Teenaged Don Wallace (Finn Cole) is stuck at home with his pampering mum when, thanks partially to her prodding, he decides to enrol in an elite boarding school in rural England known as "Slaughterhouse." Soon he then arrives on campus to find that under the control of headmaster Michael Sheen, it's a melting pot of bullying, cliques, caste systems and even land fracking. He shacks up with Willoughby Blake (Asa Butterfield), the one kid at school who refuses to forget about a tragic recent suicide there and seems to be at risk of following suit when he's not plotting revenge on cruel head prefect Clegg (Tom Rhys Harries). Meanwhile, in less morbid moments, Don catches the eye of posh but kind Clemsie (Hermoine Corfield) clumsily tries to woo her. It all takes a turn for the undead, however, when a bumbling school employee (Nick Frost, whose cohort Simon Pegg also appears as a lovestruck house master) encounters an eco-protest in the neighbouring woods. Now a mysterious underground labyrinth is revealed and the site fracking is about to awaken something inhabiting it.
Slaughterhouse Rulez sprang from the minds of director Crispian Mills and critic Henry Fitzherbert, and I think they've concocted a fresh and very exciting school-based horror comedy. By taking the setting and (initial) premise of coming of age in a British boarding school a la Tom Brown's Schooldays and injecting it with a very gory and obscene supernatural twist, this turns out to be a wickedly fun juggling act of educational satire and loving homage to horror. Mills paces and frames each scene with real but rational panache, also ensuring to fully develop the character dynamics particularly among the pupils, and he and Fitzherbert provide thoroughly authentic-sounding dialogue that also doesn't dilute or forego the local lingo. Cole, Corfield and the established Butterfield make a very relatable and committed trio of heroes and the adult stars all let their hair down here with relish, especially Sheen.
But best of all and most importantly, the horror concept is given a shamelessly rollicking and gratuitous treatment the whole way. I found this one to be fun on a stick - or a stake. Slaughterhouse Rulez indeed.
Slaughterhouse Rulez sprang from the minds of director Crispian Mills and critic Henry Fitzherbert, and I think they've concocted a fresh and very exciting school-based horror comedy. By taking the setting and (initial) premise of coming of age in a British boarding school a la Tom Brown's Schooldays and injecting it with a very gory and obscene supernatural twist, this turns out to be a wickedly fun juggling act of educational satire and loving homage to horror. Mills paces and frames each scene with real but rational panache, also ensuring to fully develop the character dynamics particularly among the pupils, and he and Fitzherbert provide thoroughly authentic-sounding dialogue that also doesn't dilute or forego the local lingo. Cole, Corfield and the established Butterfield make a very relatable and committed trio of heroes and the adult stars all let their hair down here with relish, especially Sheen.
But best of all and most importantly, the horror concept is given a shamelessly rollicking and gratuitous treatment the whole way. I found this one to be fun on a stick - or a stake. Slaughterhouse Rulez indeed.
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