'Slaughterhouse Rulez' Trailer Is 'Harry Potter' Meets 'Shaun of the Dead'
A forbidden forest, monsters, and Simon Pegg snacking on frozen treats.
by Corey PlanteWhen a bunch of British boarding school students fends off fiendish monsters alongside Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, it’s impossible to not compare it all to Harry Potter and Shaun of the Dead. That pretty much captures the vibe of the first Slaughterhouse Rulez trailer, in which a bit of fracking near the prestigious Slaughterhouse School opens up a sinkhole that unleashes … something.
The first Slaughterhouse Rulez trailer was released on Thursday. Simon Pegg, who first became a household name with the cult classic zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, plays an instructor at the school named Meredith Houseman. He’s got his shit together way more than Shaun Riley despite still loving the occasional snack.
Michael Sheen plays the school headmaster and Nick Frost plays an unnamed fracker that tries to sell drugs to kids (yet another light nod to Shaun of the Dead). But ostensibly, the star of Slaugherhouse Rulez is Asa Butterfield’s Willoughby Blake, a new student at the school who has a really rough first few weeks when the monster gets unleashed.
That's not a cornetto, but it's close enough.
The boarding school uniforms and colorful ties and capes conjure up some distinct Harry Potter imagery, especially when the headmaster talks about “no-go areas” reminiscent of the Forbidden Forest. These days, Pegg is playing the older characters in his movies and letting kids take the lead in a horror-comedy adventure.
Pegg previously described the beast in Slaughterhouse Rulez to Digital Trends as a “subterranean monster that terrorizes the school,” and considering his penchant for dark comedies and the look of this film so far, it’s bound to be frightening and hilarious.
A bunch of British school kids defend their boarding school from monsters? Sounds like 'Harry Potter'.
While Slaughterhouse Rulez might look like something akin to Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy with the jump cuts and same brand of humor, this film’s actually written by Henry Fitzherbert and directed by Crispian Mills with Pegg credited as executive producer. Considering Pegg also executive produced the The World’s End — perhaps the best of the Cornetto films — we’ve got every right to get our hopes up that Slaughterhouse Rulez will be wicked good fun.
**Slaughterhouse Rulez will be released on October 31, 2018 — Halloween day — in the United Kingdom, but there’s no confirmation just yet about a U.S. release.*
