Slaughterhouse Rulez * (2018, Asa Butterfield, Finn Cole, Hermione Corfield, Tom Rhys Harries, Michael Sheen, Simon Pegg, Margot Robbie) – Movie Review

Writer-director Crispian Mills’s misfiring British comedy Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) starts out as a public school spoof and turns into a monster movie spoof half way as a sinkhole appears at a fracking site near the boarding school, unleashing scary monsters.

Neither part of it is at all amusing or successful, though the second half is perhaps marginally better, maybe just because it is nearer the end and the film is finally over, though to be fair the monster scare ride is pretty well done. Slaughterhouse Rulez probably sounded a lot more fun at the script-writing stage. But where are the funny jokes in the script? It is made and performed with gleeful enthusiasm, but much of it is amateurish and slapdash.

Simon Pegg and Michael Sheen in Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018).

Michael Sheen, Simon Pegg, Margot Robbie are not at their best as the headmaster, housemaster and the housemaster’s cheating girlfriend. The usually reliable Sheen and Pegg in particular should be able to do better with their silly ass roles, however weakly written. Strapping on a daft posh accent and making constipated faces just is not enough.

However, Asa Butterfield, Finn Cole and Hermione Corfield have a slightly better time as the school’s main pupils. They are at least fresh and appealing. But Tom Rhys Harries overdoes the role of the film’s school villain, a kind of out-of-time Flashman character. Nick Frost is marginally amusing as the drug-taking, anti-fracking protester Woody (he lives in the woods, you see).

Top-billed Butterfield has another gay role, a stereotype that is starting to get him typecast, but Cole gets good mileage from his role as working class boy gone to idiot public school like a duck out of water. Talking of duck, Cole’s character is called Don, leading Butterfield to call his ‘Duckie’ as in Donald Duck. This is an example of the film’s mysterious sense of humour.

It is the kind of British comedy that pushes pretty hard to offend, with bloody violence, strong language throughout, sexual content, and casually approving attitude to drug use.

It is filmed at Stowe School near Buckingham, where director Crispian Mills and cinematographer John de Borman were pupils.

The screenplay is by Crispian Mills and Henry Fitzherbert, from a story by Crispian Mills, Henry Fitzherbert and Luke Passmore.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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