Slaughterhouse Rock

 Watched October 14, 2022

 

1987

Director: Dimitri Logothetis

Starring: Nicholas Celozzi, Tammy Hyler, Tom Reilly, Donna Denton

 

We watched this as a continuation of the Rock 'n' Roll nightmare theme.

The title credits are great. Then it opens in a dank, flooded dungeon hallway. A rotting corpse is being eaten by rats. A person is shackled, he grabs a machete out of the corpse and tries to break the shackles. But the monster keeps moving towards him. Instead the man cuts off his own hand.  Alex (Nicholas Celozzi) wakes up, it's a dream but his hand is still cut off... double dream!

 

Jump to a random university, based on the SF Bay area setting I'm guessing it's supposed to be Berkeley. Alex lives with his older brother Richard (Tom Reilly) and two guys who are all college students. As they walk out of class, one of them reads an article from a newspaper about Sammi Mitchell (Toni Basil) going to Alcatraz and dying. It seems like Alex has been having dreams longer than one night. 

 

Two girls show up at the college student's group house, Richard's girlfriend Krista ( Hope Marie Carlton) and Jan (Tammy Hyler) who is interested in Alex. Krista and Richard go to his room and immediately start having loud sex, while Alex and Jan awkwardly sit in the living room and try to make small talk. There is old mac n cheese stuck in a pot on the coffee table, so they go out for burgers. This scene is so weird, we see almost everyone else in the restaurant before we get to Alex and Jan sitting at a table. Alex is being plagued by the demons even during the day, Jan is talking but he can't seem to focus. He is having a waking nightmare about a hand grabbing him through the wall. 

 

In his Intro to Psychokinetics class with Professor Carolyn Harding (Donna Denton) Alex has another waking nightmare that his cheek is crawling with worms and he spits out a worm. He screams, attracting the attention of the whole class. Later on at the bar the gang is hanging out but Alex is still depressed and sleep deprived. Jan wants to watch over him as he sleeps and she says she'll sleep on the couch. 

 

That night Prof. Harding comes over, talks to Jan, smells smoke and they see that Alex is on fire in his bed. They manage to wake him up and the fire stops. Prof. Harding takes Jan and Alex to her office, it turns out the class Prof. Harding has an old book that she thinks explains the haunting dreams. After the civil war, an old Commandant shacked up on Alcatraz and started killing and eating sex workers (alive!) Prof. Harding is convinced the ghost of the old man has something to do with Alex's nightmares. She convinces them to go to Alcatraz that night.  One of the roommates has a relative with a boat.

 

 I was convinced they couldn't get actual Alcatraz footage but I guess they did. They make it to the island and start wandering around the old jail. Alex gets separated from the group and finds  the ghost of Sammi Mitchell. Sammi explains that she found an old book in the library and brought back the spirit that's killing everyone and haunting Alex. Sammi helps Alex astral project to talk to the spirits. Richard is attacked and becomes possessed by the old commandant. Richard attacks and rapes Krysta but she manages to escape.  Richard creeps around and kills the two roommates and one of them he punches through the head! He kills Krysta by biting her neck. Alex goes to the basement of his dreams trying to open a door. Meanwhile Prof. Harding and Jan lure the Richard monster to an old shack and then light it on fire. Prof. Harding doesn't make it out. Alex manages to open the dream door revealing light that kills the spirit version while the ladies burn the physical version, completing the demon vanquishing.

It ends with Alex and Jan at her sister's nice house playing piano, all their friends are dead.

  

It's never explained why Alex is the one having these nightmares, his connection to either the Commandant or Sammi Mitchell is never explained. One idea fix to the weak plot, it starts with a Sammi concert in San Francisco. Alex is a huge fan, he gets an autograph so they actually get a face to face connection. Sammi is a big occult fan and she gets the book, opens it and unleashes the commandant but connects with Alex so there is an actual reason he's having these dreams. And instead of just creepy torture dreams, Alex also dreams of Sammi asking for help.

 

A lot of fog shots and Alcatraz shots setting even though I thought they were fake. The special effects are great. Jan and Alex have no chemistry so it's hard to root for them. Alex is a terrible, unsympathetic main character. The two roommates have some comic relief moments, but doesn't fix the plot problems. The cannibal commandant is good but weird. The music is by Devo, which is awesome but doesn't make it a worthwhile movie.

My favorite part is the reason that Alex is taking Professor Harding's Intro to Psychokinetics is that he thought it would be an easy A.