Cheuuat gaawn chim

Wow. The film surprised me. I thought I would leave a comment because this film has so few reviews. This was a very romantic torture porn with a crazy woman who runs a restaurant and slashes her customers' or adversaries' calves and puts them up on meathooks as if Leatherface. But this is not The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and this is not Saw or Guinea Pig.

The film is worth watching for the visuals and great operatic music. The primary colors of blood and blue are saturated and the director makes what is boring about these types of movies vibrant. It is very eye magnetic.

I have found torture pornographies to be very dull and exploitative in a way that I do not like (e.g. Hostel 2), but this was different. And it is one of only three Thai horror films that I like. Check it out.

If you thought "The Meat Grinder" was the Thai equivalent of Mrs Lovett without Sweeney Todd, think again. This film has no humour and even less continuity, even if it has lost something in translation. A wretched woman who runs a noodle bar stumbles upon an amazing if bizarre recipe. There is a riot, and one of those taking part ends up dead on her premises. Instead of contacting the police, the army, or whoever is running that particular town, she, well, you can probably guess.

Now this woman has certainly had a hard life, and there is one bloke who is intent on making it even harder, but did he deserve this, and what about his henchmen? We never really understand what this film is all about, a woman's descent into madness perhaps, but it is impossible to feel sorry for her considering how much innocent blood as well as guilty blood she has on her hands.

Those who enjoy gore and special effects may find something of interest here, but enjoyment is another matter.

There are poor and unrealistic excuses for all the shown torture. All seems very artificial constructed for the sake of showing torture and pain. The worst is the story telling, which is chaotic nonsense. Add some classical music elements and there will be people who are delighted about this "piece of art". Even though the torture effects are obviously handmade, which highers the realism a little bit, there are no insects shown in that blood coated scenario. No flys, no ants, no cockroaches, not anything - just bloody pain with an artificial forced kind of poor story and characters who are very unlikeable. Like all the unrealistic things which are shown, the motives of the characters are exaggerated to the maximum to force the impression that those characters would have a good excuse for their behavior, but they are just very sick. The one and a half hour felt one hour longer than it played. I recommend this movie for people who have too much time and like gore, no matter what.

The title, DVD cover and blurb all conspire to make this film look like a Thai slant on the torture porn sub-genre, but the truth is that it's nothing like that. It's much better!

Yes, it's a gory movie in which bodily dismemberment and death play major roles, but this is only part of the movie. In many ways, MEAT GRINDER is much more of a psychological horror film, exploring one woman's mental disintegration when faced with infidelity and violence. You could take out all the blood and guts and the film would be just as effective; it works best as a character study rather than a movie that just goes out of its way to nauseate.

One thing you notice first is Tiwa Moeithaisong's direction, which is definitely above par for the genre. Moeithaisong banishes memories of poor horror fodder like GHOST GAME and HELL to tell an engaging, speedily-paced movie that doesn't let up from the word go. Mai Charoenpura's performance as the put-upon stall owner is decent, as she keeps you on-side unlike many horror villains. The film in many ways reminds one of the equally icky DUMPLINGS (which were served up containing human foetuses) but MEAT GRINDER is offbeat and engaging enough to work all of its own.

I'm trying to do my part to help raise the rating of this film on IMDb. 5.4 is really too low for a film this graphic, intense and psychologically unnerving. I recently got my hands on the regular cut and the 'Uncut' cut and the difference is like watch 'Barney & Friends' and 'Scarface'. Okay, that's a bit of a stretch, but you know what I mean.

The cut version is still relatively graphic, but because it is so heavily altered, a few scenes will make more sense once you see a little more backstory as in the full version.

There's nothing sexual about this movie so it can't be compared to torture porn. The focus here is the killings. They're intended to shock you right out of the room. It's a shame the cut version is so heavily butchered because you lose a lot. The uncut version I had was dubbed with a Russian male voice, but once I downloaded an English srt and synced it in Media Player Classic, it made more sense.