“The Cook” is another in the recent crop of horror-comedies that, like so many of its brethren, fails to live up to its hype. Even graded on the b-movie curve this story only rates a 2.5 (rounded up to 3 for ridiculous amounts of prurient behavior and some decent fan-boy humor.)
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The story takes place in a sorority house (and thus begins our exploitation potential), where the girls who didn’t go “away” on spring break are planning on carousing their way through the long weekend. Please note, I’m not entirely sure if the decision to “carouse” without any (well nearly any) participation by the opposite sex was done for budgetary or “exploitive reasons, but the fact that the Sorority is “Lambda Epsilon Zeta” tends to make me think the latter.
As an added twist, our killer is the Sorority’s new cook. Who has just arrived from Hungary and speaks “very” little English. His motif is not hockey masks or a clawed glove, no this serial killer goes for cannibalism in a “culinary” sort of way and then feeding the “remains” of his kills to his future victims.
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I really wanted to like this movie. I mean hey, it’s full of pretty young things. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. It has a geeky love story and a “fall from innocence” (sort of) subplot going on and the ads promise nudity and gore. What more could a low brow horror movie fan ask for?
Well, for starters he could ask for the actual delivery of some more of the nudity, but that’s actually a fairly minor point. By the very act of watching a movie like this, the viewer agrees to suspend disbelief, up to a point. I can tolerate (enjoy?) a cannibalistic serial killer who just happens to wind-up in a Sorority House full of improbably beautiful and hedonistic coeds. But I’d like a little internal consistency to my story. I have some real problems with a Sorority House where the acoustics allow for the inhabitants to hear raised voices one minute, but not the tortured screams of the killer’s victims the next minute (especially when the murder is supposed to be happening right down the hall.) Ditto, after about the second meal where the “perpetually dieting” thin coeds don’t complain, or even comment on the fact, that the cook is serving them all “heavy” meat based meals all the time, my suspension of disbelief begins to wear. But, where the movie really suffers (as so many of them do) is when the writer tries to fill in the time leading up to the killings with dialogue; and does so in an incredibly painfully incompetent manner. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for Quentin Tarantino level dialogue. I’m asking for “don’t make me cringe” level dialogue.
All in all, the production values were good, the concept was entertaining (campy), the kills delivered large quantities of gore, and the actresses were easy on the eyes. If all you want is some fan-boy humor, rated PG-13/R eye candy, and your eighties style slasher movie fix, this might be the movie for you.
As a horror film this one sucked. As a drama, comedy, or action/adventure film this one sucked.
But I give it three stars for one reason and one reason only, and that’s the part where aggressive lesbian sorority girl Anastasia (Penny Drake) pursues pretty blonde freshman Kristen (Brooke Lenzi). Those two were hot together!
Kristen is afraid of Anastasia, but after the older girl kisses her passionately she allows herself to become Anastasia’s “property” for the night, with the dominant brunette they tying her up while she playfully spanks and kisses her beautiful body! I would really have enjoyed an entire film revolving around these two pretty women together!
Sadly, Anastasia decides to go downstairs to the kitchen for some chocolate sauce to lick off of Kristen’s gorgeous body, and when she does so she’s predictably killed by the cook, and the film gets completely uninteresting from that point on. (Not that it was particularly great beforehand, aside from the two aforementioned hotties!)
You might want to rent this one just to check them out! It was erotic!
