Customer Reviews

Slayer

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

BEING AN AVID HORROR FAN I BOUGHT THIS MOVIE NOT EXPECTING TOO MUCH AND I
GOT WHAT I EXPECTED. CASPER VAN DIEN SEEMED UNABLE TO SHOW MUCH INTEREST IN
HIS ROLE BUT, HE WAS NOT ALONE. I GAVE THE MOVIE TWO STARS BECAUSE OF THE
TWO OUTSTANDING CHARACTER ACTORS IN THIS MOVIE, TONY PLANA, AND DANNY TREJO
WHO ARE ALWAYS WORTH WATCHING EVEN IN A PLASTIC MOVIE LIKE THIS. SAVE YOUR
MONEY THERE ARE A LOT BETTER B GRADE MOVIES OUT THERE. I'M LEFT WONDERING
HOW THIS ONE GOT RELEASED.

Slayer (Kevin VanHook, 2006)

The most intriguing thing about Slayer is that it contains the least convincing fight scene since Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter. When that's the best thing you can say about a movie, it's pretty bad.

I realize that most of the top cast in here are pretty well-known for being bad actors. But was Lynda Carter always this awful, or does she just turn in the worst performance of her career? I don't think I've seen her in anything but commercials for twenty-five years or so, so I really can't remember. The horrible thing is that the rest of the cast is so bad that Carter's Razzy-worthy performance is about par for the course. In fact, the majority of this cast is so bad that they almost make the worthless Casper van Dien look good. Kevin Grevioux may actually be the worst actor I have ever seen in a movie. He desperately wants to be Ken Foree. He fails in every respect.

As for what passes for a plot in this farce: an army unit, headed by Hawk (van Dien) and Grieves (Grevioux), somewhere in the remote jungles of South America, is attacked by a band of vampires-- ninja vampires, no less-- who aren't afraid of daylight. (Daywalking is the only change to traditional vampire lore here, despite one vampire's assertion during the film that the "fairy tales" got almost nothing right.) Six months later, nearby villages are being raided, and the army's sending in fresh troops. Grieves is already in South America, and Hawk is on the next boat. You know what happens.

About the only reason to watch this movie is that Danny Trejo has a small role in it, and is his usual self. Otherwise, this movie is trite, badly-acted, badly-scripted, with little attention paid to such things as cinematography, set design, or costuming. In other words, there's absolutely nothing of substance to recommend here. I'm giving it half a star because it's not overtly offensive, but if you do see it, you'll end up thinking, "there's two hours of my life I'll never get back." (half)

SLAYER is another one of those SCIFI CHANNEL's made for tv movies that's not really awful but offers nothing spectacular either. Notice how vampires in the new millennium can run around in the daylight, don't mind crosses and have also become cannibalistic..a nip in the neck isn't enough. This time the vampires have been hiding out in the Amazon rain forest but now that man is depleting the forests, they have to come out and eat humans for food. The typical rag-tag military group led by the dramatically challenged Casper van Dien try to rein in the vampires which now include van Dien's lifelong friend, an actor whose voice is lower than the Luray Caverns.
It's all pretty harmless and not very scary, but there's lots of gore and hissing vampires.
Fans of the genre will be pleased, but not overwhelmed.

As a Casper Van Dien fan, i was able to get a small amount of enjoyment out of this, but it's pretty sloppy. It's as if the director were making scenes, instead of a coherent movie. So, what you get are bits and pieces of a story, but nothing you can enjoy as a whole. Loved the cave setting for the climax, but the jungle scenes are so similar, it looks as if they were all filmed on one acre of land.

Slayer: 5 out of 10: Okay a Sci-fi original film staring B-movie maven Casper Van Dien? How good can it be? Well at least it is no Raptor Island or Chupacabra Terror (All hail Eris).

Actually, for an original Sci-fi channel film this is a reasonably good ride. Well at least the first half is reasonably good.

The film starts Predator style, with a team of marines in the Amazon battling vampires which are not affected by sunlight and rip old ladies in half. (This is actually the best scene in the movie.) Yes, I know they jump around like Circus de Soleil rejects and somehow the Russian twin acrobats from Octopussy were bitten and wandered onto the set.

Anyhow, Casper Van Dien gets back to the states and Linda Carter (Yes Wonder Woman is in this film and no she still can't act) sends Van Dien back to the jungle with a new team (his last team having become vampire chow) to kill the vampires and rescue his ex-wife. (No one actually cares that the natives are being slaughtered but one lost blond woman and the marines are called out.) Why is Van Diem's ex-wife in a jungle infested with day walking vampires to begin with? Neither I ,nor as far as I can tell she, knows.

The vampires are now led by Van Diem's second in command (Kevin Grevioux at his gravelly voiced, over-sized best) and are using military tactics. This is surprising since both the fight scenes (and the vampires) actually become less effective.

The movies continuity also takes a large hit during the second half as characters apparently are using a Star Trek transporter to get from one location to another. (Prepare to be disoriented.) The less said about the pathetic ending monster the better (except it reminded me of Raptor Island and Chupacabra Terror).

One last note to the screenwriter. If the bad guy is going to have a flowery speech about how encroaching civilization is causing the vampires to attack perhaps it would be wise to show something (an idle bulldozer or maybe some condos going up on the river) at any point during the film to make the ridiculous politically correct speech less laughable.

THIS MOVIE IS FULL OF AWESOME-SAUCE. Seriously. The only issue I have with it is the gross misuse of Ray Park, who obviously owns at everything. Don't hold back, Ray! Don't hold back. (It's ok, baby... I still love you.)

NEXT PARAGRAPH.

I watched this with my boyfriend and we had super fun poking fun at it, fun. Don't go into watching it thinking it'll be a beautiful piece of cinematic art; it's not. It's just awful graphics, bad gore, cheesy lines, bad accents, unnecessary (awesome) flips and cartwheels... The type of movie that 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' is made up of. It's one of those movies that is awesomely bad. Watch it with friends, bond, be awesome together! *punch dance*

This is a pretty good little action/horror film with some extremely beautiful location photography and an attractive cast who do their best with a fairly silly script. Alexis Cruz gives a memorable performance and of course there is the great Danny Trejo. Casper Van Dien does a good enough job with his character and has one really humorous scene with Cruz that is the highlight of the film. It's also great to see Linda Carter again. The visual effects are extremely bloody but not especially sophisticated. Certainly this film has some problems but it isn't that bad if you are fond of low independent horror films. As usual, Anchor Bay gives us a first class release of the film. It is packaged in an elegant embossed slip case. The transfer is flawless and looks quite spectacular if upconverted. Dolby 5.1 is good although not remarkable. Also included is an entertaining commentary track with director Kevin Vanhook and Casper Van Dien. There is a still gallery collection that features pre-production art work as well as stills. The screenplay is included as a DVD-ROM feature and there are trailers from other Kevin Vanhook films included. All in all this is an entertaining film given an excellent DVD release.

Picked this up at the rental store hoping it might be good judging it from the cover (I should have learned from Dracula 3000-dont EVEN get me started on that one). Actually I can give this an little praise because it has quite a bit of action but not much gore and it is not scary in the least except when the 'jungle' vampires go up and down trees and buildings on obvious wires. Casper is the soft leader and his counterpart Captain Grieves is the tough guy who succumbs to the vampires and becomes their new leader since he has 'military' skills needed by the vampires to take on the world. Well guess what? Casper must fight Grieves to the death and then face the secret actual vampire leader who changes into a bad CGI creature (I saw a Land of the Lost-1974 episode the other day and the dinosaur in that looked better) in order to save his ex wife who somehow ended up in the exact same part of South America as he did. If you like 'B' movies while having a couple of beers with your friends, this is not a bad choice.

A fun film but if you are a hard core vamp fan this movie will insult you. the vampires have the ability to walk in the sun and can feed on anything. but its not bad as a new version on the occult story.

You should know better when the top billed actor for this movie is from Starship Troopers, then the next "star" is Wonderwoman from the 70's. And then you have the 3rd "star" from The Devils Rejects- one of the worst movies of all time. So with all of our stars in line, lets go to our disappointing feature presentation. First of all I will give the dvd box 5 stars , it really gives you the false impression that you will be seeing a great horror movie, or atleast an entertaining one. Well not so much. There are a few decent effects utilized here, but nothing can save this from the poor acting. Oh man it can be painful. LInda Carter is a military leader who turns a blind eye to Casper Van Diens mission to seek out and kill vampires, although she never believes his claim of vampires, she nonetheless lets him go into a jungle and seek them out. There was a prior mission in the jungle where the worst actor Ray Park (who was darth maul in Star Wars- another atrocity of cinema viewing) came under attack along with some other soldiers and needed to be saved. But he becomes the leader of the vampires, so when our heroes return to the jungle, they find that he is happy to see them, but for evil reasons. It looks a little silly when the military arrives with wooden stakes lined up on their uniforms like full ammunition magazines. These vampires can and will attack during daylight hours, but still can only be killed with the wooden stake through the heart trick. I won't ruin the endless quality entertainment you will enjoy, but get ready for acting talent like you have never seen -even in your local high school muusicals.