Scary Stimulation

Urban Samurai’s ‘Slasher’ delivers biting – and bloody – social commentary

Urban Samurai's 'Slasher' is chock full of thunder claps, explosions, darkness, and blood curdling screams, in addition to hilarious innuendo and bitingly funny dialog.

Image credit: George Calger/Urban Samurai

Recommended by the Editor

Character Connection

Creating Chemistry Cinema Can't

By: Faith Christine

Urban Samurai's most recent dramatic offering, a regional premiere of Slasher that runs through Feb. 18, is more evidence that this passionate little theater company is worthy of Drama Queen's continued admiration and support.

The show by local playwright Allison Moore was a campy, fun, spoof on the B-horror genre of film making. Always ones to search out new things and push the envelope, Samurai's rendition planted the audience right in the midst of the action by seating them on-stage for the 90-minute, no-intermission performance.

The story, a funny yet somewhat caustic satire, featured Sheena, a buxom, blond, wiser-than-her-years heroine. Tired of always living on the verge of having the gas turned off because her pill-addled mother had spent the money, she negotiates her way into the starring role of a low-budget slasher movie. Mom, a frustrated feminist, who has been wheelchair-bound for 15 years with faked chronic fatigue syndrome, is horrified by her daughter's selling out to a misogynist creep and vows to save her from this terrible fate. 

The fast-paced script is chock full of thunder claps, explosions, darkness, and blood curdling screams, in addition to hilarious innuendo and bitingly funny dialog. Fake blood and cheesy acting abound in the horror show within a horror show, reminding Drama Queen of the time she came away from a production of Sweeney Todd wearing red splatters, a souvenir from one of the throat-slashing scenes.

Morrison's witty Slasher script proved a perfect match for the wacky aspirations and talents of Samurai's risk-taking artistic staff and they clearly had a merry time bringing it to the stage.

Once again they demonstrated that its groups like Samurai, always willing to try new things and test their audiences, that keeps audiences engaged and the Twin Cities theater community vibrant and evolving. It's why DQ can't ever leave for too long. Where else could she find such accessible, stimulating theatrical action?

+ Faith Christine (a.k.a. "the Drama Queen") blogs every week for METRO. See more of her work here.