apparently this is a "lost gem" and i was lucky to see it. i heard going in that it was dark and depressing so i was waiting the whole time for the shoe to drop, which never happened. the whole story was the shoe dropping i guess! in summary, it's the story of Stan and his little family who live in a ghetto. he works in a slaughterhouse, hence the title. there's really no story arc, just observations of the family and their life. i think more than half the movie was children playing outside in what passed for a neighborhood. i read somewhere that it was hard to get the music rights, which is why it wasn't released before, but without the music it would have been an entirely different movie. highly recommended.