Butchers - Review

****

Written by Adrian Langley and Daniel Weissenberger
Directed by Adrian Langley

Simon Phillips as Owen Watson, one of the titular butchers

With a DVD release on March 8, timed to coincide with the UK's National Butchers Week, Adrian Langley's Butchers is a fantastic example of the vision and ingenuity of today’s independent film makers.

In a storyline that sees Wrong Turn meeting The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Butchers offers up a string of bright young North Americans who one by one fall victim to a backwards back-woods clan, somewhere out in Canada's mid-west. As might be expected from the title, the formulaic plot sees cleavers, axes and cleverly shot offal featuring heavily amongst the props and effects.

Langley, who not only directs but has co-written, photographed, edited and scored the picture too, throws in some novel twists. There is infidelity amongst our heroes, as well as a number of amusingly unexpected Shakespearean references with Hamlet, King Lear and of course, that greatest butcher of them all, Titus Andronicus getting a nod.

The cast do a fine job of telling this overly familiar nightmare, but notwithstanding their performances, this movie’s standout feature is its attention to technical detail. Not only is the cinematography exciting and well lit, but Langley’s music is brilliantly balanced while throughout Howard Sonnenburg’s sound mixing – be it with the score or the sound effect of metal through flesh  - is equally precise. The story may be corny and predictable, but it is a credit to Langley’s cast and crew that they make it so compelling and suspenseful, exactly what good horror should be. What’s more, there appears to be little if any digital contribution to the story’s visuals with the SFX duo of Jonathan Largy and Alina Suave delivering the gore in its authentic physicality, their gruesome work only enhanced by Sonnenburg’s sound.

Largy himself is rewarded with the corniest of cameos in the finale – but to be honest he’s earned it.

Available on digital download from 22 February and on DVD release from March 8th.