Steve and Morgan are best friends, and unfortunately for their victims, deranged butchers who moonlight as black-market meat dealers. Specializing in non-traditional cuts, the duo meets a powerful crime boss hoping to impress with a box of their finest “product.” There’s just one problem: they forgot the body. Desperate to fix their mistake, they hatch a nearly-genius plan that quickly spirals out of control. Now, Steve and Morgan must fight to survive before they’re the ones on the chopping block. The Butchers is a blood-soaked, high-stakes thrill ride that blends escalating tension with dark comedy, proving that sometimes the biggest threat to a perfect plan is your own stupidity.
D
irector Statement:
The idea for this film first came to me when I was doing research on the concept of body broking. Admittedly, I have strange fascinations. In doing this research, I discovered that there are legal ways to sell body parts in the Unites States, but how one obtains the body parts is where crimes are committed and morality breaks down. This loophole immediately sparked my curiosity and led me to asking the question, “What kind of people would be caught up in a business like this?”
Films like Martin McDonagh’s ‘In Bruges’, Edgar Wright’s ‘Hot Fuzz’, and Quentin Tarantino’s entire filmography inspire me to find the light in the dark. I set out to make a film, that at its’ core, is about the love and friendship between two men. Steve and Morgan are connected by their mutual psychopathic addiction to killing people, but individually, they’re completely alone in the world. That’s why they need each other, because they’re the only two people that could ever really understand.
The film explores themes of friendship, morality, and whether love and compassion can still exist behind an exterior of evil. Images and references to animals are used throughout the film to relate to our characters’ own feelings of being trapped in a cage, but to also ask the question, “Are we all just animals bound by our nature and the forces that control us?” Like human beings, wild animals don’t belong in cages, and if backed into a corner, they’re bound to fight for their lives. I want ‘The Butchers’ to challenge an audience to empathize with these psychopaths and the hardships they face.
I’m enamoured by the absurd idea of falling in love with characters that are terrible awful people. My hope is that those watching are so charmed by Steve and Morgan’s bond, they forget that they’re rooting for the bad guys. In the end though, we’ll be reminded just how bad these two really are, and what a path of crime eventually leads to.
I made this film to feel like a roller coaster ride; a fun and fast adventure, with a few shocking twists and turns. I hope when it’s over, above all else, you enjoyed the thrill.
Biography
Chad Andrews is a Canadian actor and filmmaker, best known for his acting work in The Madness (Netflix), The Princess and the Bodyguard (Prime Video), and Cruise. Originally from Calgary, he discovered acting by chance in middle school, later earning a BFA in Drama before moving to Toronto to pursue a career in film.
Since then, Andrews has appeared in series including Ghosts (CBS), Fellow Travelers (Showcase), and Ripple (Hallmark), as well as internationally screened films such as Wolves and Cruise. His directorial debut, The Butchers, is a short film he is excited to share with audiences, while he continues developing his first feature script.