The Cook

I liked the fact that the killing scenes were quite realistic and not overdone. The attacker did a good job of playing warm/friendly, then breaking into his bad role, then the height of his anger. Even though everyone knows from the poster who the bad guy will be, the element of surprise was nevertheless still there as to the method and details. I thought the coeds for the most part pulled off their death roles rather well, considering that they are not accomplished actresses. The meals served at the dining table were convincing, as were the few meat prep scenes in the kitchen. What I liked most were the 2 heads, but thought they would have been more effective if shown a few more seconds. The bit of humor that was included was a nice extra.

Just saw this and I was truly horrified. I mean I'm a big fan of bad movies and bad horror movies especially. Because usually they are brainless fun and totally watchable. But this is the opposite, it's entirely unwatchable and done with absolutely zero acting talent with some of the worst directing ever and script is just insulting to any viewer with IQ above 80.

This movie is much like Manos: The Hands of Fate, 100% clueless and inconsistent, but at least Manos was done by total amateurs and wasn't annoying. As a huge fan of bad flicks I'd say that The Cook is amongst the 10 worst movies ever made - and it's really really bad, there's no secret pleasure in watching it, so I'd only recommend it to people who can tolerate extremely stupid and one-dimensional characters, horrendous script writing and actors with zero acting skill (annoying as well).

This movie makes someone like Uwe Boll look good.

In a sorority some girls go on a vacation while others stay behind. We will follow those who stay at the sorority house. They're an entertaining bunch: an innocent fanatic Christian girl who is the object of lust of an aggressive girl, a medical student who does nothing but study, a slutty girl, a trio of friends made up of a dumb blonde and two foul-mouthed lesbians who spend most of the time high, an exercise fanatic who has a guy over to tutor her, but she doesn't want anything else with him.

Their new cook arrives, a Hungarian who can only say "OK" in English. He prepares them delicious meat dishes. But little by little the girls start disappearing. The cook doesn't appear as to them as a suspect because he's always covered in blood hacking meat. The pretty medical student sort of falls for the cook even though he tells her what he will to do her friends, in Hungarian, and she thinks it sounds sweet.

The dialogue is pretty funny and the girls are given good and distinct personalities. There's some gore, and a bit is gruesome. There are a couple of twists near the ending. Overall an OK lower budget horror movie saved by the fun girls and also the cook does a good job as a mad serial killer.

A new Hungarian cook (Mark Hengst) arrives in a sorority house while a group of girls travels during the weekend to Cabo. The cook does not speak any word in English and is befriended by the medical student Amy (Makinna Ridgway). While the girls stay in the house, he kills one of them, Michelle (Stefanie Solano), using her meat to prepare the most delicious dishes for the girls while he promises in Hungarian to kill everyone in the house.

The low budget "The Cook" is an average comic slasher that has some goods and awful points. First there is no plot, only a new cook that arrives and kills the girls, without any development of his character or motives. The sorority house looks like a warehouse, and the behavior of the hot girls is more for sluts than for college student, with a group of potheads, lesbians and whores. The dialogs are among the most mediocre I have ever seen. When a person befriends another, the usual first question is how your name is. The nerd Amy befriends the cook and never asks his name. Mark Hengst is great, alternating sweet, humorous and scary faces depending on the situation. The joke with "Friday the13th: The Final Chapter" is probably the best moment of this movie. As a tradition in B-movies, most of the girls are extremely sexy and their partial nudity is very attractive and sometimes erotic. The gore special effects are reasonable for a low-budget movie. The predictable conclusion is funny and in the end this movie is watchable and not so bad. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Merging genres in a film is never an easy thing to do. The filmmaker runs the risk of losing his/her intended message or focus. This is never more true when we are taking about the horror and comedy genres. The two are so completely opposite of each other that it is nearly impossible to pull off a horror-comedy effectively. Sure, there are examples of getting right, but there are definitely more examples of getting it wrong. "The Cook" doesn't get it wrong, so to speak, but would have been a much better, more effective film had he director completely eliminated the comedic elements of the film.

We are introduced to a typical college sorority house. It is break time, and several of the girls decide to stick around the house and have their own little celebration. At the same time, a new cook arrives. Now, this is the first puzzling element of the film; the sorority house is no bigger than a typical two story house. It does not appear to be that fancy of a college campus, judging by the house and its surroundings, so why or how on earth do they have their own personal Hungarian cook??? Ahhh....tuition money well spent, I suppose. Also, where does he stay, since he always seems to be there? Would a sorority house really hire a male chef to stay with the girls alone over a break? Anyway, The Cook ends up being a homicidal maniac and begins to off the sorority sisters one by one and use them in his recipes. Yes, he serves the dead girls to their sorority sisters in various forms, including hamburgers and barbecue.

The Good: The film is at its best when it is working as a horror film. The Cook is a creepy killer and the death scenes pretty brutal and unrelenting. The killings are very reminiscent of the kills we saw in the early "Friday the 13th" sequels and the other more gory entries into the 80's slasher genre, which is probably on purpose, as one scene has two characters talking about a death scene in "Friday the 13th Part 4" as the film intercuts a female victim is being killed in the exact same manner by The Cook. The direction is pretty competent, particularly during the death scenes, and the acting a tad above average. The film did manage to keep my attention and didn't drag in any parts.

The Bad: The film is at its worse when it is working as a comedy. The characters are complete clichés and the screenwriter tries to use this alone to provide comic relief. There is badly written banter between some of the girls and a completely unnecessary subplot involving the resident "badass-lesbian" who seduces the innocent, bible-thumping religious girl. In fact, the screenwriter must have a thing for lesbianism, because there are several unnecessary scenes of girl-on-girl action, as if this a normal thing in sororities. Still, the comedic tones to the film (and they are present) really, at least for me, killed the pacing and effectiveness of the movie. Again, The Cook is such a brutal killer (except when the writer is apparently trying to have him be funny by blabbering and saying stupid stuff in Hungarian) that this could have really been a kick-ass slasher film. Instead, after any brutal kill, there are bad moments of comic relief. The dailogue is clunky, the characters complete clichés and underdeveloped. There is no final confrontation between killer and final girl and the ending is too predictable and unsatisfying.

Another horror-comedy that should have just been strictly horror. Take the comedic element out of this film and you actually have a pretty decent, gory, slasher film. However, as is, the comedic elements diminish the films tone and effectiveness and aren't even all the funny to begin with. Average at best, but had the potential to be much better.

FrightMeter Grade: C