BAD MEAT

In what is possibly the most basic hospital to have been shown on screen since that one Professor Nugent winds up in in James C Wasson's NIGHT OF THE DEMON, a patient lies bloodied and completely bandaged as a computer keyboard is set up beside their bed. The object of this is so they can start typing an explanation as to how they ended up this way.

Which, of course, leads to flashbacks. These begin with rebellious teen Tyler (Dave Franco) being driven by the state Sherriff to a woodlands-based correctional centre for juvenile delinquents called Camp Hardway.

Upon his arrival, Tyler is lined up beside half a dozen other misfit teenagers and introduced to their mentors: brutish Skullet (Aaron Berg), cuntish Wolf (Aaron Merke) and sexy-but-nasty and shotgun-wielding Peters (Monique Ganderton). Presiding over these three is Kendrew (Mark Pellegrino), who likes like a cross between William Baldwin and William Forsythe and is perhaps the biggest bastard of them all.

Kendrew addresses the baffled youths, telling them they've been transported against their will to this extremely remote brat camp at their disappointed parents' requests. His team's job is to ensure each one of them gets "majorly fucked up".

After settling in to their bunking chambers (boys in one room, girls in the other), the kids soon start to experience what this entails: getting woken up by being pissed on, being barked at while forced to chop wood all day long, and being fed in inedible slop while their keepers feast on specially delivered meat.

Torment and torture are the order of the day. The kids' spirits are soon broken and tempers among their group start to fray. But there appears to be no escape from this Hell which they're told is miles from anywhere and is guarded by bloodied Alsatians.

How can things possibly get any worse? Well, what if I told you the latest meaty meal enjoyed by Kendrew and co consisted of contaminated product? Initially this may seem quite amusing as Peters' pegging session with Skullet ends in communal spewing, and Kendrew vomits all over his light bedside reading of Nazi death camp tales.

The kids are delighted when the awake the following morning to discover their tormentors are nowhere to be found. But a little more exploration of the camp, primarily by pretty Rose (Elisabeth Harnois), reveals that the camp leaders are still around - and, although now covered in puke, they're more vicious than ever. In fact, their reaction to the bad meat served to them by their disgruntled cook has turned them into cannibals!

Sure enough, when Kendrew and his cohorts finally awaken from their slumber - complete with Skullet and Peters still in bondage gear (she's still sporting her pegging dildo!) - they are as ravenous as zombies, and terrorise the teens like never before. Can these mismatched juveniles work together to survive this onslaught?

BAD MEAT had a very troubled production. It began with director Rob Schmidt (WRONG TURN) apparently helming it. But then things went awry and it ran out of funding in May 2008, leading to crisis meetings held by the producers to address the matter of cast and crew members whose pay had dried up.

It appears to have been finally completed (by someone called Lulu Jarmen - could this be Schmidt under a pseudonym?) using judicious editing and unscrupulous compromises which involve not inviting any of the cast back to complete the project. Hence the mystery identity of the survivor at the beginning and end of the film (as well as in frequent brief fillers throughout) never being revealed ... though this may intentional, and if it is I give the filmmakers credit. But in fact, the biggest tell-tale sign of this being an uncompleted film comes with the problem that there is no true conclusion at all ... this film just ends, with no explanation of characters' fates or denouement to its initially intriguing story.

It's a shame, because the bulk of the film - as lo fi as it is - is pretty well acted and quite tense. The girls are hot, the villains are enjoyable caricatures and the modest production values serve the faintly daft storyline well. There is welcome humour amidst the generally dark material, a fair amount of successful tension is achieved and those wanting gross-out material are well-served by a decent amount of barfing, dog autopsy footage and flesh-eating gore (check out the penis-munching!).

But, ultimately, it all comes undone at the end because of the aforementioned production troubles. What a shame, as there is potential elsewhere for this to be a decent low budget, tasteless cult curio.

MVD Visual's DVD is region free and presents BAD MEAT uncut in 16x9 widescreen. The transfer is decent enough in that I imagine it's perfectly indicative of how the film was shot. It looks a tad washed out at times but otherwise is clean and detailed.

English 2.0 audio is good throughout.

The disc defaults straight into the film. I couldn't get to a main menu page (nor the advertised trailer), but the film does have 9 remote-accessed chapters.

BAD MEAT is not the travesty that some reviews make it out to be. I found it to be well-acted and quite atmospheric. There's some real tension too towards the end. But then it peters out, badly.

Review by Stuart Willis