Slaughterhouse-5 (Review)

You can’t spell Slaughterhouse without “Laughter”.

An elderly Billy Pilgrim sits and writes his memoirs at a rickety old typewriter. To say that he has lead a very interesting life is an understatement, to say that his life makes for an interesting movie is a little more arguable.

As Billy taps away at the keys the film drifts in and out of various times in Billy’s life, ranging from his childhood all the way up until he is abducted by aliens and forced to live on another planet wiling away the time banging a Hollywood star.

You read that right – this is not just a WW2 film.

The bulk of the time though focuses on Billy’s wartime experience – Slaughterhouse-5 refers to the former abattoir that Billy and fellow POWs are imprisoned in located in supposedly peaceful Dresden – and the years following his return home where he marries and raises a family. In between there is some action, but not much. What is there includes a plane crash, combat, internment and the UFO abduction thing, but nothing is exceptionally big or “Wow”, even the war scenes aren’t very “war-ey”..

It is all quite well edited and seamlessly moves through the eras backwards and forwards, which takes a bit of getting used to as you think where is he now, once you see Billy’s gap toothed mug and gauge his age you catch up quick though. It did add one funny joke where Billy’s slightly chunky and annoying wife told him in every era how she planned to lose weight to make him happy – then we progress forward and find out that she never did, more unfortunately for old Bill is that she continued to be as annoying…

Slaughterhouse-5 is practically unknown nowadays – it is 30+ years old – and it is no doubt weird. Just not weird enough to make it notably weird like say Eraserhead or Dark Star even though it is far better than both. I guess at the end of the day unknown-weird is still no more than unknown.

The fact of the matter is that while it is pretty interesting and well made Slaughterhouse-5 has no one scene that differentiates it from the pack. You keep waiting for it to have the big reveal and explain everything but it never does.

You probably should admire that as a movie watcher, but is it enough cause to hunt down this unassuming oddity from 4 decades ago? The answer is No, not really.

Final Rating – 6 / 10. Not a terrible film, but nothing really going for it enough to provide cause for recommendation.