Saw IV may have been a big old pile of steaming donkey balls, but its success at the box office thus far - $77 million worldwide and counting – has ensured that pronouncements of the death of the ‘torture porn’ sub-genre have been well and truly exaggerated. (Even though that’s a label we’ve never really agreed with – a horror film is a horror film; the torture porn tag is a convenient stick with which squeamish types can beat the genre up)
And so, displaying remarkable timing, here comes another one, Slaughter, starring one of the key cast members of the first three Saw films, Shawnee Smith (who played Jigsaw’s all-too-willing apprentice, Amanda).
Smith will star alongside Erica Leerhsen and AnnaLynne McCord in the film, which is about three actresses who get hired to star in a Japanese horror flick – however, unbeknownst to them, it’s a snuff movie. Dum dum DUMMMMMMM!!!
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Eugenia Yuan will play the movie’s director and producer, Karl Yune will play the hapless women’s co-star and Jonathon Trent will play the boyfriend of McCord’s character, which perhaps indicates that Smith won’t play the lead role after all.
It’s a fairly intriguing premise, although the ever-PC Empire has to wonder what the film has to gain from making the bad guys Japanese.
Victor Garcia will direct, based on a script by Nathan Brookes and Bobby Lee Darby that was so good it won the Slamdance Film Festival’s Horror Screenplay Competition. Nice.
Slamdance is one of the backers on Slaughter, along with Maverick Films and Angel Baby Entertainment.