My sleepovers were always so boring. Not a jock strap or a blowjob in sight!
Fortunately for viewers, Lucy (Anna Cellegari) and her friends definitely make up for my deficiencies in writer-director Brandon Bassham’s outrageous and frequently fun The Slashening. Trying to get over a breakup with her unfaithful boyfriend, Lucy and her best friends gather for an overnight get-together. Of course, there is a serial killer on the loose – or is it actually the ghost of Rusty Joe, a homeless sex worker, who was murdered by his nervous clients!?! But, once the booze and drugs…and boys get flowing, the girls could care less about any outside dangers. Well, that is until they begin to be savagely murdered, one by one. As their numbers lessen, the popular Lucy and the awkward Margo (Samatha Reece Schecter) find themselves facing off against some very unexpected intruders. Will they both make it out alive?
Bassham fills this smart homage with a couple of truly inventive twists and obviously revels in the expected slasher stereotypes. Some of the sex jokes and humorous bits do go on for a bit too long, but the very competent cast commits to them with glorious enthusiasm. The murders, courtesy of Merritt Evelyn Christensen’s fine make-up effects, are also pretty effective and comically industrious, with the demises of coke fiend Beth (Dana Clinkman) and the very proper Eva (Lily Du) standing out from among the rest.
Nicely, the underlying homoeroticism of these films is, also, referenced here and Du and Callegari, also, hesitantly and subtly, address male viewers’ infatuation with hot lesbian co-eds in another fine moment.
The Slashening has been distributed by Troma and is, also, available on Amazon (where it has been heavily edited) and the FilmRise Channel on RoKu.
Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Big Gay Horror Fan 