Writer: Elizabeth Lee
Director: Katie Carman-Lehach
Eat Me! is a low budget zombie movie that’s misleadingly classed as a comedy. Amusing, yes, but not full on comedic material.
The story follows the five young members of a wannabe New York rock band who (today at least) call themselves ‘General Malacarne’. My limited grasp of linguistics suggests that Malacarne translates appropriately as ‘bad meat’.
During a practice session there’s a power surge and blackout that might or might not be connected with the return to Earth of a space probe. When the band members emerge from their studio cellar they discover that whatever it was has set off a zombie outbreak.
For the first 30 minutes of the film I really thought I was wasting my time watching it. It was way, way too slow. I guess the blackout was intended as the inciting incident with emergence from the cellar as plot point one; unfortunately there was nothing interesting between those two. Which would have been ok if it was funny, but there weren’t even any laughs.
Fortunately things improved considerably. Once the characters crawl out and encounter the zombies it’s actually surprisingly good.
There are some genuinely creepy and tense moments as well as some very original ideas. Acting is good all round with solid characters who are neither interchangeable nor obnoxious. Overall the film looks a lot better than its minuscule budget would suggest – great zombie makeup and no reliance on shaky, handheld cameras.
Eat Me! does suffer from a bit of an identity crisis: is it a comedy? If so then there simply isn’t enough humour. Yes, there were a couple of times when I laughed and a few more when I smiled. But it’s not funny enough for a comedy. On the other hand it’s not strong enough for ‘serious with moments of comic relief’.
There’s also an issue with the ending. It’s dramatically intense but seems too sudden.
So the script could do with some work. It needs to be trimmed at the beginning and then decide whether or not it’s going for full on comedy. However if you can last out the first half hour then Eat Me! is a superior no-budget indie movie.