Cheuuat gaawn chim

Revenge is often a dish best eaten cold. Just ask Fruit Chan, director of Dumplings (2004), originally conceived as one chapter of a three-part horror omnibus (Three… Extremes) before he served up more of the same dark satire, just in larger portions, which regrettably made the bloated feature-length even harder to swallow. Tiwa Moeithaisong's Meat Grinder follows a similar recipe, and now, having finally found an overseas distributor, ominously appears on our menus for the first time. Relying more on mood rather than over the top visuals, this is a return to the intelligent side of exploitation horror. Refreshingly marinated with an intriguing story to give it flavour, and coupled with lashings and lashings of gory mayhem, Meat Grinder is an absolute treat from start to finish. DW

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.

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.

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.

The English title of this movie (Meat Grinder) and the bloody cover with a woman feeding a person and eyeball should prepare you that this movie will not be an easy watch. It is dark and gritty and there's lots of blood and gore involved. You see our protagonist struggling with mental illness and her behavior being depicted as being part of an ongoing cycle of violence that she suffered as a child. And this ongoing cycle of violence is now passed to her daughter. So if you enjoy brutal Thai-splatter movies with a good amount of gore which is explicitly shown you might found yourself a movie here.

However the movie also has its flaws. It's probably personal preference but there's a weird blue and grey filter all throughout the movie which on one hand brings a nice contrast to all the red blood but on the other hand makes the movie look cheap and unrealistic. Also you are served with quite a number of flashbacks and scene shifting that got me wondering what is going on at times. Still I think this movie was a decent watch and I'm surprised that it barely has a thousand views here on IMDb. [5,4/10]