Rural holidays get a bad rep in an atmospheric slasher that, despite one-note victims and questionable accents, has terrifying moments
Here is another one of those horror flicks where young people on holiday in rural places are terrorised by crazed degenerates. Even if Butchers is more preoccupied with paying homage to its slasher ancestors than carving out its own turf, the opening scene is atmospheric enough. Against the icy canvas of a snow-covered graveyard, two brothers, Owen (Simon Phillips) and Oswald (Michael Swatton), are burying their mother: the occasion is solemn as Owen delivers a half-hearted two-sentence eulogy. But things kick off when they glimpse a car
BREAKING down, and straight away we are into gore as the brothers ambush and brutally terrorise their first victims.
Unfortunately, Butchers struggles to keep up this momentum after the film cuts to two 20-something couples speeding through this cursed terrain. (The brothers are not professional butchers but rather hobbyists with a makeshift slaughterhouse.) These young city folks are eminently dislikable – two of them are hooking up and cheating on their respective partners – yet none of these details helps flesh them out, nor encourage much sympathy at their gory demise.