Slaughter Night (SL8N8) | DVD Review

Let’s face it: originality is not a hallmark of the slasher movie, unless you count the original ways in which people can be killed. Fans of the genre are really only watching for one reason, and that is to see as much blood and gore as possible in as many creative ways as possible in a 90 minute film.

An official selection of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival in 2006, Slaughter Night (SL8N8) was billed as the Netherlands’ initiation into the horror genre. Not known for their forays into the horror realm, Dutch films are usually of the high-minded artsy fartsy variety. Co-writers and -directors Frank van Geloven and Edwin Visser set out to change that perception, along with Erwin van den Eshof’s lesser Dood eind (Dead End). However, apart from a few genre festival screenings, Slaughter Night (SL8N8) never garnered much North American interest and only made about $100,000 US when released in the Netherlands. Tartan Video is hoping that the film will find a North American audience on DVD and they shouldn’t have to worry; horror films usually do particularly well on DVD.

Slaughter Night (SL8N8) begins with a stomach-churning flashback sequence, where we learn about a notorious 19th century serial killer named Andries Martiens, who abducted and beheaded young children in a bizarre ritual that allowed him to travel to hell and back. Caught red-handed (so to speak), he is given the option of death by hanging or to become a so-called ‘fireman’ in a mine. This was apparently a common practise in those days, and the firemen had to detect gas leaks in the mine and set them off. If they survived the ensuing explosion, they would be pardoned and set free. After the initial history lesson, the film takes quite a long time to set up. Kristel (Victoria Koblenko, Dood eind), after witnessing her father’s death in a horrific car accident, takes some friends with her on a road trip to a museum where her father was researching and writing a book about Martiens. They end up going on a guided tour of the mine where Martiens met his demise and, sure enough, the elevator that is their only way out breaks down and the guide disappears on a mission to get help. Needless to say, murder and mayhem ensue.

This is where the directors throw just about every cliche in the book into the mix. Ouija boards and ghosts? Check. Possession? Check. Confined, claustrophobic setting? Check. Jerky camera motions? Check. Blood and gore and impalements galore? Check, check, and check. As mentioned earlier, originality is not a slasher film’s business. The directors seem to know the genre, though, and try to deliver what their audience wants, giving fans a lot of blood and guts and decapitations, but it might have been better executed by spreading the killings out over the full length of the film instead of cramming everything into the last 30 minutes or so of the film.

Horror films, the slasher sub-genre in particular, are made as pure escapism for people who want to be thrilled and kept on the edge of their seats for 90 minutes or so, and Slaughter Night (SL8N8) definitely succeeds in this regard. While the un-originality of the genre is a well-known and accepted trait, the directors do make the best of it, using the tight, maze-like setting of an abandoned mine to great effect and getting extra marks for trying to inject a breath of fresh air into the proceedings by having just about every cast member become the killer for at least a short amount of time.

DVDs are an excellent medium for watching horror films. It’s easy to tell how much care went into the details to make everything look as realistic as possible. It’s a credit to the special effects team of Slaughter Night (SL8N8) that not much looks fake or cheaply done in the film, especially when the relatively low budget of the production is taken into account. Once again Tartan has delivered a technically superior disc, especially in the sound department, which offers Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround or DTS Surround 5.1 listening options.

While not teeming with bonuses, we do get two fun and interesting extra features. The outtake reel is only four minutes, but it’s always fun to see mistakes made while making horror films; it’s nice to see the actors doing anything other than screaming or fighting for their lives. The making-of featurette is a 25 minute show in which the directors and much of the cast are interviewed briefly before we are treated to an in-depth look at exactly what goes into creating the special effects and trying to make a low-budget horror film look like a big-budget horror film.

You can’t watch Slaughter Night (SL8N8) with expectations of seeing a highly original film, but you can expect to see a well-executed and competent slasher movie. In no way is it to be considered a horror classic, but it’s a highly entertaining and fun way to spend an hour and a half, providing your idea of fun is violent death scenes, buckets of blood, and severed heads. Believe it or not, that’s not such an exclusive club.

Movie rating – 2.5

Disc Rating – 3