Some movies you stumble into by accident, like an old beer can at the bottom of the fridge—you open it, taste it, realize it’s been expired since Clinton was in office, and still drink half because you don’t want to admit defeat. Slaughter Studiosis that beer can. A film shot in twelve days inside Roger Corman’s soon-to-be-demolished Venice Beach studio, it’s less a movie and more like Hollywood dumpster juice that congealed into a slasher-comedy no one asked for.
The pitch is simple: a bunch of horny film students break into an abandoned studio to make a horror flick called Naughty Sex Kittens vs. the Giant Praying Mantis (yes, really) before the wrecking ball comes in. Instead of finishing their student porno-movie, they get picked off one by one by a killer who may or may not be the ghost of a dead actor. Add in stress medication abuse, gratuitous nudity, lesbian shower scenes, and more bad acting than an open mic Shakespeare night, and voilà—you’ve got a movie so bad it feels like a parody of itself.
And yet, lurking in the rubble is Lorissa McComas, cult queen of direct-to-video flesh cinema, showing up as Candace, an airhead obsessed with the ghost of some washed-up actor. She wanders off, babbles, and—spoiler—gets whacked. It’s the kind of role only B-movie royalty like McComas could play with straight-faced sincerity. She was better than this film deserved, but here she is anyway, immortalized in what amounts to Roger Corman’s retirement party.
The Plot: Horror by Mad Libs
The “plot” is about Steve, an egotistical student director with delusions of grandeur and a prescription drug problem. He drags his girlfriend Madigan (who just wants to act) and a bunch of other stereotypes—snobs, floozies, himbos, and nerds—into the condemned studio to shoot his magnum opus. Naturally, instead of making a movie, they get murdered by a mysterious figure.
Let’s be clear: Slaughter Studios doesn’t so much “tell a story” as it stumbles from one cliché to another like a drunk uncle at a wedding. There’s the bad actor killed while rehearsing alone, the horny girls killed after a shower, the “I’ll be right back” wanderer who never returns. It’s every slasher beat you’ve seen, reheated like leftover Chinese food, except now the soy sauce packet has leaked everywhere.
By the time we find out the killer is just a homeless guy protecting his turf, it’s too late—we’re already dead inside. And the “twist” that he’s hanging out with the ghost of a dead actor? It’s so stupid it feels like an insult. Like the movie is laughing at you for watching it.
The Cast: Dead on Arrival
Most of the cast looks like they wandered in from a failed WB pilot.
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Steve (Peter Stanovich): A coked-up director wannabe whose idea of cinema is “add a lesbian sex scene.” He pops pills, screams at his cast, and dies in the most fitting way possible—crushed under heavy equipment. A metaphor for this movie crushing the life out of me.
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Madigan (Amy Shelton-White): The girlfriend stuck in the eternal limbo of “supportive but overlooked.” She wants a role, finally gets one, then spends the rest of the movie running from death and bad dialogue.
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Portia (Tara Killian): The snob. She storms around demanding attention, passes out on Steve’s meds, and dies impaled. By that point, I envied her.
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Olie (Anand Chulani): The sound guy secretly filming women to sell porn online. His death by spike to the head feels more like justice than horror.
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Chad (Darren Keefe): A leading man so bad at acting they kill him off almost immediately. A mercy killing, really.
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Lorissa McComas as Candace: And here’s our bright spot in the muck. McComas had a knack for playing ditzy roles with sincerity, and Candace is no exception. She’s obsessed with the ghost of Justin Kirkpatric, babbles like a true believer, then wanders off to her doom. Her screen time is short, but like always, she brings a strange charm—proof that even in trash cinema, she could make you watch.
The Sex, the Blood, the Boredom
For a movie about horny film students making a movie called Naughty Sex Kittens vs. the Giant Praying Mantis, you’d think this would at least lean into sleaze. And it does, briefly—a lesbian scene that spirals into actual sex, followed by a shower sequence, followed by death. Classic exploitation, the kind Corman built a career on. But here, it feels tired. Obligatory. Like the filmmakers knew they had to pad the runtime with nudity, but their hearts weren’t in it.
The kills, meanwhile, are uninspired. Pickaxe, strangulation, impalement—blah, blah, blah. The gore is minimal, the suspense nonexistent. If you’ve ever seen a Friday the 13th sequel, you’ve already seen all of this done better.
By the time Steve gets pancaked under a piece of machinery, you’re cheering. Not because the killer is scary, but because it means this slog is closer to ending.
Production Notes: 12 Days in Purgatory
This was the last movie shot at Corman’s Venice Beach studio, and it shows. Sets are collapsing, walls are cracked, and the whole place looks like it’s one strong breeze away from implosion. Which, honestly, gives it more atmosphere than anything in the script.
The fact they shot this in twelve days explains a lot: the wooden acting, the sloppy pacing, the scenes that drag on like molasses. Hell, they even jammed in leftover footage from Slumber Party Massacre during one of the kills. Recycling at its worst.
And yes, they took a break mid-production because of Malibu rain, which meant this mess stretched over a year. Imagine pausing halfway through a dumpster fire only to come back later and toss on a few more gallons of gasoline.
Final Thoughts: Bury It Deeper
Slaughter Studios wants to be a satire of low-budget filmmaking. It wants to wink at the audience, break the fourth wall, and nod to Corman’s legacy. Instead, it feels like watching a drunk guy at karaoke who thinks he’s Freddie Mercury but sounds like a dying goat.
The humor falls flat, the horror is nonexistent, and the cast is just waiting for their paycheck. The only spark of life is Lorissa McComas, who manages to inject charm into a nothing role before being dispatched like everyone else. She deserved better, but then again, so did we.
When the homeless killer finally shows up to declare “It ain’t right to fuck with a man’s house,” I nearly stood up and applauded. Not because it was clever, but because it meant the credits were coming. This film is proof that sometimes it’s best to let sleeping studios lie.
So here lies Slaughter Studios—the last gasp of a once-great exploitation empire, a limp parody of itself, and a reminder that not every abandoned building needs a farewell tour. Some things should just be bulldozed and forgotten.
