Family Dinner

Peter Hengl is one sick puppy, and I mean that as a compliment. He is both the writer and director of this wicked German film.

A teenage girl seeking to lose a few pounds is left with her aunt by her mother six days prior to Easter Sunday but do not expect a big bunny rabbit with colored eggs for the Holiday celebration.

Instead, the best selling author of diet books takes the young girl under her supervision with a crash diet program of no food for the six days leading up to a wonderful dinner with the aunt, her young son and her live-in boyfriend.

The diet coach is a strange woman filled with what seems to be a new age kind of religion. Earth mom is not playing with a full deck.

The ending was not a surprise to me but I still recommend Family Dinner.

I would call this a great breath of fresh air if the movie's inherent atmosphere wasn't so suffocating.

I am puzzled by some of the really negative user reviews. Is it a Hollywood movie? Is it an actual horror movie? No to both. It is a very European movie. Not flashy, no special effects, just a gently paced, mounting sense of dread and discomfort. The cold set and lighting contribute to a sense of impending tragedy.

Overweight Simi is cleverly made to look and feel like an outsider among the painfully thin Aunt Claudia and her partner Steffan. Aunt Claudia is a famous nutritionist whom Simi hope will help lose weight. It soon appears that Claudia's techniques have become a little extreme as indeed has her mental health.

Gently paced but ultimately very tense and frightening with really strong and. Nuanced central performances.

Give it a shot.

I wouldn't consider this a real horror movie, it's more of a slow paced psychological thriller with some horror elements towards the third act. Usually I'm not a big fan of slow-paced movies but since this was an Austrian horror movie which we don't see a lot from I was intrigued.

It follows Simi, an overweight teenager who's staying at her aunts farm in her holidays. Her aunt is a famous writer and nutrition expert and is teaching Simi a lot about eating healthy. The aunt portrayed by Pia Hierzegger immediately has a weird presence and also her husband Stefan sometimes just seems too nice and is creating an uncomfortable sexual tension between the teenager and him. He also doesn't seem to like the aunts son Filipp. Filipp is acting creepy and keeps weirding out Simi even telling her that he thinks that his mother has evil plans for him. The movie slowly makes its tension-filled way towards the final act where you get the answer to your questions. Some might say it was predictable but I still enjoyed it and think it was a decent watch. [5,6/10]

At the end of the Lenten fast, a plump girl visits her aunt, an expert cook, at her remote farmhouse, where things seem a little ... off.

Grimm's fairy-tale meets mild body-horror. The narrative is kinda plain - if you substitute a wicked witch in a house in the forest, you're most of the way there. But the body-horror aspect is dignified by associations with the sacrifice of Jesus and the notion of cannibalism as a rite of rebirth, plus an unfussy portrait of animal death. Not really my genre, but in this form more 'tasteful' than the lurid stuff that's been a staple of French and Canadian films for decades.

The pace is sedate, the performances reserved, and the music is barely perceptible, just nudging us into a sense of dread. At times the intimacy of the whispered voices is intense, a nice effect. But the standout for me is the character of Simi, who has an intriguing mix of impassive innocence and savage resilience.

This is an Austrian production, and I have to say their Slavic neighbours do this kind of macabre with a greater sense of wonder and mystery - and humour. And a final oddity is that the German word Schei*e is translated into a more forceful word in English.

Overall: Simple story that just about fills its dress.

P.s. I do practice fasting and low-carb, and it's clear the writer didn't think to do his research.

The film was advertised as a domestic horror film and the mood and the location was very well met. In terms of action, the whole film takes place on a farm in the countryside (Lower Austria), the actors are all very convincing and were well chosen. Pia Hierzegger is of course fantastic as the aunt, very believable.

The label horror film is too strong for me, although it certainly fits into the genre, but measured against today's usual horror films, the film is already rather harmless, more psychological thriller. Also, the film offers little surprising.

The story: overweight teenager Simi visits aunt Claudia, a nutrition expert, in the countryside (with hopes to be helped with dieting), with (newly married) uncle Stefan and cousin Fillip (from the first marriage of the aunt). Simi feels uncomfortable from the beginning, the cousin a creep, the aunt strict, the uncle too nice?

I felt they got inspired by films like "Get Out," "The Wicker Man," as well as some Hammer films from the sixties. Without giving more away, you definitely guess what the whole thing is leading up to in the course of the film. That's what I meant by unsurprising. I was missing a twist that would change your view of the story and question your perception, so to speak, but that twist doesn't come. Conclusion: well done, but not top notch.