Little-known fact about me: my favorite band is Devo. I’ve loved those mutant New Wave rockers ever since I first heard them when I stumbled into a record store in Honolulu (where I grew up) as a teenager in the 80s.
And yet it was only in 2025 when I learned Devo had scored a schlocko 80s horror film called “Slaughterhouse Rock.”
(Admittedly, Devo doing horror music sounds like a mismatch, like having a five-star French chef prepare your Texas-style barbecue.)
Really, I shouldn’t be surprised by the discovery. Devo’s frontman Mark Mothersbaugh has had a very successful second career as a film composer. He’s done films such as “Happy Gilmore”, “Rushmore”, and “Cocaine Bear” as well as the “Rugrats” TV show.
To be honest, I get why Devo might have kept it on the down low. “Slaughterhouse Rock” is far from great. And the soundtrack mainly consists of a few Devo song placements and some minor-key synthwave incidental music.
The plot is as follows: Alex, a college student in San Francisco, is having horrible dreams of being tortured by a mysterious entity. Via some plot machinations, he learns that the source of his agony is a mysterious entity that was released in the abandoned Alcatraz prison across the water. Alex and his gang sneak over there to explore.
But there’s more. Toni Basil, the singer famous for the song “Mickey”, has a role as a ghostly presence who serves as a guide for Alex’s adventures.
To be honest, I kind of lost track of the plot when the complexity piled up.
There’s some surprisingly brutal but cheesy gore in the film. And plenty of deaths (and a kind of disturbing demon rape scene).
The movie—with its motif of dreams haunted by a demon—was clearly going for a “Nightmare on Elm Street” vibe. It’s a pale shadow of that film, but good enough for what it is.
Despite the wooden acting and incongruous plot, I enjoyed the flick on its own terms.
The song that plays over the ending credits is an incredibly hooky Toni Basil/Devo collaboration titled “The Only One.” That alone made it worth it.
