User Reviews

What a ride this season of Slasher has been. Even before the killer showed up, it became clear this family was prepared to do each other in. Their twisted love and hate for one another being a schizophrenic mess of ambition, competition and switching alliances. Sadly, in its deouement, the season relies on its three least able cast members to do the emotional and narrative heavy lifting.

Luckily, for the first ten minutes, Trinh is back! Smirking that villainous way, she reveals the role she played in everything. Jeananne Goossen is fabulous in these moments. Dressed all in black and tired to a pillar, she still manages to be intimidating and charismatic. Losing her, after having lost the delights of Grace, Florence and Christy in quick succession, means we lose the last fun character. This leaves us with half an hour of bad storytelling choices, bad scenes (the post coital glow of Theo and Liv as he sits there with numerous knife wounds is just ridiculous - they established there were no painkillers on the island! He's not even stitched up!) , and actors unable to make the final game of chess riveting as they try to wrap up Spencer's games.

A. J. Simmons fairs better than the rest, mainly because Vincent is an easier stereotype to play: angry, mistreated, good at heart. The flashbacks to reveal evil Theo manipulating Vincent into being beat by his grandad, however, are jarring to watch, because they come in the middle of a scene that took a sharp turn left into a murderous brawl between the brothers. The energy of the scenes does not sync and the following final confrontation in the diningroom, while delightfully gory, would leave most people scratching their heads. Liv also, having most certainly heard the commotion, does not come through to help either. This could be explained as a choice on her behalf to let the twins kill each other, except Sydney Meyer who plays Liv has been such a non-entity this entire time that it just comes across as lazy writing. The actors are not the only ones to blame. Neither Vincent, Theo or Liv have been given much to do besides react to the violence this entire time. Yes, Liv once spent an entire episode trying to fix a boat (badly) and got chased by The Gentleman, but neither situation made her seem adept. She couldn't even kept her mother alive, sending her off to "keep watch" instead of sticking together. None of the final three are interesting on their own, since episode 6 they've sat on the sofa and let everything else happen. Worse yet, we never find out Liv's part in it all. Was she an accomplice of Trinh? Did she just hate the Galloways? We'll never know. Neither the writing nor the actor were able to convince us that Liv was anything more than a token final girl.

I have to give it an above average grade though, because there were interesting themes at play. The toxicity of a family untouched by society for decades imploding, the case of class and working for what you deserve, both are deep themes that run throughout the show. Unfortunately, recent cinema has more succinctly shown these topics but points to Slasher for trying to add them to their potent mix of Christie style murder mysteries. Here's hoping season 5 can stick the landing!

Up to the first half of episode 7, I wasn't the biggest fan of this season of "Slasher"; it played more like a (twisted) soap opera punctuated by infrequent gore than a horror / slasher show. Flaws include: giving each character who is about to die a flashback at the start of their final episode, thus betraying who and when is going to get killed, having the same actors looking exactly the same playing their 25-year-younger selves (!), and most important of all, making the killer obvious from around episode 3. Or is he? The fact that they ultimately avoided this flaw is the thing that I liked the most about the final two episodes. I was shocked the moment it became clear that (spoiler!!!) Theo was not the killer. The killer's identity is a surprise, but what's even more surprising is how secondary (though well-acted) the killer is in this season; almost appearing by contractual obligation. Nearly EVERY character has a nasty and sadistic killer inside them, ready to come out (there is hardly anybody to root for). The finale is a wild, wtf? Ride, and also feautures the single gnarliest, grisliest gore set-piece of the season. Overall I still think this is probably the weakest season, but only by a small margin compared to 1 and 3 (2 remains far and away the strongest). 8/10 for this finale, 7/10 for the season as a whole.

I liked the first season of slasher, everything after that was not convincing, but I really disliked the fourth season, partly because we have seen the elements before (Orphan, Knives out, etc.), partly because its disgusting (display of) violence but in particular because it is mainly left-wing propaganda against the rich (and I am not rich myself at all, but this is BS). Like the horrible Knives out it just milks the dumb deadbeat clichés of rich people having it better, which Knives out and Slasher S4 clearly show the opposite of: no, they do not. It is the poor, felt for servants that are the lucky ones with parents/families who value and love them and back them up no matter what. They are not to be pitied, if at all: they are the ones to be envied. Nobody wants a father that jeopardizes and loathes his own children, even if rich. And if you are too unprofessional to take orders, you shouldn't be working as a servant - that's your job, if you do not like that: quit. And neither in Knives out nor in this season the servants were actually treated badly, (as s.o. Who has experienced both:) if they want to know what a bad work climate looks like they should get a job in a free market enterprise - one would think Hollywood writers know that, but maybe they just work in (peaceful, luxurious) home office nowadays. But Liv's mother taking away a mother's child for money? No jealousy justifies this (she is responsible for bringing up her family without being a criminal and hurting and destroying others). I did not like the portayal of the children as spoiled, because they were not, the most spoiled and disgusting person is a gold digger that has much less earned the money, in particular if they murder in order to get their will and if they bite off other people's finger like a rabid animal. All these productions do is support the (unjustified) jealousy and spread hate, like Aphra's hate for rich people - rather be a total lunatic than be grateful for what they give you? Is that what the writers think/propose? How many people would be out of job without rich company owners? Kristy, O'Keefe, or even Jaden or Vincent should have won. And Florence etc. Were at least interesting, Liv and Birgit were not. Therefore I did not like the ending, even if it tried to make up for some of the statements before in showing Birgit's crime, Grace's sin and making Liv become as bad and cold and powerhungry like Spencer etc., but the damage is done, the evil message spread/confirmed, although neither Liv nor Grace nor Birgit were victims, they were (at least) as aggressive and greedy as the others, and the others have the excuse of having had a monster as father and a really awful childhood/start in life and life/family. Sorry, I always condemned McCarthy, but I am starting to see a point. Have you learned nothing from Eastern Europe's decay?