Slaughterhouse, Meat Hooks and Cleavers

I love 1980s horror films. Today we have one that harps back to 1970s horror, more specifically, a tip of the hat to 1974's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Also, throw in a smattering of 1980's "Motel Hell" and we have another film about butchers who love making sausage and bacon while slaughtering pigs...mostly. Today we look at one with a high body count and hunks and babes in great peril.  Our feature today is 1987's "Slaughterhouse," directed by Rick Roessler.

The beautiful Liz (Sherry Leigh) wants to make a horror film. She enlists her stud BF Skip (Eric Schwartz), and four friends. While shooting near an abandoned, or thought to be abandoned, slaughterhouse, Deputy Dave (Jeff Wright) disperses them. Michelle and Kevin hang back (Courtney Lercara and Joel Hoffman) and get stuck on meat hooks by the half-wit Buddy (Joe B. Barton). See, the meat cleaver wielding brute is the son of Les (Don Barrett) who owns the slaughterhouse. He can hardly control his monstrous son. Uh oh...Tom (Bill Brinsfield), who used to work for Les, has fixed it so the slaughterhouse will be foreclosed on and given to him. Les' lawyer, Harold (Lee Robinson) is also in on this theft.

Now Les devises a plan to lure those guys to his slaughterhouse and feed them into a meat grinder. Oh yes, Buddy keeps finding nubile babes and the occasional hunk to play with and eventually chop up or gut. We gasp as the lovely and nymphomaniac Sally (Donna Stevens) is grabbed by the brute.  Oh, what he'll do to her. Meanwhile, Les' plan goes according to plan but Liz finds her way to the slaughterhouse in the middle of it to film her movie. Now Les has a bigger victim pool. Buddy also has some more nubile babes to gut and butcher.  This is a brutal one and the death count is very high. Gore and ominous plot devices will abound.  You'll even avert your eyes from the screen a time or three.

Will Liz or any other nubile babe survive this film?  Will Les ever be able to corral his half-wit son or will Buddy figure out something to do with a babes other than chop them up?  Not an easy film to watch but a fun one.  Before cutting cholesterol and fat from your diet, see "Slaughterhouse" for a little extra motivation.