Slasher House is a 2012 British horror film from Mycho, an independent production studio
in south east England specialising in music videos and horror, and
directed by Mj Dixon (who after watching the film I found out is from
my home town, very cool).
So right off the bat you'll notice the
interesting colour choice for the film, baring flashbacks most the
film has a green tint, with the only exception been the colour red,
at first this can be a little odd and I thought I might get sick of
it but I never did, as everyone knows green and red compliment each
other and it adds to the strangeness of the situation our characters find
themselves in. We start off with a character, known at this point
only as Red (Eleanor
James), waking up naked in a prison cell, the
building seems deserted as no one replies when she calls out, clothes
have been left for her in the room. She attempts to crowbar her cell
door open with a pice of pipe to no
avail, but soon a siren calls out and a red light flashes as her door
opens.
Exploring the abandoned prison she
finds a fridge with an ice pick and beer, taking the ice pick and
drinking a
beer she continues to explore before finding another locked cell and
within a frighted young man named Nathan (Adam
Dillon).
After determining that neither knows what's really going on here she
explored further and finds another prisoner, my personal favourite
character in the film Charlie
Corben (Wellington
Grosvenor),
who stands in his cell, never letting his full face be seen and hints
that he might know what is going on but only offers Red half truths
and riddles. Soon the siren goes off again and Cleaver, the creepy
clown from the DVD cover shows up, armed with a meat cleaver he
starts to chase Red through the prison until she hits a dead end in
the medical wing. After a skirmish it becomes clear that Cleaver
will not listen to any reason and is determined to kill her, and it
looks like he just might but at the last second Nathan runs in and
stabs him in the back killing him. Now Red and Nathan are together
to try and find a way out and fight their way through the other
prisoners as they are released and it becomes all too clear that this
is a house of killers.
I
don't want to give any more away as this film has some decent twists,
one unwrapping after the other as the film builds to its climax.
The
killers themselves fill different archetypes, the giant powerhouse,
the crazy psychotic and the sophisticated intellectual, Charlie
Corben fills the latter category and I must say the scenes where he
is giving Red and Nathan half answers from behind the bars of his
cell are great, reminding me somewhat of Hannibal Lecter playing his
games with Clarice Starling. The film also hints at a larger world
of crazy killers that are as much super villain as they are slasher
villain, there are hints at supernatural powers and even technology
you expect a mad scientist to have, all this just adds to the world
the film is hinting lies beyond the walls of the prison.
I
really enjoyed this film, was it perfect? No, what film is but I
certainly had a good time, Red is a very likeable lead and played
wonderfully by Eleanor James, a young woman who has made quite a name
for herself in independent horror films over the last ten years. The
various killers are great two, following their archetypes while still
feel uniques and interesting, each given a brief flashback that though short go a long way to flesh out the characters. Building on the films universe Cleaver
and Thorn (played in this film by Alex Grimshaw) have their own spin off films, Legacy of
Thorn is out now and Cleaver Rise of the Killer Clown is due for
release October 2015, and a sequel to Slasher House is in the works.
I will be checking out all these films as soon as I can.
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