SLAUGHTERHOUSE RULEZ REVIEW: A historic boarding school comes under attack from subterranean monster

Elite boarding schools have been a favorite microcosm for film-makers to explore over the years: as the crucible of revolution in If…., the breeding ground of spies in Another Country, and the vessel of intellectual liberation in Dead Poets Society.

This watchable but annoyingly undemanding debacle opts to take a very different tack: a teen comedy-horror with a pinch of inspiration to make any bigger points, just happy to chase its group of shrieking and bellowing schoolkids around an educational establishment’s hidden passageways and ‘off-limits’ woodland.

The film is executive produced by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, under their new film and television production banner, Stolen Picture. While the Pegg and Frost names – both also appear in the film – will be a key marketing tool, the film lacks the distinctive, knowing humor of their previous comedy-genre collisions like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

And most of their trademark wit and humor, such as it is, provided by the seasoned performers Simon Pegg (as an ineffectual housemaster) and Nick Frost (as an eco-campaigner camping in the woods), comes across good-natured, and all most out of place for the film.

Finn Cole stars as Don Wallace, a relatively normal Northern teenager whose widowed mother believes she is honoring his late father’s wishes when she scrapes together the money to send him to historic boarding school Slaughterhouse. (Sound the nominative determinism klaxon right about now.) Don is clearly intended to be the relatable outsider through whose eyes we view the arcane rituals and school-sanctioned bullying of this venerable establishment, yet feels like an assortment of character traits which don’t cohere into a whole.

Asa Butterfield proves his worth as a creepy bullied kid who is first seen flourishing a firearm; Cole and fellow lead Hermione Corfield (as principal goddess Clemsie Lawrence) do a decent job alongside.

The pair strike an uneasy accord, unified by their outsider status and mutual antipathy towards sixth form psychopath Clegg (Tom Rhys Harries).

Not that much imagination is required once Michael Sheen wafts onto the screen. He plays the school principal with the toothy casual treachery of a Tory frontbencher. His deal with the fracking company has caused gaping sinkholes in the earth, out of which unknown terrors will emerge, and that’s, unfortunately, all we can say about this obvious wannabee (un)funny British comedy.

While Nick Frost has equipped himself with metal teeth, the better to chew the scenery as an eco-warrior with a personal grudge. And poor, Hermione Corfield, playing Don’s dream girl, is required to strip down to her basque in order despatch an attack slug with fangs (ouch!)

CAMEO, blink and you’ll miss Margot Robbie, (which speaks more about the persuasive power of Pegg and Frost than it does about the strength of the role).

ABOVE: YEAH, WE KNOW, THE HORROR WE JUST WATCHED AS WELL!

The Director is…

Crispian Mills, who directs with zippy pace, throwing things together with a breathlessness that largely distracts from the fact that, for a horror-comedy, Slaughterhouse Rulez is neither particularly scary and we wouldn’t say ‘especially funny.’ But it does have sort of delightful charm once the creatures are unleashed and the blood starts to flow, there’s a certain visceral kick to be had from the gleeful gross-out mess of chewed up public school kids.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The basic premise is quite appealing: a group of over-privileged teenagers from an elite public school are terrorized by subterranean monsters that look like entrails with badly fitted dentures. But for all the gung ho fx and severed limbs, this sloppy horror comedy under delivers on both shocks and laughs.

Shame, really.

3.5/5 STARS