Slaughterhouse (film)

Plot

Lester Bacon is an old farmer (a raving nutcase) living with his beloved simple-minded son Buddy (a 360-pound pig-man who grunts and squeals and loves to chop, dice and skewer human beings). Both of them lament the fate of the old skilled hog farmer, now giving way to modern factory-type slaughterhouses. The father and son then go on a killing spree against people who trespass on their property. In the opening scene, Buddy kills two teenagers, named Kevin and Michelle, who are having some alone time in their car on a remote area of Lovers Lane.

The next day, Harold, Lester's attorney, along with his law partner Tom and the local police chief, Sheriff Borden, visit Lester at his house who offer the old man $55,000 to buy his property along with the closed-down slaughterhouse next door to it. Lester is told that the demolition of the slaughterhouse would create employment opportunities for many people in town, as well as get the county tax assessor off his back. Lester grumbles about Tom's equipment and bad meat (claiming that it's 30% fat), and says that he could do better with his hands, knives and fewer men. The sheriff tells Lester that the assessor's office is foreclosing his property and he has 30 days to vacate.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Borden's teenage daughter Liz is with a group of high school friend planning to shoot a "horror video" and suggests the area around the Bacon Slaughterhouse would be perfect to make their video. Her friends whom include Skip, Annie, and Buzz wonder the whereabouts of Kevin and Michelle.

Back at on Lester Bacon's property, his son Buddy takes Lester to a room and shows him the dead Michele and Kevin. Lester is a bit unsettled, thinking that they are in a heap of trouble, but he tells Buddy that Tom, Harold, and Sheriff Borden are the ones who deserve such a fate.

Deputy Dave, after being told of the worried parents of Michele and Kevin who did not come home last night, checks out the docks and then goes to the slaughter house. He walks inside and calls for the two teenagers. Dave soon finds a dead, hanging cat when Buddy appears and kills him by shoving large metal sliding door on Dave's gun-toting hand, chopping it off. Lester then calls Harold to tell him that he has decided to accept his sales offer. Harold goes to the slaughterhouse where both Lester and Buddy kill him. Buddy then puts on the dead Dave's blood-stained police uniform and goes for a drive in the squad car. Dave's girlfriend, Sally, sees him driving past and waves, but Buddy chases her and runs her car off the road. She tries to escape on foot, but Buddy catches up to her and kills her too by slicing her neck with a butcher knife.

Tom is the next victim when he arrives at the Slaughterhouse when Lester lures him to the processing room where Buddy kills him by dropping him into a saw machine.

That evening at the Pig Out, a town dance, the power goes out due to a rainstorm, and many people leave. Buzz says that it is now the best time for filming at the slaughterhouse. Skip then makes a $20 bet that the girls cannot last one hour at the slaughterhouse. Liz and Annie are dropped off at the place while the boys are sneaking around with masked used in Liz's video.

Elsewhere, Sheriff Borden finds Sally's car with the damaged windshield and Dave's patrol car with the door standing open. The sheriff then goes back to his car and radios in to connect him to the county sheriff's department for backup.

Back at the slaughterhouse, Liz and Annie realizes that the boys are outside trying to scare them. Liz looks for a way to get behind the two guys and scare them instead. The boys split up and Buzz gets inside the building. Skip is at the window, and Annie laughs until Buddy suddenly appears and whacks Skip. Annie screams and runs, but Lester appears and grabs her.

Liz walks to the front door and sees that everyone is gone. At the same time, Buzz walks into a room, hears a noise, and is hit in the face by Buddy. Liz finds a hanging, still-living Annie, as well as the dead bodies of all the other people Buddy killed. The father-son duo are there and Buddy grabs Liz. Meanwhile, Sheriff Borden learns that Tom and Harold have mysteriously disappeared.

Buddy and Lester hold Liz down on a table and Lester talks about "bucherin'", saying that a meat cutter like himself and Buddy have the skills like a surgeon. Lester slices one of Liz's fingertips to prove to her that it is one of the most sensitive part of the human body. When Lester turns and hears Sheriff Borden enter through the front door of the slaughterhouse, Liz kicks Lester and runs away. She finds her father and runs to him. Buddy appears and the sheriff tries to shoot him, but hits the blade of his meat cleaver. Sheriff Bordon and Liz run outside into the pouring rain. As Sheriff Borden pauses at his squad car door, Lester appears and stabs him in the back. Liz picks up her father's gun and uses it to shoot Lester. She then helps the wounded sheriff into his car. She also gets the keys to start up the car just as Lester rises and knocks at the car windows. She turns around, shifts the car into reverse, and runs over Lester, crushing his head and finally killing him. The sheriff tells Liz to drive away and radio for help. But Buddy suddenly sits up from the backseat where he had been hiding and swings his knife at Liz who screams, and the film suddenly ends.

Cast

Release

The film was given a limited release theatrically in the United States by the Manson International Pictures 1987 and was subsequently released on VHS by Charter Entertainment.

The film was released in a special edition DVD in 1999 by Program Power Entertainment. This release is currently out of print.

The film was released on Blu-ray on February 23, 2015 as Number 05 of 88 Films' "Slasher Classics Collection" series.

"SLAUGHTERHOUSE", the 30th Anniversary Edition" (the Blu-ray) was released December 2015 and is available on Amazon Prime. This is a cleaned and updated HD version by the director and producer. Special features include: "Making a Low Budget Indie" with director Rick Roessler, The Art of Producing a Low Budget Feature" with producer Jerry Encoe, theater trailers, TV spots, radio station interview with Buddy the killer, raw footage of a murder in the slaughterhouse, the crew at work shooting a sequence, the director's script that was used on the set with all annotations (ROM), pre-production sketches of characters and ad materials (ROM), and lots more.

The cleaned and director approved version can be seen on Amazon Prime and Shudder.com (without the extra features available on the Blu-ray disk).

Vinegar Syndrome released SLAUGHTERHOUSE in 2017 from a 2K master direct from a 35mm Interpositive and master magnetic surround sound track. It is by far the cleanest picture and sound version of this 80's cult classic.

Sequel

In 1988, the Director Rick Roessler created Slaughterhouse II, an unproduced sequel that never got past the script and was never released. 2017 update by the director Rick Roessler - Jerry Encoe (producer of Slaughterhouse) and I are considering a sequel to Slaughterhouse or a new production tentatively called PREDITORZ, a zombie story set in the remote mountains of Goblin Valley, Utah.

Critical reception

The film received an unfavorable review from The Washington Post.