2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Leofwine_draca The title, DVD cover and blurb all conspire to make this film look like a Thai slant on the torture porn sub-genre, but the truth is that it's nothing like that. It's much better! Yes, it's a gory movie in which bodily dismemberment and death play major roles, but this is only part of the movie. In many ways, MEAT GRINDER is much more of a psychological horror film, exploring one woman's mental disintegration when faced with infidelity and violence. You could take out all the blood and guts and the film would be just as effective; it works best as a character study rather than a movie that just goes out of its way to nauseate.One thing you notice first is Tiwa Moeithaisong's direction, which is definitely above par for the genre. Moeithaisong banishes memories of poor horror fodder like GHOST GAME and HELL to tell an engaging, speedily-paced movie that doesn't let up from the word go. Mai Charoenpura's performance as the put-upon stall owner is decent, as she keeps you on-side unlike many horror villains. The film in many ways reminds one of the equally icky DUMPLINGS (which were served up containing human foetuses) but MEAT GRINDER is offbeat and engaging enough to work all of its own.

Bloodwank Buss is a disturbed lady who kills people and sometimes makes them into food. Meat Grinder is the story of how and why she came to this pretty pass, and where she goes. By all rights this should be a real winner, it has a workable story, reasonable pace and some entertaining gore and yet it actually comes out somewhat stodgy, dull in places. The trouble is mostly in the storytelling, fractured yet centred it draws shards of past and present in claustrophobic swirl about its lead, not really letting the story breath for itself or gather up a compelling sense of rhythm or flow. If the central performance were a bit better there might have been compelling emotional momentum but unfortunately Mai Charoenpura is fairly one note as Buss, cold and stressed out but not all that affecting. As a result the film is mostly interesting for the sake of various grisly moments, nothing we haven't seen before of course but some good stuff all the same, with a generally twisted edge that gives it that all important punch. Stylistic tics at times detract from affairs, like random switching between colour and black and white, but at least the nasty moments aren't spoiled by coke head edits, speedy cam or incomprehensible close ups, we still get to see the good stuff. What we don't see though is very much in the way of actual meat grinding, the title seems to have been put in place to catch the eye rather than for any great relevance to the films content. It's actually a sombre story of a woman's plight and what happens when she finally cracks, and though it follows a fairly predictable woe is the plight of the Asian woman trajectory, its still dark enough to be watchable. I'm probably making this one sound much less worthy than it is, certainly others have had stronger and more positive reactions. It does all just about hang together (aside from unexplained and irrelevant scenes involving rioters), it has some classy moments and the story works itself out in appropriately twisted fashion, but I was a bit nonplussed overall by it. Still semi worth a watch, but a good idea to suspend ones expectations and maybe have some booze or other viewing aids on hand to ease the passage. Fair 6/10 from me ('cause I'm a gorehound at heart).

Indyrod This Thai horror movie to me is more of an Art film, because it is truly remarkable and it looks amazing. You might think it is more of a send off of the short film DUMPLINGS from the "Three Extremes" DVD, but this is much much more. The movie revolves around Buss a woman trying to make it with a small dumpling shop, and one day a dead guy ends up in her shop, and she decides to grind him up and add the pieces into her dumpling recipe, which is a huge hit. Yes, this sounds like Sweeney Todd a little bit, but Buss is relentless as the movie moves on with her killing of practically everybody that comes in contact with her. Her business has gotten so good, that she is running out of bodies, so she goes where she has to for the yummy ingredients who customers love. This is very very gory as Buss chops and grinds up victims, and pretty much goes berserk in the end, killing everybody in site. The photography is sensational, as is the great soundtrack. The back story is that Buss was severely abused her whole life by her Mother, and Mother comes back in the end, depending on how you interpret the ending. THIS IS NOT TO BE MISSED. It's the real deal, and whether you are a gorehound, lover of Asian horror/gore, or just love offbeat movies, "Meat Grinder" fills the bill. It's not available in the States yet on DVD, but I assume it soon will be.

krakanova Wow. The film surprised me. I thought I would leave a comment because this film has so few reviews. This was a very romantic torture porn with a crazy woman who runs a restaurant and slashes her customers' or adversaries' calves and puts them up on meathooks as if Leatherface. But this is not The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and this is not Saw or Guinea Pig.The film is worth watching for the visuals and great operatic music. The primary colors of blood and blue are saturated and the director makes what is boring about these types of movies vibrant. It is very eye magnetic.I have found torture pornographies to be very dull and exploitative in a way that I do not like (e.g. Hostel 2), but this was different. And it is one of only three Thai horror films that I like. Check it out.