Slaughterhouse (1987)

slaughterhouse-1Buddy Bacon is in the fine tradition of white trash slashers. Buddy lives with his father who runs a slaughterhouse. Dad prefers the old-fashioned, hands-on methods of slicing up the swine and that’s why a more modern and efficient slaughterhouse is driving him out of the business. Fat, bearded Buddy has obviously spent way too much time around the pigs (in one scene, he’s sitting in a pen cuddling with one of them). He doesn’t say a word in the entire movie. He runs around snorting and squealing and suddenly appearing with his face pressed against windows scaring the crap out of people. When Buddy hacks up a couple of trespassing teens, it gives Dad a good idea of how to eliminate his business competition.

This entertaining slasher movie has real potential to make vegetarians out of its audience. I’ve read the same thing of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but the meat motif gets deeper under your skin here. This movie is set in a southern pork industry town, the dialogue is FULL of pork talk, pork puns, and references to clogged arteries, the slaughterhouses are miserable dumps, and while no pigs die onscreen, the title sequence montage does show us piles of fleshy carcasses being sliced up and cleaned out. After the movie’s over you feel greasy.