Slash (2002)

Despite the generally negative reviews and reactions I got interested in film due to the trailer and some stills. Unfortunately it turned out to be a missed opportunity that could have been much better.

While in a tour with his rock band Slash, the lead singer Mac is informed that his aunt died and his family is expecting him in their farm, where he spent his childhood, for the funeral. The group travels in their bus and meets the weird patriarch and Mac's father Jeremiah. The local Billy Bob tells about an old tradition called "harvest of blood" used to improve the harvest. Their bus has problems with the injector and they get stuck in the farm, while a serial killer chases each one of them to collect their blood.

It gets clear pretty early on in the film that Slash isn't a great film. The 5 maincharacters from the rockband are simply annoying as hell and don't even understand the definition of acting. They are so annoying and not funny that I wouldn't even care if they died in the first second of the film. Unfortunately it takes a pretty long time before that actually happens. The introduction of all the characters and the story takes way too long and is borring and uninteresting. Even the jokes, that normally keep some tempo in slashers, are painfully bad and irritating. 

Once in a while the killer turns up but even those scene's are mainly disappointing. That's because these scene's overall don't nearly last long enough and just when you start to feel some tension the scene cuts away to the same boring, stupid characters. And that's a shame because the killer does look really, really cool and his weapon of choice (A scythe) was pretty bad-ass too.

There are some precious moments where you feel some tension. One of 'em is the scene where some dudes are followed by a thresher in the middle of a corn field and the looks of the killer manages to create some creepyness. Still it's all a bit disappointing. Even the bodycount is a let down. It counts 5 dudes whom most didn't even have 5 seconds of screentime.

It's pretty painful to see a talentless guy like Neal Sundstrom (who didn't have much more luck with his earlier films Space Mutiny and Howling V: The Rebirth) waste all the potential that this film had. With a better director and a more interesting script (one that doesn't fail on all the jokes made by the teenagers) this could have been pretty cool.

Slash is a mixture between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Jeepers Creepers. If you wanna see a lot of potential getting ruined by Sundstrom and his annoying cast than you should watch it. Don't get me wrong it's not one of the worst films out there but it's far from a great one.