Slash (2002)

(In French, On Cable TV, October 2012) As someone who’s definitely not a slasher-horror fan, I’m slightly surprised to find that that South African rural horror film Slash is actually… tolerable. There’s an interesting fusion between the farm location and the rock musicians of the cast that is more amusing than the norm, and there’s a comedic accent in the way the film deals with its characters and fake-outs. You wouldn’t know that the film is from South Africa if you skipped the credit—visually, it seems intent on passing itself off as American Midwest horror and the cast is filled with American actors. The premise is some kind of mixture between “city people stuck on a farm” and “folk horror with pagan roots” (i.e.: irrigate the land with blood), but it’s in the moment-to-moment material that Slash does better than the norm, whether it’s the banter between characters, a wholly unexpected rock band number toward the end, or the way director Neal Sundstrom plays to audience expectations. None of this makes Slash essential or overlooked, but it does make it a better experience than most other slashers out there.