HAYRIDE SLAUGHTER (2001) **

A rash of Satanic murders threatens to shut down an independent haunted house and hayride attraction.  Tina Krause is the sexy witch/psychic investigator who is brought in to find the killer and stop the bad publicity.  Complications arise when Krause’s ex (Dean Paul) winds up becoming the lead detective on the case. 

If you’re a fan of W.A.V.E. Productions, you may already know what you’re getting yourself into with Hayride Slaughter.  This was one of those instances where they were actually trying to make a “real” movie, and the results are uneven at best.  The central premise is sound and the “killer in a walk-through haunted house” plot predates films like Hell Fest and Haunt by nearly two decades.  It’s just that director Gary Whitson never really goes anywhere with gimmick.  The finale where Tina is attacked by a demon is appropriately silly, but it ultimately comes up a day late and a dollar short. 

It doesn’t help that the film is so overburdened with useless padding that it often slows things to a crawl.  Such forms of padding include black and white “flashbacks” (actually an unrelated short film), pointless Blurry-Vision slow motion scenes, a painfully long magic act that’s filmed in its entirety (the fact that Tina is the sexy magician’s assistant takes some of the boredom out of it), and pointless Blurry-Vision slow motion scenes of the aforementioned magic act.  The running time is eighty-five minutes, but if Whitson cut all that malarkey out and brought it in at a tight sixty minutes or so, he might’ve had something.  

Since this is a W.A.V.E. movie, we also get a random bondage scene. It’s not exactly great or anything.  However, since it takes place inside a haunted house, it’s novel at the very least. 

I’m a big Tina Krause fan, but this is far from her best work.  While Tina tries her darnedest, she is unable to save the film.  Some enjoyment can also be found from spotting other familiar faces from W.A.V.E. Productions that populate the supporting cast including Whitson (cop), Debbie D. (scare actress), and Barbara Joyce (bondage enthusiast).  Krause and Joyce provide some T & A too, which helps make it watchable.