October Movie Challenge: Slaughter High (1986)

Let's get into this properly now.

I am going to spend this year's October Horror Movie Challenge with a couple of themes in mind. The first is movies from 1985 to 1986 and movies featuring high schools and small towns.  There is some overlap between these two themes, so I am going to start with those. I am actually a little surprised by how many I haven't seen.

Slaughter High (1985)

Pretty much in the center of my Venn diagram is 1985's Slaughter High. Now I was sure I saw this back then; I mean, it has Caroline Munro in it, and I tried to catch anything she was in.  But I have no memory of this one. I mean, there is nothing special about it, to be honest; it is a fairly predictable flick but that doesn't not make it fun. Plus, there are some good ideas here. Though I wonder, are they predictable or did I see this and just forgot it? It does have an old abandoned high school, like my Jackson setting, but in my defense, I actually stole that idea from my own hometown.

The film starts in 1976, but the bulk takes place later on in 1986 during the high school class reunion. 

The idea of a class reunion to bring all the school bullies is a fun one. Too bad the acting is fairly terrible. 

Marty is the local geeky kid who gets picked on. So ten years after the accident on April Fools' Day that disfigures him, he gets all his former bullies to a fake high school reunion where he kills them off one by one. 

Sadly, Simon Scuddamore, who played Marty the slasher, died of a drug overdose shortly after filming.

One note. I am watching this on Tubi, where I am planning to watch a lot of these movies, and it is so dark it is hard to see anything at all in some scenes. Not sure if it is Tubi, the copy they have, or if that is how the movie was. I know it is not my TV, at least.

Jackson, IL Connections

I am also going to try, where possible, to talk about what I can use from these movies for my Jackson, IL Night World for NIGHT SHIFT. Failing that, NIGHT SHIFT, Thirteen Parsecs, and/or Advanced Witches & Warlocks. For AW&W in particular, it will be more of a tonal thing; these are the things in the media around 1985-86 that might have influenced me. 

Slaughter High at least gives me some ideas for class reunions, not necessarily for the current group of characters (and my much-talked-about NPCs), but maybe for the Class of 1976 back for their 10th reunion. This shows that the horrors of this town keep happening over and over again. In truth I kind of like that idea. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
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