Slaughter Is the Best Medicine (2014) User Reviews

The Best Medicine? kill me now....

[matthewkrussell1111 · 3/10 · 1 May 2014]

Okay, so I get that the movie was made for absolutely nothing. Now I don't mean this is a low-budget B movie...I mean it was made with no budget. Zero. Don't believe me? Look it up. That is the only reason I give it a 3 and not a 1.

So, I borrow the flick from TD, Make myself a Manhattan, hit play, and start laughing. The acting from the "Team" is so shatteringly bad I felt silly watching it. I've seen better acting at the local community theater. Okay, sure this is the leads first "major" film and he didn't get paid. Now I know why. I wouldn't have paid the dude either. Unfortunately the same holds true for most of the actors in this, ahem, film.

There are a few scenes where the comedy saves this from being unbearable. But as a whole it is a yawn. A bad acted yawn.

To wash down this medicine I would have needed three Manhattans.

Truly bad film and clever marketing - contains spoiler

[dave-101-924448 · 3/10 · 8 September 2014]

I paid 99p for this and still think I was overcharged. The only reference to the SAS is on the UK cover where they have renamed the film "SAS Black Ops". The acting is poor, its not real in anyway, they go foundering through the woods making as much noise as possible, the. In order not to be seen, they apply cammo cream to their faces, and leave white arms on show. Their "Comms" is done by pressing your ear. The budget for this film was £50 and it shows. However, it does have its good points, I feel its well directed and edited, special effects are good, considering its all done on home PC. With a little more thought, this could have been a lot better film.

You can't fault them for trying, but you can fault them for making a crap film.

[daniel-mannouch · 4/10 · 2 February 2020]

Originally titled Slaughter is the Best Medicine, S.A.S Black Ops apparently reached final cut by 2012 and was dropped by a U.S based distributor due to Sandy Hook. It was picked up by another bunch of wideboys who then packaged the film like a documentary about the S.A.S, lol, and was released to the confusion of many.

The film was shot over a bunch of weekends for the smallest of budgets and of course it shows. Knowing now after the fact that this film is within the home movie bracket of independent genre film-making, I feel slightly less the need to be critical. However though, it still had a DVD release, sitting amongst all the big boys like.. Expendables 3, so i guess, someone has to pay.

S.A.S Black ops is really cheap, and really slow, and really dull. The cast was probably all friends as most of them have Slaughter as their sole IMDB credit and so of course you're gonna get some Blood Lake like natural chemistry between them. However, once in a while, the script calls for drama and that ain't happening, at all.

What also isn't happening is any entertaining action scenes, too professional to be chintzy, too cheap to be taken seriously. And for an action film, that can really ruin your day.

What overall makes up the experience of watching Slaughter is feeling the sense of passion that evidently went into the production, and the coinciding discomfort watching what was produced.

What a top bit of con marketing!!

[jagged-shard · 1/10 · 13 May 2014]

Seeing the packaging at supermarket with guy dressed in SpecOps gear with urban background. On rear of packaging showed troops repelling from Chinook helicopter. Imagine how disappointed I was to find none of these things in the "film"!! The plot - wafer thin and implausible. The staging - all within a ruined house with wooded grounds. The characters - never likely to have worked as a team. The acting, I consider , to have been very amateurish - more akin to to something put on in a church hall. Sorry guys, I cannot find it in me to be very charitable as it just fell too short of the mark. All in all, I feel I have been conned. There are way too many of this style of ripoff films around and we need to vote with our feet!!

Very enjoyable for zero budget, but terrible marketing!

[carltheola · 9/10 · 6 May 2014]

I bought this film as SAS Black Ops, though I have to say that I like the original title of Slaughter better. For a film made for nothing it's quirky and enjoyable. As a Hollywood film... basically it*s not. For me the packaging is not anything to do with the film. The characters don't even pretend to be anything other than mercs, so it's a blatant marketing ploy. Three Wolves Ltd seems to be a trading name of Brightspark Productions, who appear adept at misleading people. And I noticed a couple of spelling mistakes on the back cover. Quality Control!

As for the film itself, I think the general story was good and mostly original if a little underdeveloped. The acting was mainly quite amateur but in general very tongue in cheek, so it does have a spoofy kind of feel which I like. I can see what they were trying to do with the cinematography though they obviously only had the sort of equipment you could fit in a shoebox. Enjoyed the soundtrack, which I thought matched what the film would have been with a higher budget.

In conclusion, the price was too high and the packaging completely wrong, but I was entertained by this respectable stab at independent cinema. I hope all the good things about the film aren't overlooked because of a misleading cover. Next time use a competent distributor!