Bitter Feast

It's nice to see a horror movie that is not a hollowed out skeleton of mass produced clichés; and how many can boast Mario Batali as a cast member (I'm not saying he was awesome).

James LeGros had his acting mojo going on many years ago. If he was in it then I was fairly confident that I would like the movie or could at the very least depend on a good performance from him. Somewhere along, he seemed to have hit a rough patch and each movie was a crap shoot.

I am happy to say that he is back. I had a warm fuzzy feeling in a cold bloody horror movie.

Bitter Feast is more psychological than the average horror flick, but it has nice undercurrents and satirical commentary on society today.

It's a good day when you turn off the movie and wonder if you can find another one just like it...not perfection, but very satisfying.

This movie reminded me of Vincent Price's 'Theatre Of Blood', only not as fun.

This movie is well acted, and has a very dark sense of humour. It could have been an excellent movie, if only the back-stories of the main characters were a little less hackneyed.

I dislike "blood and guts" movies, and only saw this one because I was channel surfing, thought it was about a guy and his cooking show, and was drawn in by the time I realized its genre.

For a low budget movie, I'm surprised at how good the lead actors were, and that even though both characters were impossible to like, they had strong chemistry together and there was palpable suspense over what would happen next.

Surprisingly, the dialog was well-written, and there was some very dark comedy in there. The tasks that the captor demanded were not complicated nor incredible, but rather simply creative ways to make the critic "eat his words." Some of the negative reviews in here lament that there was not enough blood and/or guts/gore, but there was enough intensity and thrills created, without having to show every bloody detail.

I found this to be a suspenseful, well-acted independent film.

Peter Grey is a pompous, talented chef whose life is about to take a turn for the worse after an unnecessarily horrible review by blogger JT Franks. Grey's already skewed world perspective changes drastically as he resolves to kidnap Franks, torturing him with a series of seemingly simple cooking tasks.

Bitter Feast gets points for originality and gloss. The film looks quite good for an independent effort and the actors really throw themselves into the roles. They actually hired actors, not faces, to flesh out the interesting script. James Le Gros especially never goes over the top but plays the role rather subtly and Josh Lucas is excellent, being sympathetic and unsympathetic all at once. The always reliable Larry Fessenden shows up as a slimy private eye trying to locate Franks.

Don't expect your life to change, but if you're looking for a movie with some originality and panache, then dig in!

First, I am a huge fan on Kitchen Nightmares, Hell's Kitchen, etc. I also consider myself quite the food snob. I love to cook, but would never, ever, consider doing it as a career.

All of that said, this movie is extremely clever. Not terribly original from a revenge and torture perspective, but I love the "challenges".

The low budget nature of the film makes it unlikely to ever get a major viewing; however, anyone that is a fan of food and Gordon Ramsey will truly enjoy this film.

Final thought, for a cost conscious film, the acting is actually quite good.