The Slayer

Yep, THE SLAYER was once on the DPP's list of titles seized from video shops in the early 80s, but hastily replaced when the Government realised that this was unlikely to deprave young people and turn them into axe wielding maniacs. THE SLAYER's pace is in fact more likely to have them reaching for the remote control and fast forwarding to all the good bits. Nice of VIPCO to give us the authentically grungy VHS quality of an already rather shoddy print of the film, which puts an ageing punter like me back in my armchair back in 1982, having rented this from 'Hollywood Nights' video emporium and settling back to watch teens get hacked, folded, spindled and mutilated in the comfort of my home. Except THE SLAYER doesn't have teens, and fleshes out its occasional gory shocks with a huge amount of walking around the woods. On the plus side the acting's ok and it's quite atmospheric, and it's an interesting slant not having the villain exposed as 'oh I knew it would be him/her'. On the down side, yes this print is trimmed of some (not all) of the gore, and despite the classy score and effective night time photography, it is rather dull. Watch for the 'what's wrong with this picture' bedroom scene. That makes the movie for me.

Just a typical predictable slasher with a terrible ending and acting. The transfer is not remastered and looks like a straight VHS copy.

Used to be one of those 70 or so 'video nasties' of the 80's. I used to think that they were called 'nasties' because of their gory, adult-orientated extreme material. Now I realise after watching 'The Slayer' that 'nasty' has quite a different sense for some of these films. This is just appaling rubbish. Slow-moving, incomprehensible and boring. You'd do much better than rent this claptrap.

There's two couples who go to some island for a break. Little do they know there's some kind of killer there. There's more to it than that, but when you wait until the end of the film for what you have rented it for, you get disappointed.

If you want a slow-moving film with a gory climax that justifies sitting through it, rent the classic 'Audition'.

This version is cut and as a result is completely ruined, I hear the original is very gory and the ending is amazing but in this version the ending is completely cut out. Try and get your hands on the uncut version. Also I think Wes Craven stole his ideas from this film for A Nightmare On Elm Street.

A silly film with threadbare plot - but then one doesn't vioew 'slasher' horror films for great 'art' anyway and on the level it sets itself it is good.

However, as someone else said, the transfer quality is terrible - at first glance one might feel it was a pirate disc it is so bad (I hasten to point out for fear of leagl porblems that it is NOT a pirate *pheeew*)

Watch it on rental, but don't buy a copy.