Slashdance (1989) — Triskaidekafiles

SLASHDANCE

WRITER: James Shyman

DIRECTOR: James Shyman

STARRING: Cindy Maranne as Tori
James Carrol Jordan as Logan
Jay Richardson as Edison
Joel Von Ornsteiner as Amos
John Bluto as Rupert
Jackson Daniels as Jeff
William Kerr as Oliver
Queen Kong as Repo
Kelle Marie Favoia as Mavis
QUICK CUT: A woman auditions for a dance production, and makes new friends along the way.

THE MORGUE

Tori - An undercover cop with a past, and a penchant for violence. She’s still recovering from the murder of her sister. She’s friendly, with a take no shit attitude, and while she might bend the rules, it’s no worse than most cops.

Jeff - Tori’s friend and fellow cop, with his own subplot of marital troubles. He’s sweet on Tori, and is constantly hitting on her.

Captain Edison - The police chief, who has political ambitions, and only likes sleazy women when they’re not cops. Sexist, slimy, and very icky.

Oliver and Amos - A pair of brothers in charge of a struggling theatre that their father opened and took to great fame. Oliver is a put upon guy who is just trying to run the numbers. Amos is a weird guy with bad people skills who likes to play pranks and make people uncomfortable.

Logan - A big time director that got his start at the theatre under Oliver’s dad’s tutelage. He also hits on Tori, and has no shortage of charm.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! This week we jump back to the 80s for a nicely obscure slasher movie called Slashdance, because we do love ourselves some theater set slasher movies.

The movie opens up with a girl showing up to audition to be a dancer in a stage production. There's no one there though, but she decides to audition anyways, answering the age old question; if someone auditions for a play, and there's no one there to see it, does it really make a sound?

Anyways, there IS someone there, lurking in the shadows, and they find a saw backstage, which they then use to slice her neck open.

Acting can be a real cutthroat business.

We then jump to the beach, where our main character, Tori, is catching some rays. She is interrupted though when a man shows up, announces his name is Rupert, and then whips open his coat to flash her.

Just a bit of advice, my guy; if you're gonna do that, do not give out your name?

After he leaves, Tori gets dressed and goes to meet a pair of women selling drugs, to try and buy some steroids. They talk for a bit about work, and making the deal and...wait a minute, did this movie...THIS MOVIE...did they just pass the Bechdel test?!

But alas, a sale is not to be had, because Tori is actually a cop, and tries to arrest the women. They're not about to come quietly though, and the fact that all these actors are wrestlers comes into play, as they throw down in the cardboard box warehouse.

Next, Tori meets her new captain at the precinct, and he's an up and comer, something of a political mover, and he has little patience for women in the workplace. He's a real peach. They also establish Tori as a troublemaker with a temper, but I smell double standards

To try and keep her out of sight and not causing any trouble, she goes undercover as a bag lady since some guys are harassing the homeless. Fortunately for us, it's not long before the perps show up to try and shake down Tori.

Unfortunately for them, Tori uses her sweet wrestling moves on them, and wipes the alley with the thugs. But joke's on her, one of them is actually into that shit. She calls him sick for liking it, and hey, we don't kinkshame here.

Bulk and Skull had it rough after Power Rangers.

We then get the first of many flashbacks which are supposed to flesh out Tori's character, but since they have no real bearing on the plot, it almost feels like the plot of another movie intruding on this one, since most of this coulda been delivered in dialogue, and isn't really necessary even then.

Next, we jump to another audition to keep things interesting as Southern Cindy Lauper shows up at the theatre, only to meet her own ill fate. Some guy in the auditorium with the rope, like this is a game of Clue...

And as he breaks her neck, he also chows down on some celery, based on the sound it makes, but I digress...

The bodies are starting to get noticed finally, but the chief doesn't really care much. Missing girls ain't exactly sexy and don’t get the right headlines to further his career, but he puts Tori on it, because someone should at least look into it.

Y'know, with this guy's political aspirations and attitude towards women, he's probably got a nice job in Trump's cabinet these days.

Following yet another flashback voiceover, we jump to another audition, but this one doesn't end in murder, just scares, as stagehand Amos scares the girl off with a prop skull.

Amos is weird, campy, a little...a lot awkward, and he will be our designated red herring for much of the movie.

Tori heads to the theatre, and runs into the two drug dealing wrestlers from earlier, and we learn that the first girl who was killed, is Repo's cousin. They think she's gone missing, but at least it ties into the ongoing plot of the movie.

Back at the theatre, the girls are getting ready to audition, and oh look, the flashing pervert from the beach is their dance choreographer.

We spend a lot of time dancing, random one liners from Rupert, and Amos being weird and Amos. It's quite some time before Tori finally arrives. But once she does, she menaces Rupert, and he buggers off to never be seen again, at least.

So, there's a subplot that this was a once great theatre, but has landed on hard times following the death of Amos and Oliver's dad, who started it. They've lured back the great director Logan Bridger who got his start here, and he's returned as a favour to the place that gave him his first break.

Tori finally arrives, the girls make their final audition for the director, and we get even MORE dancing. Every time I watch this, I forget just how much dancing is in it to pad out the runtime. I get it, that's the central conceit of the movie, but there is just too much.

Most of the girls make the cut, but not all of them. Fortunately, Tori's good enough, or this would be a much shorter movie.

The chief wants to call Tori back in, since his political career is on the rise. Her friend on the force plays dumb so she can keep looking for Repo's cousin and do her job.

But then there's more dancing to be had! I know it's the conceit of the movie, but there's so so much dancing, I just want to end it.

Amos looks like he's about to sing Laura Palmer a love song he wrote.

We bounce between dancing scenes, Logan flirting with Tori, more dancing, Amos looking creepy, even more dancing...I am starting to develop a trigger response to hearing, "Five, six, seven eight!"

Finally, we get a break from dancing, as most of the dancers go home, except Holly who stayed behind to get a little extra work in. But there's someone else lurking in the theatre...

She gets spooked, Tori comes running, and chases after whomever it might be. She runs into Amos being Amos, and gives him the third degree. He gives some line about the way you girls dress, you're asking to be harassed, and WOW nice victim blaming, A-man.

It’s not quite “Not an 80s horror movie until the aerobics start” but close enough.

There's been a running thread that Amos wants more say in the theatre, no one listens to him, and he's always being left out of meetings, etc. So he decides to finally take drastic measures to get some attention.

He finds a prop knife, and goes to make a scene on stage in front of his brother, Logan, and the girls.

When he's not looking, someone swaps the knife for something less of a prop, so when he goes to stab himself, Amos REALLY guts himself. Everyone thinks it's Amos being Amos, but it turns deadly serious real fast.

It's all brushed aside as a tragic accident, since he did these things all the time, but since this was Amos, and he was known for being weird, he becomes the scapegoat for all the deaths and disappearances.

Tori doesn't think it's that cut and dry though, but the chief has shown up, what with a very public death taking place, and he wants to put an end to all this, so he can rise up the political ladder.

But with the dead body removed and blood cleaned up, the show must go on so...more dancing! KILL ME GIVE ME THAT KNIFE.

Tori gets ready to head out, and realises her gun has been taken from her bag. Oh, and Repo and Mavis show back up into the plot, saying they found the guy who's been harassing girls. But they just popped the chief in the face. Still, he probably deserved it.

Someone is lurking around backstage like he's the Black Hood from Riverdale, and he very quickly removes his hood to reveal the killer is...Logan!

Did I not instruct that box five was to be left empty??

Logan shoots Oliver, and then he and Tori get into a fight. In a rare amazing moment, Tori flings a high heel at the killer, director, and former lover, and it stabs him right in the face.

It's also revealed that Logan was assaulted by Oliver and Amos' father when he was young, and he was the one who killed the elder Van Slake. This movie got like, way more dark really quickly.

So Tori and Logan run around for a bit backstage, until they get into a struggle Tori gets her hands on the saw, bookending things nicely, as the movie ends very suddenly.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks solid for an 80s low budget horror flick. Not great, but could be worse.

Audio: Perfectly okay.

Sound Bite: “She's got scandal written all over her. I like that in a woman."“

Body Count: Really needed more to beef the plot up more, but at least there’s something.

1 - About five minutes in, and the first dancer gets her throat sawed open.
2 - Misty Rivers gets choked by a rope.
3 - Amos kills himself with a not prop knife
4 - Logan shoots Oliver
5 - Logan gets his face sawed open

Best Corpse: The stiletto to the face would’ve won if it killed Logan, but it as just a wound, so I have to give it to the first death. The slice to the neck looked good, if a little bloodless.

Blood Type - D+: Not a whole lot of blood in this, save for a few stabs and gun shots, and when Logan gets shoed in the face.

Sex Appeal: The most we get is women in leotards, and some tasteful nudity from Tori.

Drink Up! every time Tori has a flashback

Movie Review: I come so close to liking this, and I WANT to like it, even if it’s not very good. There’s elements here, there’s ideas here, but so so so much dancing. And I know it says Slashdance on the title, but I wish it had been more slash and less dance. I genuinely would bring my rating up a whole level if there was like, two or three less dance rehearsals. Besides that, the story is a mess, the acting is either okay to high camp to over the top to bad. The movie is padded out even beyond the dancing, and this ultimately feels like a title in search of a movie. One out of five high heels.

Entertainment Value: What it lacks in quality, it does make up for, a little bit, in entertainment. Amos is a delight. He’s not doing a great acting job, but he’s thrown himself into the role, and it is at least entertaining. The kills are underwhelming. The whole drug dealing wrestlers subplot is just weird, but in an entertaining way. It’s just such an odd movie in almost every way. Nothing here is terrible, but it does compel me. Three out of five gym bags.