Slaughterhouse Rulez

The only reason anyone would watch this are Pegg and Frost, and both are completely wasted in this movie. The first tiny piece of action starts after 50 minutes into the film. Not funny, no gore, nothing new. A big disappointment.

Movie was so bad all 4 in our party walked out, having seen the other movies that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are involved in I was excited to see this movie, however it wasn't so much as a movie as a bunch of clips chucked together with no real plot to it.

Very disappointed, jokes were lame, FROST AND PEGG, seemed to go through the motions. Weak plot, bad acting, poor effects. The end didn't come fast enough for me. Nowhere near the standards of the corner to trilogy. Wish I'd waited for it to be on tv for a wet Sunday afternoon when songs of praise and other rubbish is on tv.

You may have enjoyed the creation of the world that is Hogwart's as a pre-requisite to Harry Potter's antics. The same will be true for some viewers of this window into the culture of British boarding schools. A whole world is set up with gods (prefects), initiations and teenage hormones. Into this is unexpectedly propelled our hero Don, who has to navigate the network of emotions of the present and former pupils, alive and less so, with only the presence of girls to keep his spirits up when suddenly it becomes apparent that there is an evil comedy horror on site. Alex Macqueen is a treat as the baddy who cares wants to ruin the environment as is Nick Frost who wants to pollute in other ways. There's an orgy scene that is undoubtedly the best in the canon of school films and may spawn youtube memes and some deliciously crude language and humour that would meet a frosty response from real world teachers, matrons, parents and other boring people. There is no other film in history that contains both evil flesh eaters and a scene subtitled in Latin as a jibe at all the pretentious film buff who will no doubt give this film bad reviews as they know everything about high brow and nothing about having a good evening out.

Shallow plot. Cliché characters. Totally ungripping story telling. The jokes fall flat. The 'horror' is as if from the 1950's. The film tries to get interesting towards the end but the first half has already killed the happiness in you that you stay interested no more. Please save your time and money. Trust me, there are many better ways to kill 104 minutes of your life.

This was a real mixed-bag of a film. Tries to be a horror-comedy without being particularly scary or funny and uses elements we've seen from stories set at boarding schools like this many times before. My main issue is the film's first half which does a rather sloppy job setting up the overall story, characters and elements that lead to later payoffs. It also treats the audience like they're stupid at points, showing flashbacks of scenes that literally occurred five minutes beforehand as if we've already forgotten them. This combined with awful dialogue and an odd structure make the first 45 minutes an extremely tedious watch. When the second half kicks in with the proper introduction of the creatures it becomes a lot more enjoyable, as it truly embraces the gore-fest it becomes. On a production side it's all fairly competent with decent direction and visual effects for the most part. All the acting is fine, with the ever-charming Simon Pegg and Asa Butterfield putting in the best performances. Overall, if the film had a better script with some more interesting characters who don't all have surface-level motivations then this may have turned out to be a enjoyable experience. Alas, it feels like a wasted opportunity.

Though it is always clear and forward-moving, the story is, especially in retrospection, a little messy. 'Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)' does feature some nice, if heavy-handed, themes and messages, but they ultimately don't amount to much more than "this is bad, isn't it?" The film also conforms quite heavily to the confines of its genre, hitting practically every cue and cliché it can while always seeming to be aware it is doing so, yet never going the extra step to satirise any of it. Still, the flick has a consistent style, several distinct characters and an excellent sense of tone, meaning that, even if it's never exactly funny (to the point of being 'laugh-out-loud', at least), it's always a lot of fun. It's an entertaining horror-comedy that works both before and after all hell breaks loose towards its final third, in which its horrors are all rendered with a wonderful, splattery practicality. The flick feels very much in the vein of the phenomenal 'Cornetto' trilogy, but, make no mistake, it doesn't come anywhere close to it in terms of quality. Despite this, it's still a very enjoyable, though pretty predictable, experience that remains engaging throughout. 7/10