Slaughter is the Best Medicine - Director's Statement

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Director's Statement (by Rishi Thaker)

I recently realised that ‘Slaughter’ in its infancy was subconsciously conceived many years ago when I was queuing for a U2 gig in Dublin, 2005. At the time I had just begun embarking upon the Stickmen Pictures story and after making a couple of short films with Daniel Tee the idea of shooting a film in the woods with our friends seemed a great idea on a personal enjoyment level as well as an artistic level. In the queue I spoke with a great friend of mine, Qasim Ansari, of making a spoof film using Arnie’s ‘Predator’ as our subject. However, we left the conversation there and nothing came of it. Fast forward 5 years to 2010 to a boys' weekend away in the Peak District and I was explaining my first feature film script (which I decided needed a bit of money to fund its production) to Qasim. We then veered off this subject and picked up where we left off at the gig, revisiting the spoof story. This quickly turned into something different and became the premise of ‘Slaughter is the Best Medicine’. I then took the idea to Daniel Tee (by now a more accomplished and experienced film producer and editor) and suggested that we could make this film through Stickmen Pictures. He agreed and the rest was a whirlwind ten months of writing the script, pre-producing, shooting and post-producing of Stickmen Pictures' first feature film ‘Slaughter is the Best Medicine’. It can now be defined as an action thriller with black comedy coursing through its veins.

Those of you who don’t know, making a feature film is an incredibly difficult and complex process especially when you have a large cast and crew, but it is all the more difficult when it is self-funded and cost escalation is simply not an option. There were many outstanding and, more importantly, dedicated performances both on and off camera that enabled the swift delivery of this film, especially as most had never worked on a feature before.

From our feedback sessions we understand ‘Slaughter’ to be a hugely entertaining film. It is a ride that seeks to thrill and captivate the audience using the very foundation of its production and that is, the people. Improvising was a hallmark of this process, and all the actors received an opportunity to input into their characters, whilst my task was to hold it together enough to enable their creativity without deviating from the plot. The crew were encouraged to challenge and try new things where time permitted and I can whole heartedly say that I had one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life with this team.

What we have achieved and way we have achieved it is not something that should be taken lightly. We have learnt an unbelievable amount over the last year and I now believe that Stickmen Pictures can move into the industry with a sense of great purpose.

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