Slash (2002)

Director:

Neal Sundstrom

Writers:

Gus Silber
Stephen Ronald Francis
(more)

Release Date:

14 March 2003 (Turkey)

Genre:

Comedy | Horror | Thriller

Plot:

A rock band gets stuck on a haunted farm while visiting its lead singer's family.

Plot Keywords:

Farm | Bus | Band | Blood | Harvest

Cast

Adam Woolf	...	Young Mac
Danny Keogh	...	Jethro
Milan Murray	...	Karen
Guy Raphaely	...	Ray
Anton Voster	...	Killer (as Anton Vorster)
Brett Goldin	...	Carl
David Dukas	...	Rod
Nina Wassung	...	Candy
James O'Shea	...	Mac
Zuleikha Robinson	...	Suzie
Craig Kirkwood	...	Keith
Neels Clasen	...	Ian
Nick Boraine	...	Billy Bob
Jocelyn Broderick	...	Jesse
Steve Railsback	...	Jeremiah
Michael Richard	...	Preacher / Sheriff
Melanie Merle	...	Ornell
Nadia Kretschmer	...	Press Agent
Errol Ballentine	...	Estate Agent

Directed by
Neal Sundstrom		(as Neal Sundström)

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Stephen Ronald Francis
Charles Sapadin		uncredited
Gus Silber

Produced by
Sam Bhembe	....	executive producer
Ian Gabriel	....	associate producer
Saki Macozoma	....	executive producer
Amy J. Moore	....	producer
Paul Raleigh	....	producer

Original Music by
Neill Solomon

Cinematography by
Mark Lennard		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Andrew Traill

Casting by
Bruce H. Newberg
Christa Schamberger

Production Design by
Robert Van der Coolwijk		(as Robert van der Coolwijk)

Art Direction by
Emilia Roux		(as Emelia Weavend)

Set Decoration by
Victor Botha

Costume Design by
Darion Hing

Makeup Department
Debra Nicoll	....	key makeup artist

Production Management
Nerissa Black	....	post-production supervisor
Fran Saidman	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ferdi Burger	....	second assistant director
Lance Samuels	....	first assistant director

Art Department
Andrew Orlando	....	assistant property master
Samantha Putter	....	coordinator
Emilia Roux	....	assistant art director (as Emelia Weavend)

Sound Department
Jurgen Human	....	boom operator
Nico Louw	....	sound mixer
Jeremy Saacks	....	sound re-recording mixer

Special Effects by
Janek Zabielski	....	special effects supervisor (2003)

Stunts
Grant Hulley	....	stunt coordinator
Cordell McQueen	....	stunts
Janine Wyatt-Mair	....	stunt double

Camera and Electrical Department
Gerard Botha	....	camera focus: second unit

Editorial Department
Brett Manson	....	digital intermediate colorist

Transportation Department
Morgan Pather	....	transportation captain

Other crew
Monica Keys	....	production trainee
Louise Mycielski	....	production secretary
Laura Vogt	....	production accountant

Production Companies

• New Africa Media Films
• Rapidphase
• Wild Coast Film Pty. Ltd.

Distributors

• RCV Film Distribution (2002) (Netherlands) (theatrical) (All Night Horror Show)
• A-Film Home Entertainment (2003) (Netherlands) (DVD) (retail)
• A-Film Home Entertainment (2005) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• AKA Movies Inc.
• First Look International
• Front Row Filmed Entertainment (2004) (United Arab Emirates) (all media) (Middle East)
• RCV Home Entertainment (2002) (Netherlands) (DVD) (VHS) (rental)
• Scanbox Entertainment (2003) (Finland) (DVD) (VHS)
• Universal Home Video (2003) (Brazil) (VHS) (DVD)
• Warner Home Video (2006) (Netherlands) (DVD)

Also Known As:

MPAA:

Rated R for horror violence, language, some drug use and sexuality

Runtime:

93 min | Norway:90 min

Country:

South Africa

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Finland:K-15 | Netherlands:16 | Australia:MA | Germany:16 | Norway:15 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Heidelberg, South Africa

Company:

New Africa Media Films

Trivia:

The US VHS release of the film has an obvious editing defect in it. The shot where the sheriff drives up to the farm while Mac chops wood plays twice.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Mac and his father are talking after they come face to face for the first time in years, the camera briefly pans to a shot of Mac's dead aunt. If you watch closely, you can see the windpipe of the "corpse" swell up and go back down.

Quotes:

Preacher:[After tasting some of Jeremiah's alcoholic Moonshine] Damn, that's good!

Movie Connections:

References Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

Soundtrack:

Voices

A new low in slasher film-making.

Rating: 1/2 out of ****

Behold, what we have here is quite likely the worst slasher flick of the new millennium (but not the worst horror film, as we can't forget Legion of the Dead). The unimaginatively titled Slash is a new display in complete and total incompetence, and it's about as poorly made as films get.

After dispensing with an obligatory black-and-white prologue, the film makes a quick segue to two teenagers (apparently a couple)driving to a party in the middle of nowhere. Showing off its ineptness from the start, the movie gets into its first stalk-and-slash sequence when the couple in the car swerve off the road to avoid hitting a CGI cow! They crash into a cornfield, with the girl seemingly unconscious and the boyfriend seeing this as an opportune moment to feel her up. Turns out she's faking unconsciousness, and is a lot less angry than one would think she ought to be for her boyfriend showing more concern for her boobs than her well-being.

Anyway, the boyfriend is quickly dispatched by a masked killer with a scythe, so the chick quickly runs to the nearest house, this whole chase accompanied by annoying pop rock music. She hides in a nearby barn, and proves to have nothing in the way of peripheral vision as she fails to notice the killer being right in front of her! The whole scene caps off with her begging for her life as he very slowly approaches her. For crying out loud, why not just run? And the sad part of it all is that despite how terrible this opening is, it boasts the only nice thing I can say about the movie; the chick being chased is pretty hot.

The rest of the movie focuses on a rock band, whose lead singer is called to the very same farm in the opening scene because his aunt's passed away. He hasn't seen his father (Steve Railsback) in fifteen years, so one can expect their reunion to be a little awkward. The rest of the band (one of whom brings his groupie, who's a tarot card reader, no less!) also tags along, doing little things like playing trivia games over how famous singers passed away to entertain themselves. No points for guessing the band will likely serve as fodder for the scythe-wielding killer.

The cast that composes the band is likely the most obnoxious group of protagonists ever assembled in a slasher. Among the lot of them, there's not a single redeemable factor to be found; they're loud, impatient, disrespectful at every turn (especially the token black guy), and they don't even seem to get along as a group, something you'd think would be vital in a rock band.

Director Neal Sundstrom is horribly incompetent in staging and filming scares, suspense, or humor. He gives certain scenes a strange color composition, sometimes desaturating the picture for no discernible reason. Any time the stalk-and-slash scenes look like they might just pay off, all the murders take place off-screen and are even sometimes filmed with annoyingly choppy slow motion. Sundstrom's idea of atmosphere is covering the locations with lots of fog, but all that does is give the impression we're watching a stage play.

The movie actually attempts to build some sort of mystery in regards to the identity of the killer by delivering obvious red herrings, but when the killer is later revealed, he's not even unmasked. The climax is moronic, with a few of the survivors deciding to hide themselves in a cellar that was revealed earlier to them to be the killer's hideout. The lead character also formulates a plan involving a prop knife, even though he had no way of knowing the weapon was a prop (to add further insult, the killer himself should have known it was a prop).

No question about it, Slash is a terrible movie at every turn. It takes a mildly promising slasher concept-which I hear was utilized to much better effect in Scarecrows-and comes up incredibly short in all aspects. I heard this was a South African production, which does help explain some of the cast trying to cover up their accents, but it only proves that filmmakers overseas take too much inspiration from America's own cheap and awful low-budget slashers.