EAT (Movie Review)

As a horror fan, you often find yourself feeling obligated to give the smaller, unknown films a chance – not only to support all aspects of the genre, but usually hoping to find that hidden gem of a film to share excitedly among brethren...it is true that you take the good with the bad, and Eat is really really bad.

Set in Los Angeles, Novella McClure (Meggie Maddock) is a struggling actress who hasn’t landed a gig in three years. Constantly upstaged by younger and more sexually ambitious actresses, Novella struggles to decide whether she should finally hang it up in the cutthroat world of acting. As the stress of failed auditions, the exhaustion of scoring free drinks from losers at the bar with her aggressive best friend, and the lack of income weighs her down, Novella begins a nasty habit of picking and chewing at her skin. A simple hangnail in traffic becomes a nasty wound that sends her habit into a full-blown obsession.

The concept of a failed actress in a town built on self-image issues who ends up eating her self was relatively interesting, however poor execution ruined it. On the surface the film looks like a low budget porn with actors that may have taken a few too many acting classes in their spare time. The dialogue isn’t terrible, but it’s not good either. The only real positive to speak of is the special effects done by Monster Makeup FX, which were fantastic and thoroughly gruesome. The gore is pretty believable and pretty tough to sit through, if you want to know what it looks like to see a pretty girl chew off her hands and feet, then Eat is definitely the film for you. Though, you might just want to fast forward through the majority of the film and just check in during the bloody bits.