How to make a posh horror
Simon Pegg talks us through the key influences of public school monster movie Slaughterhouse Rulez
YOU KNOW WHERE you are with monster movies. Usually, dread beasts attack the blue-collar inhabitants of major world cities or small US towns. But what about the upper classes? Don’t the blue bloods also deserve to be scared by terrifying creatures out of nightmares? Slaughterhouse Rulez, the new film from A Fantastic Fear Of Everything director Crispian Mills, sets up just that sort of class warfare, unleashing hell on a posh public school. Simon Pegg produced the film, with Nick Frost, under their new Stolen Picture company, and Pegg also plays Meredith Houseman, the closest thing to a sympathetic teacher that the imperilled pupils have. We asked him to talk us through the key influences.
Attack The Block
“Crispian and I had been working on a script,” explains Pegg, “and he asked me to read this. It felt like Attack The Block [but] the other side of the class coin. It’s not inner-city kids fighting creatures, it’s upper class kids, [who] are harder to sympathise with.” Our crew are scholarship boy Don Wallace (Finn Cole), nonconformist legacy student Willoughby Blake (Asa Butterfield), Smudger (Louis Strong) and newly admitted girl student Clemsie Lawrence (Hermione Corfield).
Goodbye Mr Chips
As you’d expect of a film set in a British public school, the film nods to the 1939 classic about a loveable schoolteacher and the generations of boys he teaches. “Michael Sheen’s dog is called Mr Chips,” says Pegg. “There’s a lot of that aristocratic cinema in its veins.” But Sheen’s Headmaster, also known as ‘The Bat’ for his habit of flapping his old-fashioned teacher’s gown, is significantly less pleasant than Mr Chips, because times have moved on. “This works as a great metaphor for the country, privatisation and the class system. It’s not all about jumps and scares; there’s something thoughtful at work.”
Roman Mythology
The film was shot on location at Stowe, a palatial public school (literally: it was originally built as a ducal palace) that’s neo-classical rather than the usual Gothic setting. “There are classical references to Latin and the works of Homer. There’s a lot going on in the script that’s allegorical, which I love.” The filmmakers leaned into the setting with references to Cerberus and the underworld, and lots of Latin. “Per caedes ad astra” is the school motto, which The Bat translates as “Through slaughter to immortality”. Well, the slaughter bit may prove prophetic anyway.
The Cornetto Trilogy
When trying to explain the film to investors, Pegg’s Shaun Of The Dead heritage “gave it some history and a reference point for people”. But there was a less obvious link to Hot Fuzz, too: “It’s like shooting Hot Fuzz was for Edgar: it’s a chance to go back to where you were formed and destroy it. I think it’s a therapeutic thing for Crispian to come back and lay waste to the entire edifice.” Who will survive, and what GCSES will they get after this?
SLAUGHTERHOUSE RULEZ IS IN CINEMAS FROM 7 SEPTEMBER