Director: Nathan Dalton
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
Preparing for their regular shift, patrons of a roadside diner, trying to get through their normal activities, are disrupted by a possessed group of food that begins attacking them and the customers, forcing them to band together to survive against the rampaging food.
Review:
This was a fairly fun and enjoyable comedic genre effort. Among the better features here is the rather strong opening to this one that manages to highlight the different working environments and conditions at the diner. With the first half here focusing on the different relationships within the diner so that the group goes about their normal duties getting the menu prepared and sorted out, who’s taking over what shift duties, and why they’re being called in for work that day, this provides the necessary groundwork to what’s going on at the establishment so that the later scenarios are given an appropriate context. By the time the cook comes under the influence of the evil waffle stack and sets out to do its bidding by creating the rabid, possessed food that comes to life, it has enough context and build-up that it feels logical and grounded as much as possible in this universe, with the outright cheesiness of the situation letting it get quite a bit of laughs.
When it comes to the attacks by the possessed food trying to kill others, this turns into a solid and immensely likable indie effort featuring all manner of effective confrontations involving the food parts coming together to take out the unsuspecting patrons. The first scenes of the creatures overtaking the cook and running around the kitchen under the instruction of the owner offer some strong comedic gags to make everything start off on a solid note, while later scenes of the creatures attacking random customers are quite effective. Ranging from the creatures possessing a victim to force them to drive over strangers or come to life and snack on victims in an outlandish, over-the-top series of encounters that utilize the idea of sentient blobs of food manipulating themselves against others. With the finale bringing about a sense of cohesion involving the origins of the curse and how it manifests in these creatures, created through some impressive low-budget effects, there are some likable factors within this one.
There are some minor drawbacks on display that hold it back. The main issue with this one comes from the lack of clarity of the purpose of the possession, which comes about at the end of the film, so there’s very little info about it. That is a big part of what everything the creature is set out to do with the way it corrupts others and sets out to perform the various possession to trap and ensnare the patrons of the diner in its grasp for the sacrifice that’s explained at the end, so until that point it spends more time running around the diner trying to make sense of the different antics being presented which make little sense until that point. The other real issue here is the unnecessary comedy that comes about from the inclusion of the police officer who visits the diner, as it’s really an unfunny type of idiotic comments that are completely at odds with the rest of the comedy at play, which makes it stick out a little more. As well as the potential low-budget nature of this one, keeping it from being enjoyed by those that are turned off by such material, there are some problems present here.
Overview: ***.5/5
A really solid and enjoyable comedic genre effort, this one comes across rather well for what it is and manages to hold itself up enough against the few minor flaws that do pop up in here. Those with an appreciation for this kind of indie style, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the creative crew, will have the most to like, while most others out there should heed caution.
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