Get Duked

 This one's a very slight, pretty likeable horror comedy about a bunch of lads who get dragged into being the most dangerous game while tripping balls on a hiking trip in the Scottish highlands.

 The lads in question are a trio of misfits played by Lewis Gribben (the dumb the dumbest one), Rian Gordon (the down to earth one) and Viraj Juneja (a vain would-be hip hop star who calls himself DJ Beatroot). They're forced to take part in the Duke of Edinburgh award to atone for burning down a bloc of toilets while trying to find out if shit is flammable. Yes, it's that kind of movie.

 The Duke of Edinburgh award is a (real-life) UK scheme to get teens to do sports, community work, outdoor activities, that sort of thing; in this case our boys have to complete a two-day hike across the Scottish highlands, overseen remotely by their teacher (Jonathan Aris). The lads are joined by a nerdy, middle-class kid (Samuel Bottomley) who voluntarily signed up for the challenge because "it'll look good on my CV".

 The foursome set into the wilderness and immediately get into some mild misadventures involving teen idiocy, electrified fences, and magic mushrooms. The humour is all low-key, affable, and the movie's sympathies rest squarely on the kids; There's some awkwardness between them, but none of the bullying or drama you might expect from a story focusing on three problem students lumped in with a more affluent, nerdy one. Just a bunch of goofy knuckleheads given just enough depth to give the movie a little bit of a thematic kick, portrayed affectionately by writer/director Ninian Dorf even as he constantly takes the piss out of them. They're the film's biggest asset.

 The horror (and I use the term loosely) kicks in when they start being chased around the hills and heaths by an armed posh gentleman (Eddie Izzard) and his wife (Georgie Glen), who keep spouting classist drivel about how they need to cull the herd of insouciant (read: low-class) teens; Subtle, this ain't.
 But it is pretty funny that the lads think he's the actual Duke of Edinburgh.

 Ostensibly a horror-comedy, the horror side of things is all but inexistent even as it drives the plot. It's all about character-based humour and a welcome absurdist streak.
 Besides the character stuff, Get Duked scores some of its biggest laughs with its most gruesome (it's not very gruesome) black-humor joke: some business involving a little vehicular manslaughter (and I've just realized it might be a reference to Terry Jones's Erik the Viking. Is that a first?) It also includes a full meat-headed hip hop song courtesy of DJ Beatroot, of course, and some fun running gags. 
Quite a bit of the jokes don't land, though: everything to do with the provincial police officers sniffing around the edge of the goings-on, for example, is pretty unfunny (even the great Kate Dickey can't save that drivel.) There are also some low-rent psychedelic scenes that didn't really work for me... but to be honest that's the sort of filler you'd expect in a low-budget stoner-adjacent comedy like this.

 It's a likeable but wafer-thin movie that struggles to fill out its allotted eighty-seven minutes. Good thing the dumbasses at its heart are decent fun to hang around with.