With horror industry heavy hitters already in place from the 1970s, the 1980s built upon that with the rise of brilliant minds in makeup and effects artists, as well as advances in technology. Artists like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Tom Savini, Stan Winston, and countless other artists that delivered groundbreaking, mind-blowing practical effects that ushered in the pre-CGI Golden Age of Cinema. Which meant a glorious glut of creatures in horror. More than just a technical marvel, the creatures on display in ‘80s horror meant tangible texture that still holds up decades later. Grotesque slimy skin to brutal transformation sequences, there wasn’t anything the artists couldn’t create. It Came From the ‘80s is a series that will pay homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
The anything-goes era of practical effect driven movies, fueled even more by the home video boom, delivered all sorts of bizarre horror movies that wouldn’t get greenlit today. Sometimes that resulted in gems we cherish today, and sometimes that resulted in movies that slipped through the cracks and were forgotten. Often for the better. Weird prison horror film Slaughterhouse Rock belongs to the latter. Because it’s often far too easy to look back the decade’s horror with nostalgia-tinged rose-colored glasses, it’s worth examining some of the films that didn’t work. Slaughterhouse Rock breaks the mold for the typical prison horror formula, but it’s also a dated time capsule of horror that plays more like a music video than feature film.
After an extremely limited theatrical release in early 1988, Slaughterhouse Rock slipped into VHS obscurity for decades until Code Red released a Blu-ray just a few short years ago. As for plot, it opens with a montage of demonic madness that reels you in immediately, but it’s punctuated by the realization that it’s only a dream sequence for lead protagonist Alex Gardner. Alex is a college student who has been having reoccurring nightmares of people who have died at the hands of a deranged murderer that lived on Alcatraz Island long before it became home to a prison. Those dreams are beginning to seep into his waking life, so his occult teacher convince him that he must confront those dreams head on by going to the island. Once there, he and his friends become trapped, his brother possessed and rendered homicidal, and only Alex and a friendly ghost (played by pop star Toni Basil of “Mickey” fame) can stop the evil.
Sounds pretty entertaining, right? It’s a little bit A Nightmare on Elm Street and a little bit Night of the Demons (though Slaughterhouse Rock was released months earlier), but it’s a whole lot of ‘80s. I mean mullets, mustaches, and overall neon production design in pre-Alcatraz sections of the movie. A good chunk of the film’s music was done by Devo, and I should reiterate that Toni Basil was the most prominent member of the cast. She plays Sammy Mitchell, heavy metal singer of Bodybag and a ghost trapped on the island. She never sings in the movie; she dances. More than just a pop star, Basil was a prominent dancer and choreographer, which somehow made its way into the movie. When coaching Alex through astral projection, Sammy Mitchell does so through interpretive dance? It’s something.
Once the characters get to Alcatraz, the movie becomes very similar to Night of the Demons. In terms of plot it’s coincidental, but in terms of the look of the possessed that’s likely due to special makeup effects artist Bill Forsche (Critters, Dolls, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master). He worked on the special makeup effects for both Slaughterhouse Rock and Night of the Demons, in very close proximity to one another. But save for one super evil possessed brother, and one flashback centric bad guy, most of the monster fun is relegated to music video style montages and dream sequences. There are some fun deaths, at least.
Slaughterhouse Rock does hold comedic value, though, and does attempt to break the “executed prisoner returns from grave for revenge” tropes of typical prison horror. But it also relies on a lot of fog effects, not so great lighting (to be fair, there was no electricity available to the crew on Alcatraz), a bizarre dancing ghost, and relegating much of the horror to highlight reels over Devo’s soundtrack. In other words, it’s a kitchen sink approach to horror, merging all sorts of ideas, plots, and tropes that works in many other ‘80s horror films but not so successfully here.