All You Can Eat - A Toxic Burrito Story (to give it it's full title) is a thirteen minute short horror film that was directed and produced by Kieran Reed. Initially created as a proof of concept, taken from a scene from a feature length script, this was later adjusted to work as its own short film. Any fears this may turn out not to be much good were thankfully put to rest, as despite not ever really taking itself too seriously, this creature feature delivered on the gore, and had some ideas used in the filmmaking that made this stand out.
Verity Hayes stars as Nola Gombo, a waitress at 'Planet Burrito' who one day believes she has stumbled upon a strange conspiracy. Relating her tale to her co-worker (Matt O'Toole) who is out back taking out the trash, she tells him how she accidentally overheard an answer phone message for her boss, that seemed to suggest he was sourcing ingredients for his food from a dark cult (the message voiced by former lead vocalist of The Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra). Her attempts to convince her uninterested co-worker are interrupted however by the arrival of the titular toxic burritos, creatures whose only desire is to feast...
Even before the short properly began I was drawn in by the great soundtrack, and an intro credit sequence that plays against a slow pan down from the exterior of the restaurant. This echoed the feel of B-movies, but with the blood and gore of early eighties video nasties mixed in. This, along with purposeful film grain to give the short an aged look, and an overall washed out look to the colours used in the movie created the vibe wonderfully. Nola is the protagonist with much of the film following her, whether in flashbacks, or in the present time sections. I thought the script was mostly good, the voice in the answer phone was suitably B-movie in style, and I found a lot of Nola's lines prior to the horror beginning, sounded quite natural with the way they were infused with random swear words. Admittedly, once the horror does begin her lines devolved into more typical speech you would expect from a low budget horror, likely part of the desire to appear like a film of the style this was going for.
There was a satisfying amount of blood and gore once things do take a turn for the worse, with much of the special effects practical in nature (though some CG is used, and while it was mostly obvious which effects these were, they never stood out enough to affect the flow of the film). The creature design was fun, the sharp teeth of the leech type creatures in particular looked great on camera. Talking of camera work, there were some neat ideas used, my favourite had what could have been a freeze frame shot instead playing out in slow motion, with a scream lengthened to a long enough sound that it began to blend into the background.
I had few complaints with All You Can Eat, it had a great look to it, some lovely special effects, a neatly designed creature, and some cool style, in particular I thought the end credits being designed to look like a restaurant menu was a fun idea. It may never entirely escape the shadow of having originally been a scene from a larger movie, but this was a great short that was a blast to watch.
SCORE:
No comments:
Post a Comment