Director: Mario Cerrito
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Videotaping his girlfriend’s birthday, a man follows her around before taking her to a special birthday party at a restaurant where his friend works, and at the end of the night, he reveals that she’s to be part of a special celebration where his friend butchers her body and serves it to cannibal patrons.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty solid, if flawed, genre effort. Most of what works here is centered on the second half, where this one decides to take a far darker turn than what had been built up before then. The idea of him working the camera as a means for documenting her birthday and going around her day trying to throw her off the plan that gets brought up at the end, where the full extent of their operation starts to come about, is a fun way to get this started, where the main series of interactions here come about in this bizarre form of cannibalism. The second half, focusing on the group getting drugged, tortured, and dismembered as the centerpiece for a group of wealthy clients to have as a meal in the restaurant after-hours as the experience is documented for the black market, creates the kind of dirty, depraved atmosphere that's fun to see play out regarding how easily and enthusiastically they go for the meal of the victims, making everything involved in these aspects quite fun.
Other than that, this one does fall a bit short regarding the first half, as there’s some extremely bland work here waiting around for the actual thing to happen. There’s not much going on here for the first half of the whole thing, spending time with the two of them trying to go about the day, getting dressed, getting their daily activities done, or going shopping for the dinner party later on, and it all manages to completely drain the energy and momentum of the situation into these bland showcases of their daily lives focusing on his horn-dog routine trying to sleep with her every chance he gets despite constant warnings not to. None of it is all that impressive to get us invested in the couple, nor does it make us sympathetic with them, since it’s all pretty much one-note material throughout here in the first half, and when added alongside the series of cheesy, practical effects props that don’t look in the slightest bit realistic or believable, these all manage to keep this down.
Overview: **.5/5
A simplified, one-note found-footage genre effort, there are some worthwhile factors to this one, which are enough to make it watchable against the series of drawbacks here that hold this one down. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare or who are hardcore found-footage fans will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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