Here's what you need to know; Don's first few days at the esteemed Slaughterhouse Boarding School are proving every bit is unbearable as he'd feared, but things are about to get a whole lot worse thanks to a nearby fracking operation that accidentally opens a door to hell. With the school deserted aside from Don and a handful of other students and teachers, it's up to them to stay alive as the school comes under siege from an army of monsters.
I didn't know much about this film outside of what I knew from the trailers; that it was a very, very British horror comedy starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. More importantly I was getting the impression from said trailers that this film was intended to capture the brilliance of Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy, three masterpieces if you ask me, and while that is a sweet idea, it means this film already has an uphill battle ahead of it, but will it still make it?
Slaughterhouse Rulez starts off unusually slow for a Cornetto rip-off, as we are introduced to Don and his family as his mum jumps for joy over him going to Slaughterhouse, all the while he struggles to get a word in about his discomfort at the prospect. When he actually gets to the school is when things pick up a tad, but not really that much in all honesty. The school is, expectedly, horrible; while the grounds are gorgeous and prestigious, the film really pulls no punches in its mockery of the British upper class, and as such, the posh twats that rule over the school are the poshest and twattiest of posh twats, ruling fascistically over the plebeian underclass of the students, all the while figuratively and literally wanking each other off about how amazing they are. If that sounds funny, it's because it kind of is, but it isn't really as funny as it should be, the tyrant serving as a sort of secondary antagonist in the film, Clegg, has some funny moments, but more often than not he's just a dickhead, which is the point, but the film really can overcook it. Taking on the monsters from below and the monsters of the British upper class however is a decently enjoyable collection of heroes; you have Don, our hero, the normal person thrown into this world of wankers and monsters, Willoughby, the weird, awkward roommate, Clemsie, the love interest and her best friend Kay, and in the remarkable absence of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, these four really have to carry this film's torch, and they do so moderately well. There are naturally a few subplots to contend with with these characters; Don falling in love with Clemsie for example, but an interesting subplot for the film's first half is the mystery of people putting up school tie nooses around the grounds, which we learn is over a suicide that happened last term, one which we later learn took a massive emotional toll on one of our four heroes, and this actually goes to a surprisingly sincere place, though the film abandons it the instant the real threat, the one trailers sold us, is revealed. Don's lust for Clemsie is less sincere, but is definitely funnier, granted it's the kind of humour that would make a feminist cry 'Objectification,' but since I actually have a sense of humour, I found it really funny. Ignoring Nick Frost and Simon Pegg for a second, probably the funniest character in the film is Willoughby, thanks to his bizarre antics and the sincerity with which the film develops his character. I also really liked Clemsie in the film, partly because I found the romance element so funny, and also partly because Hermione Corfield is smokin'.
The elephant in the room however is naturally Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who are undeniably the funniest parts of the film, for the six or so minutes they have on screen. Yep, despite being all over the marketing for the film, the pair really aren't in the film much. It's a shame because they are the best characters in the film; Simon Pegg being the alcoholic, lovesick teacher on the outskirts of the school's ubermensch, and Nick Frost, a former student, now an activist opposing the Fracking operation from his forest shanty of drug-addled hippies. In the Cornetto films, these two would often be on opposite ends of some spectrum, for example in Hot Fuzz, where Pegg was the badass super cop who couldn't be stopped in his pursuit of justice, and where Frost was a bumbling man child vastly unqualified for the role of police officer. In this film, that spectrum seems equal parts societal and political, with the far-left druggie hippies hiding from 'the man' in their camp while sneering at the fascists of the school, a symbol of prestige and aristocracy. But the second biggest issue I have with the film is the lack of Pegg and Frost, they have a total of one scene together, and only make brief appearances in the film, which is a waste in my opinion. But if that's my second biggest issue, what could be number one, what could be worse than wasting a pair of comedy legends. How about taking half of your film to get to the monsters, that isn't hyperbole either, the monsters don't appear until the second half, with the first half dedicated entirely to the four heroes' school drama. I was honestly surprised by how long the film took to build up to the monsters, which makes when they finally arrive fun, but as solid as the character building of the first half is, that's not what the trailers sold us, making it a matter of expectation; imagine if the Zombies didn't appear in Shaun of the Dead until the second half, that's kind of what it feels like. Another reason this doesn't work as well as a film like Shaun of the Dead or The World's End is that while both of those films take time to develop their characters and worlds, said development is A+, the Cornetto Trilogy is a collection of films that literally never have a dull moment, whether it's an awesome action sequence or a side splitting comedy sequence those films are a joy from start to finish, and this film, in more ways than one, feels less like a homage and more like an imitation.
That's another issue I have with Slaughterhouse Rulez, its attempts to imitate Edgar Wright's trilogy. Slaughterhouse Rulez is full of snappy writing, it has some decent action sequences, and the big one, the editing, which, like Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz or The World's End, is very fast paced and filled with quick successive cuts and zooms. The problem is that while this is fundamentally the same, it compounds the underlying issue that this still isn't an Edgar Wright film. For all its efforts to look and sound like it was written and directed by Edgar Wright, it ultimately fails because it just isn't as good as an Edgar Wright film, even Baby Driver, which has no relation to the Cornetto Trilogy at all, still feels more like it than this imitation, simply because it comes from the source and this doesn't. Like the editing, the writing is snappy and comedic, but never as much or as consistently so as a Cornetto film, the film tries to go for some emotional moments and, you guessed it, the Cornetto trilogy has it beat. There's one scene in this film, one moment that had me and my friend in stitches, we loved it and found it absolutely hilarious, but even though I've watched Hot Fuzz dozens upon dozens of times and have even memorised most of it, I still find that film really funny, The World's End, again, seen it a dozen times, still think it's hilarious. But outside of that one scene where someone fingers a monster's mouth, this film can, at best, produce a consistent chuckle. It's not that the film fails to be funny, because I do think it's funny, the issue is that by putting itself in the shadow of the Cornetto Trilogy, it's setting itself up for failure, just as despite the merits it has on its own, the 2011 The Thing failed because it stands in the shadow of a masterpiece. In the event I sound like I'm bashing Slaughterhouse Rulez, I guess I kind of am, but that's only because I can see what it's trying to be, but unlike the people that made it, I recognise how monumental a task that is, especially since that is being used as a selling point for this film, one that, at least on the casting front, is another example of misleading marketing.
Children, save yourselves
Slaughterhouse Rulez is a film with a confused identity; the people making it very clearly wanted to make a film that would stand shoulder to shoulder with Edger Wright's Cornetto trilogy, and even though they've made a film that is by no means bad, they have still failed in that goal. The film has a collection of likable characters, it has cool monsters, or it does in the second half, and for a grand total of ten minutes it has Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, and the film does have some chuckle worthy comedy and one scene that completely killed me. But as I said before, despite all the things it succeeds in, it ultimately fails though it's desperate attempts to mimic its inspiration, while missing the spark that made said inspiration so good. I enjoyed Slaughterhouse Rulez for sure, but it does not live up to the legacy it's trying to piggyback on, that said, I'd still say it's worth a watch.
The elephant in the room however is naturally Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who are undeniably the funniest parts of the film, for the six or so minutes they have on screen. Yep, despite being all over the marketing for the film, the pair really aren't in the film much. It's a shame because they are the best characters in the film; Simon Pegg being the alcoholic, lovesick teacher on the outskirts of the school's ubermensch, and Nick Frost, a former student, now an activist opposing the Fracking operation from his forest shanty of drug-addled hippies. In the Cornetto films, these two would often be on opposite ends of some spectrum, for example in Hot Fuzz, where Pegg was the badass super cop who couldn't be stopped in his pursuit of justice, and where Frost was a bumbling man child vastly unqualified for the role of police officer. In this film, that spectrum seems equal parts societal and political, with the far-left druggie hippies hiding from 'the man' in their camp while sneering at the fascists of the school, a symbol of prestige and aristocracy. But the second biggest issue I have with the film is the lack of Pegg and Frost, they have a total of one scene together, and only make brief appearances in the film, which is a waste in my opinion. But if that's my second biggest issue, what could be number one, what could be worse than wasting a pair of comedy legends. How about taking half of your film to get to the monsters, that isn't hyperbole either, the monsters don't appear until the second half, with the first half dedicated entirely to the four heroes' school drama. I was honestly surprised by how long the film took to build up to the monsters, which makes when they finally arrive fun, but as solid as the character building of the first half is, that's not what the trailers sold us, making it a matter of expectation; imagine if the Zombies didn't appear in Shaun of the Dead until the second half, that's kind of what it feels like. Another reason this doesn't work as well as a film like Shaun of the Dead or The World's End is that while both of those films take time to develop their characters and worlds, said development is A+, the Cornetto Trilogy is a collection of films that literally never have a dull moment, whether it's an awesome action sequence or a side splitting comedy sequence those films are a joy from start to finish, and this film, in more ways than one, feels less like a homage and more like an imitation. 
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