Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)
Bloodius. Hellius. Maximus.
I’m cheating my own system - I found a horror comedy. For me, it technically gets filed as “oh look, a monster movie!” but it’s also not beyond me that with both Simon Pegg and Nick Frost name dropped on it, I also expect a bit of comedy. What you should also expect is some old school schooling - because with a name like this and all those uniforms, it’s about to get real fancy up in here. Tonight, we find out why Slaughterhouse Rulez.
The front end of this movie is major school. It’s the major plot and drive of the movie for the section - Kid gets himself off to a fancy private school and quickly catches the hots for the resident super-babe, and all the problems of school hierarchy and bullying and whatnot. In the background during this section is the Fracking subplot. Yep, that’s right, fracking. Head of the school wants to make some money, and turns out it’s a highly profitable area to frack - so we also get a little batch of one-offs with the fracking crew. To call the fracking crew a part of the plot or story is really superficial at best - they are simply a scapegoat or a cause at best, a mere event in the movie to facilitate the twist although largely invalidated as necessity through the ending. Now, the second half is where my main interest came in - the monster movie. Here we get the lingering thralls of “surviving school” and instead focus on surviving killer mole beasts hungry for human flesh! You could argue that any actual story somewhat gets thrown out here, but it does keep going with many of the threads that it had before - even if some of the characters come to a quick end. The story is there, and it’s good enough to allow the movie’s events to happen - and honestly, I would argue there’s even more there than there really needs to be that allows characters to have a bit more depth than expected.
See, when watered down the pre-monster segment could be seen as a story about the monster that is bullying and elitism in schools, the fracking environmental message being nothing more than a mere side note. When you actually dip your toes into the water however, you notice there’s a lot of things in there - and a lot of it is stuff that should probably be expected from a more modern entry in a school-stress story. You get the touchings of things on suicide, being gay or it’s inverse homophobia, class/elitism, drug use, nerds, bullying, and the overall pressure weighing down to do well in such a turbulent social situation. Yeah, sure, some of the stuff isn’t really addressed in an actual “take a stand” way - like the drug use or smoking is largely just there - and whether it comes around as a plot element at some point is irrelevant as far as the idea taking a stand and making it a discussion point. That is to say that if you want to think hard on things, it provides as much if not perhaps a little bit more than the average school-based movie. The drama is there, good and bad, as is the character types.
Most of the character types are largely just that as well. You might see a bit of development here or there in a character, but most of the survivors start in one place and end in largely the same more beat up state. In that essence, the story might prove a failure to some - without any real change, what was the point? For the monster movie fan in me however, I don’t mind this as much - the sole point is to give me enough to either want or not want a character to die, and it does an alright enough job at that. Some of the characters largely just exist for some jokes - I’m pretty sure the existence of the frackers in the movie is for the purpose of a fart joke - which yes I did laugh at - and a “scare the kids” gag. The youngest member of the posse also seems to belong in the movie for the sole point of being the butt of a few jokes.
Monsters…
The actors here do a fine enough job with what they are given, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say the movie lets them ever really be outstanding. It might be the writing, it might be the subject matter, it might be all that comedy worked in - there aren’t really any deliveries that feel super out of place, even the large over the top grandiose ones - but in it’s own right that sort of speaks volumes of what’s up with the movie. Even when someone is over reacting, it feels like it belongs - but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best acting ever. Still, it can tone things down a bit and play it pretty level when it wants, but for the best results one should probably go in with the mindset of things being a bit hammy or goofy. Some actors don’t really get all that utilized over the run of the movie - Blink and you could miss Margot Robbie, and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost almost feel like bonus characters despite Simon Pegg getting as much screen time as he does. I wouldn’t say this is unheard of or even unexpected - the movie’s about the school kids really, not the others - but I guess when the names are on the box art you just expect them to be on there more often. The main three “kids” actors have there names on there though, so props to that.
Costume department doesn’t have a ton of stuff to do, but more so than normal. Yes, most the attire is school uniform, but they also get to do some old school Greek outfits, some activist outfits, some science outfits, and of course some Pegg in his underwear. Characters are largely easy enough to pick out from one another, and the difference in suits between the upper and lower groups is visually distinct enough that it provides a divide for you eyes to see and help drive the point home. More so than that, the effects department has a good amount to do, particularly by the final part when we hit monster movie proper. Some fire - including color changing, some wounds, a big fracking drill, and some collapsing ground is what we get at the start. Later on, we get big old mole monsters - which although they look hilarious when charging at someone, flopping menacingly towards their target like a mad walrus - more violent wounding and dismemberment, some good old hose-released blood and a few explosions. Of all the effects, I’d argue the worst is the fracking tower, but everything else in this looks pretty darn good, including the monsters. I wouldn’t be surprised that there was at least some digital effects going on in here, but there’s also plenty a time when those monsters or the effects around them are certainly practical or convincing enough to be practical.
Audio soundtrack wise feels like you’d expect from a school-themed movie. It’s got a few catchy songs here and there, licensed from one band or another, and it’s got some otherwise well scored enough background music as well. It’s not sticking around, but that’s par for the course for me. Audio deliveries are well done, if slightly hammy and overdone, and some of the accents that come around are also pretty enjoyable. Effects, be it snarls and roars or gunshots and explosions also all sound well done. The general composition of things is more then good enough, and there’s actually a good few numbers of shots that are pretty neat.
…and monsters.
This movie, although maybe not as funny as I had expected - fair play, comedy is subjective anyways - did a better job as a monster movie than I would have thought with the reviews I had read or trailer I had watched. It’s a bit of a haul to get to the monster part, but it’s good for the people who want to have a reason to attach to characters or want something more substantial than a simple “monster eat man, man must kill monster!” plot some of the monster flicks turn out to be. That said, I can see some people being turned off by it - not everyone who likes the school part will like the monster part, not everyone who likes the monster part is going to want to sit through the school part. Go in expecting a mediocre movie, and you might be surprised - go in expecting a Shaun of the Dead school edition and you might end up a bit disappointed.