Slaughterhouse (1987) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Lester sees his way of life being destroyed. The modern slaughterhouse has made his traditional hog farming obsolete, the town is foreclosing on his property, and the attorney and sheriff are pressuring him to sell. When Buddy shows him the murdered teenagers, Lester says Tom, Harold, and Fred deserve the same fate, essentially giving his mentally unstable son permission to eliminate anyone who threatens their land. It's a desperate father protecting what little he has left by any means necessary.

Foreshadowing: Earlier, the film establishes that Buddy's brutal impulses already exist, and Lester's only response is to control when and whom those impulses are directed toward.

• Lester Bacon
• Buddy
• murder
• foreclosure
• protection
• land sale

The teens, Skip, Buzz, Annie, and Liz, view the abandoned Bacon Slaughterhouse as the perfect creepy location for their horror video project. They're high schoolers making a film for fun and don't understand the real danger lurking there. Their excitement about the location overrides any awareness that two teenagers were just murdered nearby. Liz being the sheriff's daughter makes her involvement even more ironic since her father is actively trying to shut down that very area.

Foreshadowing: The earlier discovery of Kevin and Michele's bodies by Buddy should have signaled extreme danger, but the teens arrive anyway.

• teens
• horror video
• slaughterhouse
• Liz
• Skip
• Buzz
• Annie

After Buddy kills Deputy Dave Thomas at the slaughterhouse by severing his hand and crushing Harold's skull, he steals Dave's squad car. Sally Duncan is Dave's girlfriend, and Buddy presumably sees her or learns about her through Dave's belongings. He pursues her in the stolen police car, catches up to her, and cuts her throat, showing that Buddy's violence is now expanding beyond the farm to target anyone connected to the people who came after him.

Foreshadowing: The moment Buddy takes the squad car shows he's no longer confined to the farm property.

• Buddy
• Sally Duncan
• Deputy Dave Thomas
• police car
• attack

Tom Sanford was one of the people who came to buy Lester's property, he was the law partner alongside attorney Harold Murdock. After Harold arrives at the slaughterhouse and Buddy kills him, Tom shows up separately to investigate. Lester deliberately lures Tom into the processing room, where Buddy drops him into the meat grinder. This is part of Lester's plan to eliminate everyone involved in the foreclosure attempt, using Buddy as his weapon.

Foreshadowing: Lester already warned that Tom, Harold, and Fred deserved the same fate as the murdered teenagers.

• Lester
• Tom Sanford
• meat grinder
• murder
• slaughterhouse

Liz doesn't actually shoot her father, she shoots Lester Bacon. During the climactic confrontation, Buddy and Lester have captured Liz and are torturing her. When Sheriff Fred Borden arrives, Liz breaks free, grabs her father's weapon, and shoots Lester. This act marks the moment she turns violent herself to survive. Later, she runs over Lester's head with a car to ensure he's dead, showing how far she's been pushed from the innocent teen who came to make a horror video.

Foreshadowing: The entire film has been building toward this reversal where the victim must become the killer to survive.

• Liz
• Lester
• gunshot
• shooting
• survival
• fred borden

Sheriff Fred Borden is killed in the film's final moments. After Liz shoots Lester and runs him over with a car, she loads Fred into her vehicle to escape. However, Buddy, who was hiding in the backseat, emerges and kills Fred. This leaves Liz alone with the killer as the film ends on her scream. Fred's death is particularly tragic because he came to save his daughter but becomes another victim of the Bacon family's violence.

Foreshadowing: Buddy's survival after being shot or attacked is never confirmed, he simply keeps coming back.

• Fred Borden
• death
• Buddy
• killed
• final scene
• survivor

Buddy is described as simple-minded, obese, and mentally unstable. The film presents him as someone whose brutal impulses exist independently of his father's influence, though Lester channels and controls them. Buddy shows no remorse, displaying the bodies of his victims to Lester almost proudly. His violence escalates from teenagers at Lovers Lane to law enforcement to completely innocent victims like Sally Duncan, indicating a complete lack of moral constraint or rational motive beyond following his father's wishes and his own impulses.

Foreshadowing: The opening establishes Buddy as a dangerous figure whose "brutal impulses threaten to tear apart the fragile line" between their old-world life and the modern threat.

• Buddy
• violence
• mental instability
• killings
• brutality

The foreclosure represents the complete destruction of Lester's identity and legacy. He's an aging hog farmer whose traditional methods have been made obsolete by the nearby factory slaughterhouse. His farm isn't just property, it's his life's work and his son's only future. The $55,000 offer from the attorney and sheriff is far less than the land's worth, and the 30-day deadline to vacate means immediate, total loss. This desperation is what drives Lester to use Buddy as a weapon to fight back against the system threatening his family.

Foreshadowing: The opening scene establishes that Lester's "once-proud hog-farming methods have largely given way to cold, factory-type slaughterhouses."

• foreclosure
• lester
• land
• property
• slaughterhouse
• business failure

Deputy Dave Thomas goes to the slaughterhouse alone to search for the missing couple (Kevin and Michele). He's following standard procedure for a missing persons investigation. However, he has no idea what he's walking into, he finds only a dead hanging cat before Buddy attacks him. The deputy's death is a result of going up against a dangerous killer without backup or awareness of the true threat, highlighting the casual danger the Bacon property now represents.

Foreshadowing: Earlier, Buddy already killed two teenagers at Lovers Lane, establishing the area as extremely dangerous.

• Deputy Dave Thomas
• slaughterhouse
• investigation
• death
• alone

The film ends on an unresolved note. Liz drives away with Buddy in the backseat, he kills Fred, and then lunges at her with a knife. The final shot is Liz's terrified scream as she fights to survive. There is no confirmation of whether she lives or dies, the scream could be from the attack itself or her desperation. This ambiguous, bleak ending is consistent with the film's overall tone of unrelenting horror where survival is never guaranteed.

Foreshadowing: The film never offers a moment of relief or hope for a clean escape.

• Liz
• Buddy
• final attack
• scream
• survival
• ending
• unresolved