School's Out Forever

Milburn directs with some style, but his action scenes are muddy and the "poshos versus students" climax is at times unintelligible.

If The Lord of the Flies crossed with The Road and a dash of Tom Brown's School Days sounds like your bag of blood, than this ruthless romp will be a kick in the head.

There's a good concept that was waiting to be creatively expressed in School's Out Forever, but that concept ended up just like the classes in St. Mark's School for Boys after the apocalypse -- abandoned and permanently dismissed.

Mixing action and drama, this British thriller holds the attention by initially defying expectations, then taking surprising turns later on.

Nothing comes together quite as well as it should. The acting is tremendous but the conflicting tones make can be off putting.

Overall it's an enjoyable, if bleak, rampage of horror tropes that works well despite the final battle feeling a little lengthy and repetitive.

There's some good work here and for most of its running time. School's Out Forever is a very watchable film. It just winds up feeling like a missed opportunity.

It's not every seemingly-empty-headed action film that questions whether ugly times beg for ends-justify-the-means thinking

School's Out Forever is wickedly entertaining and shamelessly brutal, elevated by a magnetic cast and an ostentatious desire to shock and repulse with startling ease.

A film that may seem fairly by-the-numbers but will still surprise you throughout.