HOUSE OF SPOILS
(director/writer: Bridget Savage Cole/Danielle Krudy; cinematographer: Eric Lin; editor: Marc Vives; music: Jim Williams; cast: Ariana DeBose (Chef), Barbie Ferreira (Lucia), Arian Moayed (Andres), Marton Csokas (Marcello), Amara Karan (Hiraj Sen); Runtime: 101; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Greg Gilreath, Adam Hendricks, Drew P. Houpt, Alex Scharfman, Lucas Joaquin, Jason Blum; Prime Video; 2024)
“It never gets into the delicious weird story it threatens us with in its appetizing premise.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The talented co-writers and co-directors Bridget Savage Cole (“Blow the Man Down”) and Danielle Krudy (“Blow the Man Down”) deliver a slow paced feminine horror pic revolving around a culinary setting with a witch as a ghostly kitchen presence. It’s a tasty but under-cooked Blumhouse film (not enough scares, as it mainly creates a tension through kitchen shenanigans pic. It sets a table that might please a foodie enthusiast, but not a cinefile. It never gets into the delicious weird story it threatens us with in its appetizing premise.
On a remote upstate New York estate, an unnamed city-bred chef (Ariana DeBose-West Side Story Oscar-winner) opens her own gourmet restaurant. She feels the heat about running her own place after quitting a great job at an exclusive NYC restaurant run by the renown head chef/owner Marcello (Marton Csokas). She partners with an antsy, unpleasant businessman investor Andres (Arian Moayed). It’s a farm-to-table restaurant run from a bug-infested dusty and creaky old haunted house, one rumored to have been once owned by a witch. A major problem is that the place requires gardening skills which the Chef doesn’t have. She’s kept under pressure by her duties, dealing with her staff, and fear of the business going under. The Chef also diligently works on coming up with a unique menu to please her knowledgeable patrons and her difficult to work with partner. He forces her to hire the sous chef, Lucia (Barbie Ferreira), who battles with the Chef over differences in cooking styles and personalities.
I enjoyed the film best when it showed the stressed Chef creating in detail sumptuous looking meals and working things out realistically like a real chef would in order to function in a remote country restaurant.
The foodie film with some horror moments comes across as a wannabe horror pic, with jump scares but no real appetite to be a real horror pic. It tells a tale of workplace horrors rather than morphing into a genuine horror pic. Since the horror portrayed is so underdeveloped and feeble, the unfulfilling climax establishing it as a horror pic seemed unearned and left me hungry for more on my plate than the tasteless culinary horror treats served.
The food critic (Amara Karan) tells the Chef that by not taking risks her food looks good but has no soul. You can say the same thing about the film, which criticizes the Chef for being risk averse yet its directors make a film that’s risk averse.
It played at the Fantastic Fest.
REVIEWED ON 10/7/2024 GRADE: C+
dennisschwartzreviews.com