MEAT GRINDER

MEATBALLS IN SUSPICIOUS LOOKING GRAVY WITH A SIDE ORDER OF SPOILERS

Ewwww. Yuk. Bleeeargh. Pass the bucket. This one certainly delivers on the blood and offal, severed limbs, smashed fingernails and spurting arteries, with several genuine look-away moments for even the most avaricious gorehound (which I do consider myself to be). Indeed, even The Sun "newspaper" was moved to report that it was "the most graphic gore film ever" (which it obviously isn't - that would be Braindead). Still, it's a pity, therefore, that the film's attempts to be moving and tragic don't really work as well as the wonderfully grisly honk-in-the-aisles prosthetics, some of which are unnervingly convincing.

The idea behind Meat Grinder is a very simple one: just because it tastes like chicken in the chicken and noodle soup doesn't mean it IS chicken. While not as horribly taboo-busting as the protein snacks in Dumplings, it's still the old cannibalism story where various people who do the downtrodden Buss wrong end up in her cellar, to be hacked apart for stock in her noodle emporium. Buss, clearly, is mad, hearing voices, systematically bumping off her enemies (the moneylenders to whom her absent husband owes money, the babysitter who appears to be have been having it away with said husband), but while she's clearly been damaged by her abusive childhood and upbringing, and her unhappy marriage, perhaps she can be salvaged with the help of a young man searching for his ***missing*** friend....

Her backstory is certainly tragic, but much of it is told in a deliberately confusing way - particularly the parts involving her disabled daughter - and unless I'm just easily baffled, I lost track of the timeline in a few places. It's a pretty downbeat film, with no happy ending (and to be honest, no happy start or happy middle) but it's certainly well made and the body parts are plentiful. And the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined towards it. Not a film to watch with a takeaway, though.

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