Slimy horror movie director loses his leading lady and discovers a waitress in a local bar. The only trouble is that her pain killer-addicted, electric scooter-bound mother, is an ardent feminist and will stop at nothing to save her daughter from being exploited. The director and the daughter require subordinate characters for their two-person scenes. So, add a sycophant assistant director and a straight-laced younger sister. To flesh it out, add several characters that can be played by one person. Seems like all the ingredients to modern playmaking. Keep it fast and funny. What could go wrong? Kitchen Dog Theater presents the Southwest premier of Slasher written by Artistic Company Member Allison Moore.

If you are going for a popcorn thriller, it’s easier to achieve mindless if you keep it meaningless. But this isn’t what Moore does. She’s got an axe to grind and tries to hide it in two points of view represented in the mom and daughter. The mom is an old school feminist and the daughter is a new generation of liberated woman. Though Moore does everything she can to balance the scales (the mother is pitiful and deluded while the daughter is attractive and pragmatic) her voice comes through clearer from the mother. While the mother can spout chapter and verse from the feminist manifesto, the daughter simply doesn’t have much to bolster her point of view short of being pragmatic about her life situation and having the drive to do something about it.

Moore has written clever comedic dialogue. Unfortunately, it is wit, sass and women’s studies crammed into a genre-bending barrel aimed at itself. The title is “Slasher.” And no wonder, it’s horror/thriller/drama/comedy/parody/propaganda. And any way you slice it, when she pulls the trigger, it’s bloody. On a set that fits the genre, designed by Clare Floyd DeVries, director Tina Parker keeps the pace brisk and the tension brimming. Despite these efforts, the play trips at the climax. It’s not surprising, just disappointing. Horror movies always fall apart at the end. We don’t mind. They’re mindless entertainment, after all, but Moore has packed in too much meaning to let us shut off our minds. When the end comes, we are left with a “what?” instead of a “whew!”

When you use a genre to attack itself, employing its devices, you may profit from its pros but will have to pay for its cons. In this case, a scary movie only works when we are afraid of what might happen. The threat is the thrill. What this play damns but still does is titillate. Even while the author complains via the mother about the exploitation of women in these films, the play employs the same formula. The daughter loses her shirt and almost her life at the climax. This is expected of the horror genre, but in this case, it is a bit like having your cake and eating it, too.

The cast makes the ride worthwhile, though. Chris Hury plays the director with slimy precision. Equally distinct is his suck-up assistant played by Drew Wall. Martha Harms fills out her role as the pragmatic daughter nicely. Lisa Hassler takes us over the top as the crazy matriarch. Leah Spillman is batting cleanup with an array of roles from crazy to comedic. Everyone is ready and able to land their types both arch and stereo with spoofy specificity, but one of the best moments of the play belongs to Rebekah Kennedy as the straight-laced daughter. Wanting her mother to stay home while she goes to school, she takes her mother’s motor scooter key. She explains that unlike everyone else who doubts, she believes that her mother is suffering chronic fatigue. She has to believe. Otherwise, it would mean her mother has chosen not to be there for her. The situation and the monologue are wrenching. The only problem is that it belongs in a different, deeper play. I would like to see that play.

Slasher at the Kitchen Dog Theater through December 12. For more information, click here.