Have Cheetah,Will View #416 – “Slayer” (2006)

Its 7:22 pm
cold/dark/awooooo!

The cheetah and I were talking about creature features over some tomato soup and raw zebra (he has the zebra) during our last snowstorm. We both love them quite a bit and so I decided to surprise him with a older film I found while at the video store. Not only did “Slayer” come full with some of our favorite genre actors like Casper Van Dien,Danny Trejo and Ray Park but also one of my favorite actresses in Jennifer O’Dell who starred as “Veronica” on the syndicated show “The Lost World”. With a line-up like that,how could I pass this one up,right?

“Slayer” was an original film made for the SyFy Channel and was directed and written by genre veteran Kevin VanHook. For a made for TV movie,”Slayer”was quite ambitious.
The story is a bit worn,an elite group of soldiers led by Hawk (Casper Van Dien) is hunting a rebel group in South America when they stumble across a house full of dead bodies with bite marks and torn out throats.

The group is attacked in broad daylight by what appears to be a group of vampires.
Several troops are killed but Hawk and his two friends Grieves (Kevin Grevioux) and Alex (Alexis Cruz) do some damage in return.
Hawk and Alex get seperated from Grieves who later gets ambushed and turned into a vampire. Using tactics by a now turned Grieves,Hawk and the rest of the team is nearly wiped before escaping with their lives.

Hawk wakes up to find that his commanding officer,Col. Weaver (Lynda Carter) managed to rescue what was left of his team.  While the official word is there are no such things as vampires,Col. Weaver tells Hawk that he will need to go back into the jungle because his estranged wife Laurie (Jennifer O’Dell) is a scientist doing some research in the infected area.

Of course Hawk is going to mount a rescue mission as he gathers Alex and a fresh platoon to try and save Laurie. What he doesn’t know is the already dangerous vampire are even more so thanks to Hawk’s former friend and now commanding the vampires,Grieves……..

I know this movie is 14 years old and it got chopped on IMDb (3.6 rating) but as you know,the cheetah and I never pay attention to that crap….we go with a “Did we like it” and in “Slayer”case,hell yeah!! This movie was fun,fun,fun but also made me a little sad because once Ray Park was a complete bad ass as was Jennifer O’Dell and yet we never get to see these two enough in films and its a damn shame. Park is a martial arts master and an excellent onscreen fighter who can actually act but is so under used its not even funny.

O’Dell,who shot to fame on “The Lost World” ,the same thing. She is beautiful,can carry any type of scene and isn’t afraid to mix it up in a fight scene. But like Park,it just seems like no one called her phone enough and that sucks.

Casper is his usual excellent self,looking like he is having a ball and even having a glint of fanboy in his eyes in his scenes with the lovely Ms. Carter. He does a commentary with director-writer VanHook that is one of best ones I have heard,it will have you in tears of laughter.

Solid support by Danny Trejo who helps Hawk on his rescue mission,Alexis Cruz who later on starred in the James Woods series “Shark” and by Kevin Grevioux,who developed the beloved “Underworld” series and also co-starred in “I,Frankenstein”.
Like I said,for a TV movie,VanHook gathered quite a cast for his film. The action scenes are plentiful and quite bloody for a SyFy film but it adds to the excitement of the story.

“Slayer” has a run time of 87 minutes and has the mentioned commentary plus art gallery and photos.

The cheetah and I both enjoyed “Slayer”quite a bit and we’re loving finding these little gems during our film hunting.

Drop a comment and let us know what you have been watching as of late!