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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
So much exploitation promised; so little delivered., April 10, 2008
"The Cook" is another in the recent crop of horror-comedies that, like so many of its brethren, fails to live up to its hype. Even graded on the b-movie curve this story only rates a 2.5 (rounded up to 3 for ridiculous amounts of prurient behavior and some decent fan-boy humor.)
The story takes place in a sorority house (and thus begins our exploitation potential), where the girls who didn't go "away" on spring break are planning on carousing their way through the long weekend. Please note, I'm not entirely sure if the decision to "carouse" without any (well nearly any) participation by the opposite sex was done for budgetary or "exploitive reasons, but the fact that the Sorority is "Lambda Epsilon Zeta" tends to make me think the latter.
As an added twist, our killer is the Sorority's new cook. Who has just arrived from Hungary and speaks "very" little English. His motif is not hockey masks or a clawed glove, no this serial killer goes for cannibalism in a "culinary" sort of way and then feeding the "remains" of his kills to his future victims.
I really wanted to like this movie. I mean hey, it's full of pretty young things. It doesn't take itself too seriously. It has a geeky love story and a "fall from innocence" (sort of) subplot going on and the ads promise nudity and gore. What more could a low brow horror movie fan ask for?
Well, for starters he could ask for the actual delivery of some more of the nudity, but that's actually a fairly minor point. By the very act of watching a movie like this, the viewer agrees to suspend disbelief, up to a point. I can tolerate (enjoy?) a cannibalistic serial killer who just happens to wind-up in a Sorority House full of improbably beautiful and hedonistic coeds. But I'd like a little internal consistency to my story. I have some real problems with a Sorority House where the acoustics allow for the inhabitants to hear raised voices one minute, but not the tortured screams of the killer's victims the next minute (especially when the murder is supposed to be happening right down the hall.) Ditto, after about the second meal where the "perpetually dieting" thin coeds don't complain, or even comment on the fact, that the cook is serving them all "heavy" meat based meals all the time, my suspension of disbelief begins to wear. But, where the movie really suffers (as so many of them do) is when the writer tries to fill in the time leading up to the killings with dialogue; and does so in an incredibly painfully incompetent manner. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for Quentin Tarantino level dialogue. I'm asking for "don't make me cringe" level dialogue.
All in all, the production values were good, the concept was entertaining (campy), the kills delivered large quantities of gore, and the actresses were easy on the eyes. If all you want is some fan-boy humor, rated PG-13/R eye candy, and your eighties style slasher movie fix, this might be the movie for you.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
One good scene in a piece of crap film., April 9, 2009
As a horror film this one sucked. As a drama, comedy, or action/adventure film this one sucked.
But I give it three stars for one reason and one reason only, and that's the part where aggressive lesbian sorority girl Anastasia (Penny Drake) pursues pretty blonde freshman Kristen (Brooke Lenzi). Those two were hot together!
Kristen is afraid of Anastasia, but after the older girl kisses her passionately she allows herself to become Anastasia's "property" for the night, with the dominant brunette they tying her up while she playfully spanks and kisses her beautiful body! I would really have enjoyed an entire film revolving around these two pretty women together!
Sadly, Anastasia decides to go downstairs to the kitchen for some chocolate sauce to lick off of Kristen's gorgeous body, and when she does so she's predictably killed by the cook, and the film gets completely uninteresting from that point on. (Not that it was particularly great beforehand, aside from the two aforementioned hotties!)
You might want to rent this one just to check them out! It was erotic!
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Everything in this movie is half-baked or less, March 13, 2009
First there was horror. Then there was satirical horror. Now we have horrors satirizing satirical horrors. At this point I almost expect some sort of space-time vortex to open up and swallow the entire horror genre purely out of paradoxical spite. The Cook: Unrated, one such film to cause said spiting, takes every female stereotype you've ever seen in a horror flick and serves it up for a comical filet. Unfortunately, the entire film feels overcooked on one side and entirely raw on the other. Damn those paradoxes.
It's holiday break at the Sorority House and that means everyone's gone save for a handful of the most obvious female archetypes and of course the replacement cook - from Hungary. Hungary Cook. Get it? Sadly I just ruined the film's most well-thought out joke. The Cook (Mark Hengst) begins a ritual slaughter of each spoiled rotten coed and prepares them in a very Hannibal Lecter-ish fashion. Overall, I really do like the plot, the concept and heck Mark Hengst does a damn fine job as the overzealous cuisinartist. One by one the girls disappear - with each missing girl easily being explained away by the remaining victims - and no one seems the wiser. I mean really, no one catches on until they see Monsieur Cook hauling away a body. Even then it's not until the third or fourth person sees him doing it that they realize it's a human. But that's not the problem.
The problem is the writing. There's bad writing which happens often enough and then there's atrocious writing. The Cook features the latter. The jokes are stale, painfully so. You've heard every joke this film has to offer countless times before with a better delivery each time. While the actresses chosen to play the Sorority bimbos play their parts respectably, it's the writing that really brings the film into the doldrums. And come on, hasn't the whole foreign guy saying horrible things in his native tongue as the girls assume he's an angelic human being been played upon enough? It seems like the oldest play in the book, yet it's the only page The Cook read. Sad really.
The premise has the makings of a really entertaining horror film: a bunch of horny/high girls, nudity, murder, tasteless stereotypes and an evil though comedic villain. That's the makings of pure gold for most horror films. Had it been written otherwise - or simply gone through a few more drafts to punch up the comedy a bit - I'd be giving a much more positive prognosis to this poorly prepared visual feast. Speaking of visuals, at first I was slightly annoyed at the second-rate cinematography but I think I came to accept it (or my mind concentrated on the more painful element, the writing). The camera work feels very much like a Sony Handycam at times.
When all is said and done I think The Cook confused itself on what it hoped to accomplish. Even if you're attempting to roast past horror films for their use of formulaic plots you still need to make your own product of a higher caliber. By not letting the writing marinate as long as possible, the final project lacked seriously in delicious horrortastical flavor. Any movie where an overzealous religious stereotype transforms into a kinky sex addict is alright by me - I just wish the conversations weren't so clichéd.
As far as side dishes go, the DVD really doesn't have much to offer. It has the McDonalds classic of various audio commentaries from Producer/Writer/Editor Nicholas Bonomo and of course a few of the stars. The Behind the Scenes Featurette seems wholly unnecessary considering the film boasts very few truly graphic demises and really...it was shot in a house. Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of the DVD's Extra Features comes in the form of Mark Hengst's audition reel. Mark Hengst, the Cook, despite having no lines in English, really carried the film.
If you're looking for a good weekend Brain Vacation The Cook promises that - though not much more.
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