Slaughter Day — Slaughter Day(Blu Ray)

Slaughter Day is a manically paced early 1990’s Shot-on-video film. It blends together elements of limb-hacking gore, demonic shenanigans, rapid fighting, and dizzying action sequences.  Here from Visual Vengeance- the savouries of SOV/ ultra-low budget genre fare is a new Blu-Ray release of this lesser-seen SOV film- with a nice selection of bonus features.
 

Slaughter Day is a rural Hawaiian filmed and based SOV- it was made in the year 1991. And directed/ co-written by Brent Cousins, who has one other feature-length film to his name Low budget zombie film Rising Dead (2007). 

The film focuses on two twenty-something building contractors, who have employed a long shaggy haired labour who has a thing for H. R. Giger's Necronomicon- as he constantly reading it on the job. One day when working on doing up an isolated cabin- the labouring seems to have snapped, as he’s hacked off one of his work buddies' hand.

As the just-under-hour-long film unfolds- we find out that said labourer can seemingly jump from location to location, and through time by pressing a gas mask to his face. Oh, and he was possessed by some sort of demonic spirit from Mr Giger's Necronomicon. The film rushes by at a breakneck pace- as limbs and heads are lopped off, and sometimes stuck back on again. With hanging off the back of picking up and speeding by action sequences, blended with plenty of manic fighting.
 
The effects/ gore really is highly impressive, and at times very cleverly executed- as arms, legs, and heads our chopped off with the bodies still sometimes violently moving. The acting, by SOV standards, is not bad- with the two limb-hacking and arse-kicking contracting buddies being charming enough. The film is a little bit too manic for its own good- and this is intensified by the wonky, at times very ham-fisted soundtrack which rapidly shifts between electronic drums ‘n’ synths, guitar music, and even a few rather amateurish-sounding rock tracks. On the whole Slaughter Day is a rapid and at times deranged mix of demonic gore-bound horror and action- yes Evil Dead is certainly a huge influence here, but there is enough original/ quirky to make the film stand out in its own right, aside from another low budget rip off of Sam Raimi’s 1981’s The Evil Dead.

 

Moving onto this new region free Blu Ray, and as we’ve come to expect with the folks at Visual Vengeance we get a good selection of extras. First off, we get two commentary tracks- the first is with director/co-writer Brent and the other co-writer Blake Cousin. And the second is with Matt Desiderio whose one of the actors in the film and Rob Hauschild of Visual Vengeance. I played the first of the tracks- and this is a most informative/ entertaining track, as the pair discuss everything from how/ why the film came about, locations, shot set-ups and cameras used. Moving onto near misshapes with effects, creating the stunts with little or no safety protocol, the soundtrack, and much more.
Next, we get a recent eight-minute on-camera interview with Brent and Blake. Three of their early Slaughter Day shorts, which lead to the future feature-length film- these each lasted between ten and thirteen minutes.  There’s an early eight-minute short called Full Metal Platoon, and trailers for the film to hand and the pairs other films. 
 
With the Blu Ray coming with a slip sleeve featuring new artwork. And inside we find a folded mini-poster, four-page liner notes by Tony Strauss of Weng's Chop magazine ‘. Stick your own' video store sticker sheet, and a reversible sleeve with the original VHS art.
 

So,  here we have another great release of a lesser-known/ or seen SOV film from the folks at Visual Vengeance.  One for those who enjoy often manic mixes of gore, fighting, and action on a budget less than a shoestring,