SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK   
1987, First American Film Capital/Arista Films

DIRECTOR:  Dimitri Logothetis   PRODUCER:   Louis George   

STARRING:  Nicholas Celozzi,   Tom Reilly,    Donna Denton,  Hope Marie Carlton,    Tamara Hyler,    Steve Brian Smith,    Ty Miller,   Toni Basil		   


The members of the rock band "Body Bag" have been murdered during a tour of Alcatraz, all apparently done in by the band's lead singer, Sammi Mitchell.   Afterward, Sammi hung herself, and all of this is thought to be the result of a drug-induced rage.   The only thing is, college student Alex is having nightmares of Alcatraz, including visions of the recently deceased Sammi, as well as some pretty scary monsters.   And, the longer Alex has these dreams, the more real they become, bleeding into his waking world.   Poor Alex is afraid to go to sleep at night, and his loved ones are getting worried.

Thus is the premise of SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK, a movie with a problem the inverse of most movies in this genre:    SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK seems to have a decent budget, but no story line, instead of the other way around.    Anyway, the hero of the movie, Alex, doesn't just have bad dreams to contend with, no indeed!   He is also struggling with those "new relationship" awkward moments, trying to pass his college courses, and dealing with three wacky roommates, one of which is his brother Richard.   On top of THAT, Alex's new girl friend, Jan, is Richard's girlfriend's best friend.   No wonder Alex has bad dreams!

The dreams bother Alex so much that he has discussed them with one of his college instructors, Carol, who has taken an interest in the dreams to the point of investigating their meaning.   She has discovered some interesting facts about Alcatraz and an army commander who used to reside there.   The gentleman in question, Colonel Langston, apparently had a taste for black magic, enslaving souls and human flesh.   Carol is convinced that Alex can find the answers to his problems (at least about his nightmares) if he goes out to the place of his dreams, Alcatraz, and "has a look around".

So Alex, Jan, Carol, Richard and his girlfriend and Alex's other two roommates all pile in a fishing boat and head over to Alcatraz.   No one is quite sure what they're looking for, or what has to happen to rid Alex of his nightmare, but Carol "has a hunch" it will be found in the main cellblock.   Naturally, they all end up getting separated, and menaced by the evil spirit haunting the island.

Eventually, Alex meets up with the spirit of Sammi, who provides all the answers.   Alex need to cut off the source of Colonel Langston's power -- all the souls he has enslaved -- and free all the spirits, and THEN Alex's nightmares will be over.   Thing is, until Alex manages to rob the colonel of his power, everyone on the island is in danger!   So, the question is:   Will Alex beat the monster and save the day, or will everyone be forever under the evil control of Colonel Langston?

RATING:   

This movie is bad, but not completely charmless.   The cast is quite attractive by '80's standards, and most are actually capable of acting their way out of a paper bag.   The choice of Toni Basil as the rock and roll bad girl was an not a very good choice -- someone like, oh, maybe Lita Ford would've been more suitable (and Lita could've probably done as good an acting job as Toni) -- but since the whole cast seemed awfully middle-class, white bread harmless I guess she fit right in.   There's a lot less rock and roll in this flick, too.   Finally, the clothes weren't that cool, so this is only a one-head-bober.

Krystal (Richard's girlfriend) does the gratuitous breast shot thing a couple of times.

SCENES THAT MAKE ME GO "HMMM...,":


1. Over the course of the film, the Sammi character changed costumes a mind-bending number of times.   I guess they have a great costume department in the afterlife!

2. Carol convinces Alex to go to Alcatraz to investigate a sorcery-savvy malevolent spirit -- in the dead of night no less.   And he agrees to go -- even though he knows that if he stays where he is, the spirit can't get to him, because spirits can't cross over water.   Hmmm -- experiencing bad dreams, or experiencing terror and danger for real?    Hard choice, isn't it?

3. Sammi does some really silly, un-spooky looking dance moves while she's casting a spell to help Alex.   Maybe the spell involved laughing hysterically?

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