On DVD: The Cook

 

 

Directed By: Gregg Simon

Screenplay By: Nicholas Bonomo, Francisco Rodriguez, Dirk Van Fleet

Starring: mark Hengst, Makinna Ridgway, Kit Paquin, Penny Drake, Nina Fehren, Noelle Kinney, Brooke Lenzi, Justine Marino, Allen Yates

 

Sorority Babes: The Other White Meat

 

So far, the best tag line of 2008. Here’s another one. Great Tag Lines Do Not A Good Film Make. The Cook was recently released on DVD by Anchor Bay Home Entertainment.  

 

The Movie

 

I’m gonna rant here for a moment. Do you mind? I didn’t think so. Thanks.

 

Reviewing movies is not like reviewing a restaurant. Food critics are sent to five-star hoity-toity establishments all the time. They expect a certain consistent quality in both food and service. No one sends critics to sample the cuisine at White Castle. DVD reviewers, however, often have the equivalent of those greasy miniburgers delivered right to their home. Food Guy over there can talk about the Wine and Cheese at today’s overpriced French restaurant and  rate it on the same basis as the overpriced Italian place he was at the night before. We, however, should never compare the re-release of Citizen Kane with the unrated version of Cannibal Albino Nuns from Pluto. It’s not even Apples and Oranges. It’s Filet Mignon and White Castle burgers (or, if you’re in the Deep South, Krystal Burgers).

 

You know what? I love those little greasy wonderburgers and I love their cinematic equivalents. Some films are made for be FUN to watch and not have any particular lesson to impart. Slapstick comedies. Weird Sci-Fi stories. Zombies. Killer Sheep. You wanna chase girls thru the woods with a chainsaw, be my guest. I still believe you can make that interesting. There’s a movie coming out soon about a crazy Mexican wrestler serial killer. It looks horrible. I don’t care. I wanna see it.

 

I’m rambling about this because I want you to know that, if tag lines like “Sorority Babes: The Other White Meat” intrigue you, I’m one of you. Sure, I review the occasional documentary or drama or foreign flicks, but I’m not a cinematic snob. I have THEY SAVED HITLER’S BRAIN and NEKROMANTIK and BIKER CHICKS IN ZOMBIETOWN sitting proudly on my living room shelf for all the world to see. My wife got me a 2000 MANIACS T-shirt for my birthday. The local theater is having a midnight showing of SHAUN OF THE DEAD this weekend and I may dress up as a zombie for it. If this sounds like you then you are my Brothers and Sisters and I love you all and that’s why, as a low-budget movie lover who will defend Hershel Gordon Lewis with my dying breath and will gladly sit thru FIDO or HIDE AND CREEP for a fourth viewing, I sit here today typing this warning to you: Don’t see this movie.

 

I’m serious. Life is too short. Don’t do it. I sat through the film, the extras and as much of the commentary as I could stand. I’ll never get those moments of my life back. Is it that bad? Can it possibly be so terrible? Mostly, it is.

 

Most of the girls of Lambda Epsilon Zeta (or LEZ! Get it? Lez?) are off to Spring Break leaving behind a bunch of Stereotypes and their New Cook. Cook alternates between being Charming and Insane while speaking only in Hungarian, except for the occasional announcement “I Am Cook!”. One by one he kills the girls and, occasionally, serves them at mealtime. The girls have names, but I don’t remember any of them. The DVD case describes them as “The Slut, The Stoner, The Tease, The Dominatrix”, etc. They could have easily been described as “The Bitch. The Other Bitch. The Other Other Bitch”.

 

They spend the beginning of the movie talking about penises, so much so that I was reminded of the classic restaurant scene at the beginning of Reservoir Dogs. They also spend a lot of time picking on the one member of the doomed party, the apparent heroine, who actually studies. Heroine flirts with Cook in English, Cook only knows Hungarian, Bitches talk insessently in Bitchese. Eventually (not soon enough), The Slut is killed, prepped and served and we watch the body count rise. The deaths didn’t make me feel good, bad, happy or sad. I was just a little relieved each time one of them shut up.

 

Note: This is totally off-topic. Big house full of women. Most of them gone. Only a few remain. And yet, the dining room table is just the right size for those few people. What’s up with that?

 

Maybe you don’t care about any of this. You want a) gore and b) boobs. I understand your needs. I am one of you. Most of the gore consists of chopping up a pile of meat (which could have come from anything) although there was a sliced throat, a severed hand, and a handy, dandy evisceration. As for boobs, I only remember three nude scenes and I only backed up and rewatched one of them. THE COOK wasn’t a huge winner on the Gore/Boobs scale either.

 

OK, I’ll be fair and point out some of the good things about the film. Mark Hengst as The Cook is golden most of the time. He does both Charming and Insane quite well. My favorite part is where he very sweetly and casually tells one of the few non-bitches that he’s going to kill them all (In Hungarian with English Subtitles) and she, not understand Psychotic Hungarian, thinks he’s being nice. This is one of the few shining moments, showing all that much brighter because there is so little else to shine. I also enjoyed the kinky subplot where The Dominatrix (Penny Drake) seduces The Bible Thumper (Brooke Lenzi). These three were the best performers in the film.  If I had to do it all over again, I’d fast forward through every scene that didn’t have one of these three people on the screen.  

 

This is the point where I, the reviewer, am supposed to show you how clever I am by saying “This film was way undercooked” or “if the waiter sends you this, send it back” or “you’re better off eating out”. That can be fun, but wasting your entertainment dollar is not. If you see this on the shelf, avert your eyes and move on.

 

3/10

 

The Video

 

The video was clear but, as the director freely admits in the commentary, the lighting is too bright in some scenes.  Bright lighting tends to wash out the image diminishing the detail quite a bit.

 

6/10

 

The Audio

 

The audio is fine but it doesn’t matter because you aren’t going to see this movie. Seriously there is a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track that's simply serviceable, good but not great.

 

8/10

 

The Packaging and Bonus Features

 

The film is offered in a standard amaray case with artwork that might give you hope that the film inside is a fun little gory romp. It isn’t.

 

We’ve got three bonus features:

1 – Behind The Scenes footage. A 4 minutes random video montage showing very nice people working very hard to make a film I cannot recommend.

2 – Mark Hengst’s audition tape. He auditions in English.

3 – Commentary. Most of the actresses, the director and Mark were there. I couldn’t finish it. Simon pointed out where the lighting was bad here and the scene was edited out of sequence there and I can only assume the rest of the commentary tells us the same. Actress commentary consisted of telling us that this room was very, very small or that room was very, very hot. Mark showed us the scene where he cut his thumb slicing a tomato and acted through it. Kudos to him.

 

4/10

 

I hope that all these people continue to work in films for years to come. I checked IMDB and all the actors here have worked elsewhere and I wish them luck on their careers. Anchor Bay release many fine films each year, and I look forward to seeing their name on the case when the films arrive. However, I have to steer you far, far away from this movie. I don’t enjoy this. I don’t want to trash the hard work these people went through. I’m just doing my job.

 

  

Overall (Not an Average) 3/10

The Review

The Movie 3/10

The Video 6/10

The Audio 8/10

The Packaging and Bonus Features 4/10

Overall (Not an Average) 3/10

 

-Fred Grimm