1988 Directed by Dimitri Logothetis
A man visits Alcatraz prison after having dreams about all the people who died there. When he gets there, his brother is possessed by an evil cannibal demon. The ghost of a female heavy metal singer who was killed there tries to help the man fight the monster.
Slaughterhouse, Hell Island, Alcatraz Horror - In der Hölle der Dämonen, Alcatraz Horror, Tanz der Monster 2 - Im Vorhof der Hölle, Адски остров
Just when you thought you’d seen all the 80’s rock horror movies, Shudder goes and throws another handful at you! I actually remember this cover from my video store days, but I wasn’t into any of these back then.
Turns out it’s as stupid as you’d expect, but also fun and charming in a way with Toni Basil playing a “good ghost” trying to help a kid played by the producers son stop the “bad ghost”. If you don’t have high expectations then this is a pretty decent time!
I’m not sure any of it was actually filmed at Alcatraz tho. I’m not even bothering to open a new tab and check. I’m just pretty sure they threw in some stick footage long shots of the island and called it a day otherwise the prison was painfully underused and this should probably be rated lower!
Well dang I feel like I just ordered combo # 666 on the late 80s cheese menu! With a side of neon and extra new wave. Essentially a low budget Elm Street knockoff with a bit of Night of the Demons mixed in. Covered in a haze of fog machine surrealism and colourful lighting it hits a lot of those stylistic choices I love.
Everything else? Well it's certainly style over substance as some parts of this film can be a chore to sit through. For characters that had potential to be those entertaining 80s slasher types they lacked charisma and an overall presence. Always a sucker for those rubber demon hands popping through walls though!
A huge improvement over…
This late 80's riff on an Elm Street flick starts out in familiar territory: a protagonist plagued with violent nightmares, a concerned love-interest, a crew of bumbling frat boy jokesters, all thrown together on a campus ready for some beyond-reality force to wipe them out.
The film then takes a strangely ambitious turn though in the second act, planting our cast of dimwits (and their occult-leaning professor) in an abandoned prison. When Toni Basil shows up as an undead singer with a hefty exposition dump about releasing an ancient monster into the world, my brain felt pureed beyond mush trying to follow this mess... so I just kicked back and rode the wave and ya know what...
I kinda loved…
I've mentioned before that I am on a quest to obtain every 80s movie available to humans, and it's that quest that led me to this film. As anyone that suffers from a similar compulsion to collect all of a certain thing knows , there comes a time when you hit a wall. It doesn't matter what the collection is, or if it's movies you're collecting it doesn't matter the genre or decade, but there arrives a point where your disappoint is so great that you find yourself detached from the joys of the hunt and you are entrenched in a bitterness rivaled only by that of the distant forefather of all hunters, Ahab. You're looking for something and you…
Last year I was shamed by someone about ten years younger than me for not having seen this. I hate it when movie conversations go there because I'm EXPECTED to know EVERYTHING. So when I know nothing (which is often) people act surprised and I feel embarrassed, because I'm petty and want my image of some kind of idiot savant human encyclopedia to remain intact...
So this movie has had a big arrow on it's back ever since. My opinion of it is probably effected by the pressure. I thought it was GOOD, not GREAT. I enjoy a nice Toni Basil appearance. The big selling point was Devo's involvement, which was minimal. They wrote the score, which wasn't really that…
the idea sounded so cool in my head but after actually watching this, i'm extremely disappointed.. the beginning was fine but it went downhill after that
Man, this should of been better. A low rent NOES knock off where the lame whiny hero is having spooooky dreams sent to him by a dead Toni Basil, with her dance moves, telling him to go to Alcatraz in the middle of the night to find and kill a cannibal back from the dead. The crew of annoying and disposable college kids investigate, the older brother gets possessed by the cannibal, shit should hit the fan but it's mostly a muddled drag.
It's got a great setting, some nudity, the cornball 80s mood and style, fog machines, goofy lo-fi dream sequences and a catchy Devo soundtrack. A decent enough villain with a couple of gory moments but man this…
Hey Satan, you're so fine, youre so fine you blow my mind hey Satan...............
Sitting at a restaurant booth, a woman blows two smoke rings, and a dude sitting across from her stabs his french fry through them...
Slaughterhouse Rock is like an A Nightmare on Elm Street reimagining where the main character is a guy, who also happens to suffer from daymares in the middle of class by a female Freddy Krueger, a dead metal singer who wears a fancy hat, but she appears to be good. She is using the main dude's dream to send him her music, or something. She also let some out some evil monster and is trying to stop some other evil guy. Oh, and the main dude's brother is possessed by a demon or something.
Squat dance…
Soundtrack by DEVO? I’m in. Personal fact: in my high school yearbook I gave props to DEVO. Their sound and goofy styles spoke directly to teenage me. Yes, I’m old. I’ve seen them a number of times during their career and I still love them so their music still speaks directly to me I suppose. Sadly, a good portion of the original band has passed away. Onto the movie.
Oh wait, one more DEVO factoid: band member and sometimes lead singer Gerald Casale dated musician/dancer Toni Basil, who you may remember for the song and unforgettable music video “Hey Mickey”. She covered several DEVO tunes on her early albums and gets a juicy acting role here. They’re a good team!…
HORRORx52 (2021 EDITION) 14/52
Blind Pick - A film you have no prior knowledge of before watching.
I have always heard about Slaughterhouse Rock for years, but I had never seen it until now. I went into the film without knowing about the story and I enjoyed it. Slaughterhouse Rock is a decent 80s horror movie in my opinion. I liked the production values and the atmosphere that this film had. Slaughterhouse Rock has cool special effects that are pretty neat in my opinion. The set designs look nice and I like how they are able to make the film feel atmospheric with a nice mixture of fog and shadows. You have a catchy music soundtrack from Devo is that…
This one seems like it should have been a slam dunk for me - it has an awesome setting, is full of 80s music and style, and a bunch of fun practical gore effects. I just could not get into the muddled narrative though and it took me a few sittings to make it through to the end. I'll probably give it another shot at some point.
Are you hungry?
Does an accordion player wear a pinky ring?
I don't know. Are you hungry?
