Cannibal Mukbang

There was a time in the early 2010s when the South Korean phenomenon of mukbang-the trend of eating in front of a camera for a virtual audience-was taking over online spaces.

Some describe it as a form of companionship or relaxation. Personally, I've always found it rather irritating and frankly unpleasant.

I'm not a fan of watching people eat and chat on screen-it's something I struggle with even in real-life dining situations.

Writer-director Aimee Kuge makes her feature debut with "Cannibal Mukbang" (2023), a twisted, low-budget horror film centred on a starving social media influencer.

Kuge reimagines the art of mukbang-eating broadcast in Korean-as a tale of vengeance, obsession, grotesque overindulgence, and the disturbing extremes of performative consumption.

April Consalo plays Ash, a viral content creator known for her mukbang videos, where she consumes copious amounts of food for her followers.

The narrative unfolds through the eyes of Mark (Nate Wise), a gentle but deeply anxious man whose life is upended after a late-night encounter with the enigmatic Ash during a convenience store snack run. Initially intrigued by her online persona, Mark is soon dragged into a darker, more disturbing world.

It's difficult to criticise indie horror too harshly, especially when passion and limited resources are clearly at play. But, "Cannibal Mukbang" joins a growing trend in extreme indie horror that feels caught in a creative loop-recycling familiar tropes without offering new perspectives.

With a title like "Cannibal Mukbang", you might expect graphic, fetishistic displays of human flesh being consumed live on camera. Instead, the film pivots into a rape-revenge narrative-a thematic shift that's both unexpected and unevenly handled.

It blends modern cannibalism films like "Fresh", "Jennifer's Body", and "Promising Young Woman" with dashes of neo-grindhouse flicks such as "Hard Candy" and "Knock Knock".

These films explore vengeance through the lenses of desire and love-something this film attempts, albeit without the emotional depth or gut-punch impact.

The premise is potent, and after learning more about the director's inspirations, I had hoped for something more subversive. Unfortunately, the film's storytelling is weak and brings little innovation to a genre already prone to repetition and stylistic mimicry.

While we do gain some insight into the protagonists, secondary characters are thinly sketched, adding little to the emotional or thematic weight of the story.

Where "Cannibal Mukbang" succeeds is in its execution of practical effects. The micro-budget gore is impressively crafted, showcasing scenes of skin-flaying, severed limbs, and a disturbingly elaborate charcuterie board complete with a skull centrepiece.

These moments are inventive and visceral, enhanced by cinematography that becomes a kaleidoscope of hyper-saturated imagery.

The film toys with ideas of empowerment, delusion, and trauma, but ultimately lacks the clarity or conviction to land a lasting impact.

It aspires to be a protest film, but its messaging lacks focus and emotional heft. The final act is predictable, tonally awkward, and emotionally flat, which may leave audiences feeling underwhelmed.

Despite a title that suggests a cannibalistic feast for the livestream generation, the film delivers surprisingly little on that front.

Instead of interrogating the cultural implications of mukbang, it retreats into rape-revenge territory-a missed opportunity for a more original, psychologically rich exploration of digital voyeurism and identity.

Still, "Cannibal Mukbang" reflects the grit and raw ambition that characterises the best of indie horror.

Flawed though it is, Kuge's debut hints at a filmmaker with a sharp eye-and, hopefully, sharper teeth to come.

After meeting by chance, a man starts a relationship with an outgoing mukbang livestreamer who brings him into her world that slowly comes to include her victims that she kills and cuts up for her career, making him choose between what type of relationship he wants with her.

This was a fairly decent if somewhat flawed genre effort. One of the better elements with this one stems from its strikingly poignant and specific commentary on the modern nature of toxic relationships and how they operate. The main meet-cute between them and the initial stages of the burgeoning romance work nicely to set the stage for how they become dependent on each other, while the scenes of them going through the early stages of a relationship that would mimic the equal stages of a typical romantic comedy about a free-spirited woman trying to break a shy, quiet person out of their shell makes for a solid and engaging watch. It's only after several dates and interactions is it apparent that there's something wrong with the relationship with her using the cannibalism traits to keep him confined to her side as this is the secret ingredient in her live streams that goes about giving him such an obsessive taste for human meat and her that it brings them together even further. While this works incredibly well in most regards, there's little else here that works. The romantic undertones for the relationship help to bring them closer together, but it also drains the film of any intrigue or chills, watching as he spends the main part of the running time going through the same interactions with her that can be found in a romantic comedy. Very little of it is threatening or scary, and while it's not intended to be based on how clumsy and awkward the chase scenes are when attempting to trap new victims, this makes the film rather dull, waiting for something to happen. With the rest of the film involving them livestreaming or going through the pains of being involved in the relationship, very little of this is scary or even wacky enough to be cheesy, with the serious tone in these interactions being quite hard to get through. These come together with its unnecessarily overlong running time to be what holds this down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity, and a sex scene.

Will this move was pretty long and cringe. The acting was terrible especially the male actors. And whats with the crappy script? Its all so juvenile. O mean I don't know if they are trying to be satirical or they actually believe thats how "predators" talk?

I mean this entire movie is just a mess. And the whole romance is also just juvenile.everything about this just screams high school production. How did they even get funded for this?

Anyways this could be fun for people who liked the twilight saga or other juvenile fantastical love stories with a horror twist?

This is the perfect Friday night viewing for couples who love horror movies or just for the romantics at heart with a taste for gore. This is a festival favorite, and I hope people come and watch. Well worth their time. Acting is sincere and feels real. April Consalo, who plays Ash, the titular Mukbanger, is a true discovery, and I can imagine her having a long and successful career. Nate Wise gives a quiet and endearing performance as the love-struck Mark, who overlooks Ash's morbid proclivities. But at the beating and delicious heart of the film is writer, producer, and director Aimee Kuge. This is Aimee's feature film debut, and it's a beauty. Beautifully shot, the film overflows with life, even as death abounds. I am excited to see what Aimee does next.

This intimate movie is a somewhat puzzling collage of extremes. It's at times campy, gory, funny, dramatic, romantic or excessive. But it is, overall, an entertaining watch, with a strong enough subtext that you don't feel like you've wasted your time on some mindless horror movie.

The storyline is fairly basic: boy meets girl, girl is into mukbanging (eating on camera for internet viewers), girl drags boy into her world. And while the ending is predictable, it doesn't take anything away from the strength of the storytelling because even if we guess how it all ends, we want to find out how the story gets there. I should mention that there are strong feminist undertones to the narrative, adding a good amount of substance to what could have been an otherwise mundane plot.

Some of the film-making is very creative. A long scene in particular, where Ash recounts her childhood to Mark, is shot like a grainy 60's home movie with no sound, yet the viewer understands Ash's history and her motivations for becoming what she is now.

The acting is uneven, although both of the main protagonists do a pretty good job of portraying deeply flawed characters. In some scenes, you do expect a bit of overacting and that's what they give you. I really hope to see more of April Consalo in front of the camera, it would be interesting to see what she does with less caricatural characters.

Special shout out to the music, modern and appropriate to the various scenes where it is applied.

In short, this is another of those rare indie, low-budget productions that deliver far more than you would expect them to, and much MUCH more than what Hollywood releases these days. Very enjoyable. I would have rated it 7.5 stars if I could.