text: The late 80's saw an inexplicable rash of supernatural horror films set in gloomy penitentiary settings. Renny Harlin's superbly gritty and moody "Prison" got the whole haunted hoosegow ball rolling; it was immediately followed by the markedly inferior "The Chair," John Saxon's enjoyably trashy "Death House," the passable psycho picture "Destroyer," and this hideously limp'n'lethargic exercise in hopelessly comatose tedium. <br /><br />Your usual annoying collection of horribly unsympathetic college student chowderheads lead by insufferably spineless tormented twerp Alex (the hugely unappealing Nicholas Celozzi) go to Alcatraz Island to investigate the bizarre circumstances surrounding the sudden gruesome death of up-and-coming rock star Sammy Mitchell (blandly played by Toni Basil of "Hey Micky" fame). Alex's brother becomes possessed by the evil demonic spirit of a vicious cannibalistic US Civil War cavalry commandant and goes on the expected killing spree, thus forcing wimpy Alex to overcome his passivity and make a stand against this ghoulish specter.<br /><br />Although slickly photographed by Nicholas Von Sternberg, with a few decent gore set pieces and a fair amount of spooky atmosphere (the film was shot on location in the dismal, rusty, rundown ruins of Alcatraz Island), "Slaughterhouse rock" nonetheless just doesn't cut it as a solid, effective fright feature. This is largely due to the uniformly obnoxious and unlikeable collegiate smartaleck characters, a tiresomely smirky bunch whose inane comic antics prove to be grating rather than amusing. The flat acting from a noticeably disinterested cast hurts matters all the more, with onetime "Playboy" playmate and undeniable blonde cutie pie hottie supreme Hope Marie Carlton doing an especially irritating Linnea Quigley impersonation as the token oversexed nympho bimbo. Dimitri Logothetis' direction displays a modicum of flashy visual style, but the tone is unevenly pitched between grim seriousness and goofy, horrendously sophomoric silliness, and, most damagingly, Ted Landon's sloppy, inconsistent, overly complicated and finally quite confusing script miserably fails to develop the necessary internal logic to make the far-fetched story even remotely plausible. In other words, this stinker sadly succeeds in making a scant 90 minutes seem like an excruciatingly drawn-out cinematic jail sentence.