Macabre…ish Horror Review: Eat

Eat, 2014/ 1 hr 32 min

This is the story of Novella McClure (Meggie Maddock), she’s an actor in L.A. but hasn’t landed a roll in 3 years and she’s been let go by her agent. On top of that, she has a rival, Tracy (Dakota Pike), who auditions for all the same parts but Tracy gets them.

Novella has recently picked up a bad habit, eating her own skin. Not just picking but all but mauling herself because when she gets nervous, she gets hungry. She wakes up with blood on pillows, and chews on herself in the car until she’s gushing blood.

She ended up in the hospital after being confronted by her overbearing, over sharing landlord, Eesha (Maru Garcia) about her eviction. The doctors noticed her injuries were bite marks and noted the blood on her mouth and skin between her teeth. She is put on suicide watch and now has to see a therapist.

While waiting for her appointment, she gets a call about an audition from a director who’s girlfriend she yelled at on a prior audition.

Meanwhile, she distracts herself by partying with her violent friend, Candace (Ali Francis) and she’s decided that if she gets this job, she’ll continue pursuing acting, if not, she quits. And every time they go out lately, she meets Dr. Simon (Jeremy Make) who is really interested in her and asks her out.

One night, when Novella and Candace try to leave the club, they realize they’ve been roofied and the guys that did it try to assault them in the parking garage, Candace, shoots them right in the huevos. Later that night, Novella defaults to her coping mechanism and starts eating one of her feet.

Gnawed foot aside, she doesn’t miss that audition, she wraps up that foot and goes. She does a monologue and it’s good! And director and his crew devolve into gales of laughter, as she expected, the job is porn.

Novella walks out of the audition and goes to her therapist. She later fights with Candace before her date and despite the gnarly gangrenous remnants of her foot, Novella gets started on her ankle.

Her date is great! And she might actually get that job as a stylist. It looks like things are looking up. Then she learns some truths about the people around her or she thinks she does. And in her despair, all she can do is cope.

This movie, directed by Jimmy Weber, is so gory and so graphic. At times it’s pretty hard to watch, Monster Makeup FX did some great and heinous work in this flick. The pacing and cinematography (Jon Stevenson) is pretty good and the gore and violence ramps up as the movie goes on. And the end is so sad, violent and weirdly funny. This movie is an unexpected roller coaster.