• Jesus Jones! I’m not even half-way through with this turd yet?!
• Steve Railsback can’t chop wood for shit.
• There’s already been two pointless scenes of Billy Bob out-doing and showing off in spite of Keith. First he shows that he’s an adequate marksman with Keith’s gun (Keith missed all three cans at a few yards way) and now Billy Bob shows off his musical prowess on the keys and tells Keith he was a beat and half off while they were rehearsing. Does all this mean anything?!
• I want to mention how much they stereotyped the black guy. He loves his sneakers, he’s violent, he’s the only band member to carry a gun and cusses a lot and he really loves his sneakers. He actually threatens peoples’ lives over them.
• “I did not come here to kick it with the cows and chickens and drink moonshine with Johnny Cash and Johnny Cash Jr.” I don’t think they know anything about Johnny Cash and how fucking cool he was. I would drink the moonshine out of Johnny Cash’s dirty boots if I had the chance.
• Now Keith is leaving and just taking Billy Bob’s dirt bike? What a dick.
• “There goes our record deal.” Just because your keyboardist left doesn’t mean you won’t get a record contract.
• They should just hire Billy Bob as new keyboardist. He seems to have the knack.
• “You should’ve asked the Wizard for some brains asshole!” That’s one lame quip. But how on earth did the scarecrow killer take the bullets out of his gun? He was holding the pistol the whole time.
• I really really want to rewatch Dark Night of the Scarecrow now.
• Why and how does the guitarist know about Aztecs and how they used manure? Where are they going with this?

Here Scarecrow, want to play ball?

• “Somebody Jimi Hendrix’ed my ax!” So says the guitarist when he finds his guitar ruined from the fight between Carl and the scarecrow killer. I don’t think they know anything about Jimi Hendrix either. I’m not quite sure what he meant by they Jimi Hendrix’ed my ax. Hendrix famously burned his Stratocaster on stage. I think he meant Pete Townshend, who was notorious for smashing his guitars on stage. Man, this movie is stupid.
• So the girls found Carl’s video camera and see some footage of the scarecrow killer disposing Carl’s body from the night before. But they never attempt to rewind more of the tape to maybe see more proof or incriminating evidence. That would be the first thing I would do. And then go show someone else, not investigate the killer’s secret basement all by myself.
• “That basement hasn’t been used there in years. Slaves used to hide there before the Civil War.” So that basement hasn’t been used for over 150 years? Or did Jeremiah just want to throw out that little bit of trivia while the band pondered who killed Carl and Keith?
• Why did Billy Bob load Keith’s gun with bullets only to leave it laying on the kitchen table? Not that I care but our heroes suspect Billy Bob as the killer and clearly they’re stupid for thinking he’s the one who cut the phone lines and left the gun. Never really thinking that he may be dead somewhere too.
• I see the drummer kid graduated from the Prometheus School of Running Away From Things when he’s being chases by the farm thresher.
• But then again, we have a very nice thresher death as a result. Thanks drummer boy.
• Susie, thinking the moving scarecrow is the killer, stabs it and realizes moments later that it’s Billy Bob. But my question is, whomever the killer really is, it’s most likely someone who is associated with the farm or the very least, the county and knows Billy Bob. Why is he used as a pawn in this killer’s scheme? This makes no sense.
• Mac fools his father and the scarecrow killer (who’s Jethro—no surprise there) by pretending to kill Susie and then throwing moonshine at them and igniting them on fire. When Mac and Susie run out of the barn as it’s exploding (as all barns are ought to do), the cops as well as the fire department are already there. So they believed the guitarist’s claims that there’s a crazy Scarecrow Killer that easily? And why did they assume the fire department would be needed.
• A fucking Train poster. It’s as if this movie knows all my least favorite bands and hung up their posters.
• Months later the band has hit it big with a new single called “MacDonald’s Farm.” Not a horrible song but in the chorus they actually sing “E-I-E-I-O.”
• Holy shitballs, Billy Bob survived the stabbing and is actually the new keyboardist. Suck me sideways.
• Was killing the realtor for the farm strictly a symbolic gesture? It’s not like the realty company or bank won’t still try to sell the farm now.
• Will there be a “Slash Returns” now that Jeremiah is continuing his daddy’s dirty deeds? Not bloody likely.

Scare Volume: Unless you have a fear of farms or scarecrows then this movie will not keep you up at night. I was more frightened at the Scarecrow in Return to Oz than anything in this film.

Gore Volume: Very lame horror movie, especially in the ‘ol blood n’ guts department. 

Nudity Volume: There will still be more skin exposed in the latest “non-nude” Playboy next month.

Best Scene: Because I hated Keith’s character so much it was great to see him get a scythed to death. Runner-up would have to be the thresher killing the drummer.

Worst Scene: Any scene with Steve Railsback. But the funeral scene is easily the worst scene in this movie. It was so awful I didn’t even write about it in my observations.

How ’bout the Tunes: The band only played 2 songs and they were mediocre KROQ alternative metal. 

Band Rating: Slash ain’t winning any battle of the bands anytime soon. Lick My Love Pump.

Overall: If I would have to say anything nice about this movie it would be that it’s competent. It was filmed fine, paced fine and even the acting was OK. It was competently made but just way too boring, tedious and unimaginative. I was checking my watch for sure many times and was hoping something interesting would happen. I really just don’t know what else to say about this one folks. It didn’t make me want to Slash my wrists or anything but maybe just Slash the tire of the director. If you have only seen like a handful of slasher flicks in your young life than maybe this would be worth your time. Otherwise, move along.

Score: 4 Chains Yanked (out of 10)