Slashdance is one of seven stalk and slash movies that attempted to mix murderous splatter shenanigans with the joys of dancing. Lucio Fulci can be credited with kicking it all off for the post-Halloween crowd with his dull and relatively goreless Giallo/slasher Murderock in '84. Then in '87 came Stripped to kill, which was followed two years later by the sequel Live Girls. The early nineties brought the sub category Deadly Dancer (90), Dance with Death (91) and Anthony Markes' Last Dance (92); but to the best of my knowledge that was the end of the dancing slasher craze. Looking at the aforementioned list of mediocre dance related titles meant that Slashdance would really have to be pull off something quite fabulous to bring some credibility to the category. I knew after the first twenty minutes that it was going to be mission impossible for James Shyman, as he seemed convinced to turn this into yet another rancid horror/comedy.
In the opening scene, a pretty young blonde turns up at the Vans lake theatre company looking to audition as a dancer. Alice Ryan (Cynthia Cheston) is surprised that the place seems to be abandoned when she arrives, but continues onto the dimly lighted stage to stretch and warm up. We know exactly where this is heading when we see the silhouette of a caped and hooded stranger lurking in the shadows behind the curtains. The ominous figure then picks up a handy saw and creeps up behind the unsuspecting female. As the ambitious youngster twists and spins, the maniac strikes; slashing her throat and leaving her gasping for air on the centre stage.
Next up we meet our protagonist and odds on heroine of the feature. Detective Tori Anne Raines (Cindy Maranne) is a Dirty Harriett-type tough as nails but equally attractive cop with a do or die attitude. We see just how raw to the core she is in two mindless scenes, which I'm sure were just thrown in as padding. First she batters and arrests two whale-like female steroid dealers who later become her buddies; then whilst undercover as a bag lady she locks up two leather-clad biker punks after a hilarious scrap in an alley. One of the said hoodlums underlines her apparent toughness by commenting, "I got beating up by a pair of tits!" Classy, huh? Before long Tori's egotistical and actually fairly amusing Captain (by far the film's only real notable comic performance, from Jay Richardson) puts her on the case of the missing dancers. After some help from her new buddies whom she arrested only days earlier, Tori decides to go undercover as a wannabe boogie queen down at the Vans Lake theatre. But just who could be the killer?
In a way it's a shame that James Shyman thought he would get the best results by attempting to mix comedy with a slasher that could have perhaps had potential. Cindy Maranne looked like she could have handled leading a serious role, while she had equally promising back up from Jackson Daniel and one or two other cast members that certainly didn't look to be the worst actors that I'd seen. But in the end all that was left was a pile of tongue in cheek rubbish that just wasn't funny and wasn't particularly interesting either. Perhaps the most irritating of the many comic relief characters was the woefully awful Amos (Joel Von Ornsteiner). He bizarrely seemed to believe that 'acting' amounted to stuttering like he had just swallowed his teeth and talking like a crack head in a straight jacket. The only really funny scenes in Slashdance seemed to be created inadvertently. There was a real howler towards the end of the movie, which just about summed up the mediocrity of the entire production. Whilst fleeing the masked killer, the final girl throws her shoe at him in a last gasp form of self-defence. It was a wise decision by the strumpet, because somewhat miraculously the force of the high-heel killed him instantaneously! Maybe they were razor-capped stilettos, eh? Ho-hum indeed.
On the plus side, there is the chance to see a gang of moderately attractive thirty-somethings twist and wiggle around the stage in skimpy leotards. But if that's what you're after, you could go down to the disco on a Saturday night and see the exact same thing with the added benefit of perhaps taking one of them home with you. There's also a poorly constructed mystery element that you'll guess by the forty-minute mark if you've got two brain cells in working order. There's no blood or creativity in any of the stalking scenes either. If I remember correctly, only two skimpy leotards were exchanged for funeral attire by the dancers. Both murders were anaemic, poorly staged and totally devoid of any tension. The killer's disguise was also scrapping the bottom of the wardrobe barrel. It looked like he had a black pillowcase over his head with two hand-cut eye-holes. Shyman didn't even manage to make it look like he wanted this movie to succeed. Perhaps it was a front for a tax loss or something?
So there you have it. Slashdance is an utterly avoidable effort that fails to deliver as a slasher, as a comedy or even as a dance movie. There's really nothing to recommend here and its best avoided.
In the opening scene, a pretty young blonde turns up at the Vans lake theatre company looking to audition as a dancer. Alice Ryan (Cynthia Cheston) is surprised that the place seems to be abandoned when she arrives, but continues onto the dimly lighted stage to stretch and warm up. We know exactly where this is heading when we see the silhouette of a caped and hooded stranger lurking in the shadows behind the curtains. The ominous figure then picks up a handy saw and creeps up behind the unsuspecting female. As the ambitious youngster twists and spins, the maniac strikes; slashing her throat and leaving her gasping for air on the centre stage.
Next up we meet our protagonist and odds on heroine of the feature. Detective Tori Anne Raines (Cindy Maranne) is a Dirty Harriett-type tough as nails but equally attractive cop with a do or die attitude. We see just how raw to the core she is in two mindless scenes, which I'm sure were just thrown in as padding. First she batters and arrests two whale-like female steroid dealers who later become her buddies; then whilst undercover as a bag lady she locks up two leather-clad biker punks after a hilarious scrap in an alley. One of the said hoodlums underlines her apparent toughness by commenting, "I got beating up by a pair of tits!" Classy, huh? Before long Tori's egotistical and actually fairly amusing Captain (by far the film's only real notable comic performance, from Jay Richardson) puts her on the case of the missing dancers. After some help from her new buddies whom she arrested only days earlier, Tori decides to go undercover as a wannabe boogie queen down at the Vans Lake theatre. But just who could be the killer?
In a way it's a shame that James Shyman thought he would get the best results by attempting to mix comedy with a slasher that could have perhaps had potential. Cindy Maranne looked like she could have handled leading a serious role, while she had equally promising back up from Jackson Daniel and one or two other cast members that certainly didn't look to be the worst actors that I'd seen. But in the end all that was left was a pile of tongue in cheek rubbish that just wasn't funny and wasn't particularly interesting either. Perhaps the most irritating of the many comic relief characters was the woefully awful Amos (Joel Von Ornsteiner). He bizarrely seemed to believe that 'acting' amounted to stuttering like he had just swallowed his teeth and talking like a crack head in a straight jacket. The only really funny scenes in Slashdance seemed to be created inadvertently. There was a real howler towards the end of the movie, which just about summed up the mediocrity of the entire production. Whilst fleeing the masked killer, the final girl throws her shoe at him in a last gasp form of self-defence. It was a wise decision by the strumpet, because somewhat miraculously the force of the high-heel killed him instantaneously! Maybe they were razor-capped stilettos, eh? Ho-hum indeed.
On the plus side, there is the chance to see a gang of moderately attractive thirty-somethings twist and wiggle around the stage in skimpy leotards. But if that's what you're after, you could go down to the disco on a Saturday night and see the exact same thing with the added benefit of perhaps taking one of them home with you. There's also a poorly constructed mystery element that you'll guess by the forty-minute mark if you've got two brain cells in working order. There's no blood or creativity in any of the stalking scenes either. If I remember correctly, only two skimpy leotards were exchanged for funeral attire by the dancers. Both murders were anaemic, poorly staged and totally devoid of any tension. The killer's disguise was also scrapping the bottom of the wardrobe barrel. It looked like he had a black pillowcase over his head with two hand-cut eye-holes. Shyman didn't even manage to make it look like he wanted this movie to succeed. Perhaps it was a front for a tax loss or something?
So there you have it. Slashdance is an utterly avoidable effort that fails to deliver as a slasher, as a comedy or even as a dance movie. There's really nothing to recommend here and its best avoided.