Director: J.S. Cardone
Notable Cast: Sarah
Kendall, Frederick J. Flynn, Carol Kottenbrook, Alan McRae, Michael Holmes,
Carl Kraines
It’s hard to have expectations when heading into a film when
the film has been notoriously missing from general conscious for years. This is
the case of The Slayer. While there
was certainly some hype for the film, enough so that it was easily one of the
most requested titles I saw in comments and threads for Arrow Video to release,
it’s hard to know if the hype is simply there for it to get a release let alone
if it deserves a pristine release. Yet, as the credits rolled on The Slayer, it was easy to see why it
had accumulated such an aura as a ‘missing classic’ from the 80s horror brand.
Not only is it a slasher at its core, but it’s an odd one that down plays the
tropes in an effort to create a much more suffocating atmosphere that’s more
akin to a giallo or Lovecraftian exercise of existential dread than it is about
kills and thrills. It’s an approach that, even with its flaws, is highly
respectable and deserves to be seen by a larger audience.