Fantasia 2020 Review: Yummy, Exuberant Sadism Devoid of Wit
By Leila Latif
The premise of this Belgian horror comedy is ripe for fun: a gory zombie flick set in a plastic surgery hospital brings to mind the sort of sleazy B movie that could become a cult classic like Braindead (1992), Re-Animator (1985) or Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988). Unfortunately, the grim misogyny of the film drains it of all potential joy. The characters are right out of the darkest corners of 4chan (an imageboard website); a pathetic cuckolded man, a badass predatory creep, a giant breasted desexualised Final Girl, and a series of glamourous fembots in patent leather stilettos that wouldn’t be out of place in an Austen Powers films.
It can be hard to be a feminist horror fan at the best of times, and a film like this embodies precisely why: this is women-hating violence devoid of wit or satire, just puerile, leering nihilism. Women (often inexplicably topless or in silky lingerie) are the source of all evil and are gleefully tortured and humiliated far beyond their male counterparts. The men in this film may be idiotic but avoid the exuberant sadism doled out to every female character.
F-cupped Alison (Maaike Neuville) goes with her plastic surgery obsessed mother and downtrodden boyfriend Michael (Bart Hollanders) to have her breasts reduced to a size that she finds manageable. The film treats this as an idiotic decision akin to amputating your own head. After all, what use is a woman’s body aside from to satisfy the male gaze? The plastic surgery hospital (with a side hustle in free abortions) gives Alison and Michael pause for concern, with groping surgeons and dubious hygiene standards. It’s unclear whether these details are supposed to land as jokes, but they are breezed over before any satirical ideas around plastic surgery become evident.
Michael takes a tour with predatory hospital assistant Daniel (Benjamin Ramon) and comes across a woman who has been tied up - topless of course - with a mask on her face. He removes the mask to reveal a grotesque zombie face and runs off as she gnaws through her straps. When the inevitable zombie outbreak begins, the film is quick to remind us that this is a direct consequence of women’s vanity lethally combined with their right to have abortions. Cut to a series of well-done extremely gory encounters, the practical effects are solid, with some particularly, impressively nasty scenes of self-cannibalising for a low budget film. Unfortunately, a series of increasingly inane dick jokes distract from any investment in what’s going on. The penis jokes come thick and fast; there are penis enlargement jokes, flaccid penis jokes, erect penis jokes, broken penis jokes, flaming penis jokes, frozen penis jokes and so on and so on. So long as nothing more than the inherent presence of a penis is funny to you this will all be hilarious. As the violence steps up so does the chauvinism; women are called “fucking whores” as they are murdered, and the camera zooms and lingers on their pert buttocks as they lie dying. To give credit to the film, the high energy is maintained up until the final moments and the ending packs a punch.
It’s a hard film to review because there is undoubtedly a large part of horror fandom who enjoy this sort of thing, with little care for the problematic elements. Is it unfair to look for a moral compass in a horror B movie? After all, we’ve moved past Tolstoy’s oversimplified idea that art’s value is in its ability to communicate concepts of morality. However, the regressive heart of this film creates an uncomfortable, and ultimately unenjoyable viewing experience.
Yummy was reviewed as part of our coverage of Fantasia 2020.
Leila Latif is a Sudanese writer based in London. She has written about films, race, food and their intersections for The Guardian, Little White Lies, The BFI, Eater and Sight & Sound. She is a horror film junkie who will defend Scream 4, The Evil Dead Remake and season 6 of Buffy with her dying breath.
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