Movie Review: Slaughterhouse Rulez

credit: Slaughterhouse Rulez

When a movie goes from being cringe-worthy to ridiculous to so utterly ridiculous that it’s actually entertaining, the transition is kind of exhausting. It’s also kind of interesting since it indicates that the writing process might have started out slow but became more intriguing the moment someone introduced an idea that others found so off the wall that it needed to be included.

Slaughterhouse Rulez is one of those movies that feels like it should be predictable, but it actually surprises the viewer a bit since there is just enough sentiment in the movie to make it worth calling a dramatic piece, while the horror and comedy that abound in the movie are enough to make one think that the writers had a bit of a tussle when trying to determine the flow of the final script. 

When Wallace is sent to an upper-class school following the death of his father, he does his best to fit in, but it’s made loud and clear that as a person who’s just entering the dorm and who is also working class (it’s not a hard secret to discern) he’s going to be in for a lot of hell and no guarantee of heaven. 

credit: Slaughterhouse Rulez

Initially, it feels like another story about a boarding school that’s hell for anyone who doesn’t come from a rich family. 

There’s no real indication that anything is amiss at this school until later in the movie, when the fracking issue comes along. Even at that point, it’s merely an indication that the headmaster is a corrupt fellow and doesn’t mind ruining the surrounding countryside to earn what’s needed to keep the school functioning.

That’s about the only reason that he sees fit to allow a drilling company to operate on the grounds since, otherwise, the school is about to go under, which means that beneath the years of tradition and money, there’s nothing there but smoke and mirrors. But the initial feeling of the place is that it’s another school where rich kids are given everything, and the working class is made to suffer to remind them of the supposed order of things. 

The twist that comes along is something that feels a little underwhelming. 

When the fracking reaches a certain depth, it’s discovered that there’s something beneath the ground that’s been awakened, but up until the initial attack, there isn’t any idea of what it is. Once it is discovered, however, the creatures that emerge from the depths turn out to be giant lizard-like beings that are also kind of dog-like in appearance, but without hair, fur, or anything other than sharp teeth and claws.

When it’s established that there’s more than one of the things roaming around and that the headmaster has been killed, the kids that discovered the secret attempt to tell others, but of course, aren’t believed until all hell breaks loose. When the power goes out, things get even worse as the effort to survive becomes a ridiculous but somehow entertaining race between the creatures and the surviving students to survive until the day, as the creatures are sensitive to light. 

credit: Slaughterhouse Rulez

The environmentalist lean to this movie isn’t so strong that it drowns out the rest of the story. 

With so many people ready and willing to speak on the issue of fracking, one would think that even the mention of it in this movie would have been enough to set some folks to argue one way or another for the practice. But the fact is that fracking only takes up a part of the movie, and then the results of waking the creatures kind of take precedence as the need to survive to make one forget about the dangers of fracking and why some people think of it as raping the earth or something similar.

A lot of movies that deal with environmental issues present these moments in different ways so as to highlight them or simply use such moments as plot devices that might allow the course of the movie to expand a bit and entertain discussion. This time around, however, it was another way to introduce another movie monster with a short life span considering that they were wiped out, supposedly, when the remaining students escaped. 

There is comedy in this story, but it’s a bit dark. 

There’s comedy, drama, and many other points to this movie, but they do get dark occasionally since it deals with fracking, suicide, elitism, and many other aspects that people might easily recognize. The point of the story does get kind of lost in the midst of the invasion of the creatures that surge their way to the surface. But in the end, it does feel that unification might have been a big part of the plot since the survivors are a mix of working and upper-class individuals.