I am really not sure what is up with these Canadian film makers, but they sure seem to know how to make disturbing movies. I guess they’re all competing with David Cronenberg, and you gotta admit he sets the bar pretty high.

 A lot of people are calling this film a 70’s-ish psychological thriller. I don’t know about that, I mean there were a lot of disturbing films made during the 70’s and this is a disturbing film. Beyond that I don’t really see any other similarities. No disco, no evil hippies, no wa-wa guitars in the soundtrack. I guess some of the dorky dialogue could be considered 70’s-ish; trouble is Canadians really do talk that way. To be fair though, there is not a single utterance of “eh” in this entire film. Not even very Canadian if you ask me.

I got to watch this movie during an early screening and fortunately I went in without having paid much attention to what I was about to see. I probably wouldn’t have watched it at all if I had known what I was getting into, chick-flicks are really not supposed to be my thing and I have to watch a sufficient quantity of them anyway to keep my wife happy.

I wasn’t paying attention during the opening credits and so throughout the movie I kept asking myself “Who is this girl that looks so much like Demi Moore?” Yes I do feel very foolish now so shut up all of you.

Brian Yuzna was starting to be a name I looked for in the producer credits of semi-obscure horror movies, since I enjoyed two movies he produced just this week. Unfortunately he directed this one and it is an absolute train wreck. (maybe he should stick to producing) I am trying really had to think of something nice to say but I keep going over and over it in my mind and there just isn’t anything I can think of. There are more thing about this film that make no sense at all than things that do.

I am really starting to like this Brian Yuzna guy, this is the second one of the films I’ve seen this week produced by him and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The very lovely Elsa Pataky probably had more to do with that than anything, although I have always been partial to werewolf-movies.

I had heard before seeing this move that it was based on real events and that one reviewer fell asleep while watching it, so I went in not expecting a whole lot and so I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t want to build it up too big for you, this is definitely not the movie of the decade or anything so don’t get your hopes up – but Elsa Pataky is definitely very, very nice looking and the rest of the movie isn’t bad either. That guy that fell asleep musta been high.

Intro:

This movie surprised me. Reviewing non-mainstream movies can often be a chore, and when a movie comes along that is shot on video instead of film, and has a cast of only three people, (well, there are actually seven actors in the credits but four of the actors get less than one minute screen time combined by my estimation) and the set is an abandoned house it is perhaps justifiable to feel you are being subjected to something the film-maker put together just to say he had made a film.

 That is so not the case with this movie. The acting and dialogue, both elements which have been the downfall of many films with perhaps a hundred times this one’s budget are superb in this film. I don’t know that writing convincing tweaker rambling or acting like a dangerous, paranoid white trash stoner (when for all the audience knows you may be exactly that in real life) makes you a great screen-writer or a good actor, but all three main characters do an incredible job in this movie, and the masterfully written dialogue makes the viewer forget he is watching a shoestring budget film rather quickly.

Other reviews are making the understandable comparison between this movie and “Blair Witch”. I do not think there are really any striking similarities between the two films, “Blair Witch” bored me so badly I cannot even properly claim to have seen it – I honestly can’t remember at what point I lost interest and walked away. “Cookers” is not like this at all. I was not familiar with director Dan Mintz or actor Brad Hunt but having seen this film I will definitely be looking up other work by both of them.