The Cook

It’s mind-boggling that this film ever got made. Someone paid for it, so surely it must have gone through some sort of approval process, during which at least a couple of producer types must have read the script and thought to themselves, "yeah, this could really work.” I hope they all got fired. A handful of bi-curious sorority girls are left home alone with a new cook while their sisters party in Cabo for Spring Break. The cook is cute, charming, doesn’t speak a word of English and oh, yeah, he’s some kind of psycho killer who murders the girls one by one and serves them up for dinner. I haven’t given much away by revealing that the title character is also the killer because the movie gives that away within the first 20 minutes — as soon as the first victim falls. There’s no suspense, no surprises, a minimum of good gore and really no redeeming qualities, unless seeing bitchy, unlikable women get drunk and experiment with lesbianism is something you’re into. Actually, I take that back. Watching bitchy, unlikable drunks fuck each other would have been a massive improvement on the awkward, un-sexy sequences of college dorm experimentation in The Cook. I guess making every single girl in the sorority a closet dyke is an idea that seems totally awesome when you’re trying to rescue a desperately lacklustre story from being quite literally unwatchable. It’s hard to determine whether it’s the script or the abrasively wooden delivery that makes the dialogue in this film so cringe-worthy but let’s just say the only character who even approaches vague likability is the cook himself (played by square-jawed, straight-to-video star Mark Hengst), who talks in terrible fake language gibberish throughout. The DVD includes some trailers for a few other low budget horror films, as well as a commentary with the cast and Mark Hengst’s audition footage. Honestly though, who cares?