6 | / 10 |
Users | 2.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Eight different people are invited to their 10-year high school reunion at their now-closed down high school where a former student, disfigured from a prank gone wrong, is there to seek revenge.
Starring: Caroline Munro, Simon Scuddamore, Carmine Iannaccone, Donna Yeager, Gary MartinHorror | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
BDInfo
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
The Friday the 13th franchise memorably tied its horror shenanigans to a “date certain” (if moveable, in this case), something that studio bean counters who were paying attention must have assumed (in typical bean counter fashion) meant that horror efforts emblazoned with specific days, including holidays, were destined for box office glory. Films with names like Christmas Evil and Silent Night, Deadly Night therefore started cropping up, at least intermittently, in the years subsequent to the first Friday the 13th film, but there’s an interesting bit of trivia with regard to a lesser remembered 1986 effort called April Fool's Day. According to the commentary included on this new Blu-ray of Slaughter High, this film was originally entitled April Fool’s Day, and in fact evidently had a home video release sporting that title back in the Dark Ages of the VHS era. A very brief allusion to the “holiday” (is April Fool’s Day an official holiday?) is included in Slaughter High, and the plot does revolve around a series of pranks which go horribly, horribly wrong. But somewhere along the line (again, according to the commentary) someone sold the rights to the April Fool’s Day title, and this film became the “dateless” Slaughter High, though some other online data simply suggests that the "other" April Fool's Day was already in production and someone associated with this film probably just thought better about trying to duplicate the title (it's always been my understanding that titles can't be copyrighted, though well publicized incidents have occurred through the years, including the relatively recent push back Larry Wilmore and Comedy Central got from Sony when they initially announced the now cancelled Wilmore show would be called Minority Report). Slaughter High continues in the still developing “tradition” of new Blu-ray releases of cult horror offerings coming from Vestron Video, and this film, like others in the imprint’s output, will no doubt be greeted by some fans as the greatest release ever. That said, my hunch is even diehard horror aficionados are not going to be overly impressed with Slaughter High’s plot, which is basic at best, or its theatrical sensibilities, which are in fact perhaps more akin to junior high drama than anything “upper class”.
Slaughter High is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Vestron Video, Lionsgate's cult horror imprint, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is a fairly heterogeneous looking transfer, one reason my score is perhaps a tad lower than some longtime fans might give to the presentation, which is inarguably better than previous home video releases. I'm kind of splitting the difference here between some of the shoddier moments, which I'd rate down toward the 3.0 level, and some of the more vivid moments, which at least approach 4.0 levels. That said, there are still some recurrent issues, including still apparent age related wear and tear, but perhaps more importantly a rather wide variance in things like sharpness, clarity, grain resolution and compression competence. The whole opening 20 minutes or so of the film looks rather soft and ill defined, with splotchy looking grain and minimal detail levels. Things improve at least somewhat once the film "flash forwards" a decade or so, but even here there are intermittent moments of inadequate contrast (especially in the many dark scenes in the abandoned school) and fairly low fine detail levels. The palette is reasonable, at least after the first kind of anemic spell, with the brightly lit outdoor elements popping quite well even if some of the interior sequences still tend to look fairly drab. Some noise correction may have been applied to this release since I didn't really notice any grain spikes (and indeed at moments not much grain at all) in some of the very darkest moments.
Slaughter High features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix that gets the job done without a lot of flourishes. Dialogue and effects (typically in the death scenes) are clearly rendered and offered without any issues like distortion, but kind of interestingly for a film supposedly built around "high school students", there's a curious lack of any source cues, and as such the film doesn't built a lot of sonic energy. Fidelity is fine throughout, however, offering all elements with good prioritization and clarity.
Lionsgate's Vestron imprint has been a boon to cult horror collectors, and I'm sure there are folks who have been waiting breathlessly for Slaughter High to arrive on Blu-ray. Those folks should be generally well pleased with this release, one which offers decent if occasionally problematic technical merits and Vestron's usual supply of fun supplementary material.
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