Eat Locals

source: Eat Locals

Most of people just fall into the movies industry's manichean trap: that was awesome / that sucked. All does not just sum up to that. Some movies do not pretend to be brainless blockbusters or over-the-top complex intrigues. Many well-thought movies manage to set up an atmosphere, a calm one, allowing you to enter it and fathom unexplicited details about the situation and the characters. Take Only Lovers Left Alive, for instance. I admit it that, at first, I was highly doubting of the value of Eat Local. The first scene is long, quiet and silent. Who does that? But this is exactly what encouraged me to keep watching (I had then no idea of what I was looking at, save for a vague two line synopsis and I hadn't looked at any trailer): the movie tried something unconventional. Then, boom, surprise, the casting. I couldn't believe my eyes! Even though I had doubt over the following scenes, the atmosphere and cast locked my undivided attention for good: every character had something peculiar, a personality and behavior of their own. Alike real life, you had to stick with them to find out who they were and be positively surprised. And it all tilted in my head at the first military scene and at the arrival of Billy Cook and Eve Myles to the meeting. I realized the subtle humour that was embedded. Be it awkward pauses or poses seeming off or sweet gestures or forced laughters, the tragic setting of the movie brilliantly collided with its lightness in recounting the story. And then, I can only remember enjoying every bit of it. At times I was surprised at the unconventional characters and feared any foreseeable outcomes or lines. But there were none. I was being surprised and led from laughters to more surprises. But there was NO MISTAKE AT ALL. Not one cliché apart for humour's sake. And this, this is so uncommon that I had to immediately watch it all over a second time! (in French, for the sake of comparing little details) Yes, this movie is not what one can expect at first glance. It goes deeper, it is more subtle and incredibly more poignant than most of other attempts out there to do impressive crazy stuff. Many vampire movies are shot to entertain us, but rarely to make us think (between two smirks). That's the hidden strength of Eat Local and its incredible cast and crew, who deserve so much more recognition and who are way too much underrated. I can't wait to see the sequel: Eat Global.

I really enjoyed this twist from the usual vampyre tales and lets face it,if your looking for comedy horror with a twist,that isn't the same old, same old hollywood trash,you can trust the british to come up with the goods every single time.This offering involves a bunch of vampyre's trapped in a farmhouse in the country side,surrounded by no less than the British army led by a crooked Brigadier,and their fight to escape.Empathy is definatly aimed at the vampyre's here and they successfully gain it from me.The acting is excellent,as would be expected from such a renowned British cast,particular standouts for me were Billy Cook (Sebastion),Tony Curran (as the delightfully evil Peter Boniface) and Annette Crosbie (Alice) as the not so sweet old lady vampyre.The camera work was excellent throughout the film.If you love vamps ,blood and fun then this is definatly a movie to watch more than once.

If you're going to tackle the difficult horror/comedy genre, it helps if you put some laughs in there. I sat stony faced throughout, just wasn't funny at all. Oh and Mackenzie Crook was unusally dreadful. One to avoid I'm afraid.

NB, I'm awarding this movie 4 for the inclusion of so many really good actors, actors who as an ensemble cast should have had better parts written for them. My - complete supposition - is that as the director, Jason Fleming, is a well known actor, there was some measure of doing a pal a favour in getting this cast together. Try as it might to get going, this movie, has an identity problem. Is it a comedy? Is it horror? Is it a pastiche of "Famous" movie scenes stuck together? It may have been trying for all three (And perhaps I missed a few other tropes.) Sadly the result misses out on everything. The premise is basically sound - British vampires meet up to discuss new "Membership" - but from there on, story, characterisation, and humour often falls flat. Dexter Fletcher, mostly shines with his comedic efforts, but that just shines a spotlight on the paucity of the writing for the rest of the cast. Probably best observed with friends, playing a drinking game - take a shot every time you say "Oh dear!" to yourself - on the other hand, perhaps not, I wouldn't want to encourage irresponsible drinking!

Which is kind of a shame, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the other parts of the meal you are getting served. There seems to be a lot of potential and if you only judge this by the missed opportunities and wasted chances it probably has, than the movie will not be a lot of fun to watch, quite the opposite. We have some colorful characters and a set up that promises to be fun. Which it is, just not as much as it could. The actors still have fun with their respected role and morality is thrown overboard. No matter who you root for, there does not seem to be someone you could call a good person in this. If you don't mind and just want to have some meaningless fun, this will do the trick

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. There were no real surprises, but it was a good fun comedy horror. A great cast and a good script made sure this romp worked well.

Sebastian (Billy Cook) has been personally selected by Vanessa (Eve Myles) to become the eighth member of their vampire group due to a recent opening. Things do not go as planned and to complicate things Vatican military forces (not the guys in the Swiss costumes) show up with the intent of eradicating the vampires. However, their actions give rise to sympathy for the blood suckers. The film was a comedy-horror, without much horror. I liked the details such as the personalized license plate "BRAM 1." The script had funny dialogue, yet I felt this was an area that could have used improvement. Worth a watch. Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

Despite being received negatively, 'Eat Locals' did have a good cast on paper and the premise was interesting. And there is certainly no bias for or against vampire films, there are both good and bad ones out there. Actually did want to have a little enjoyment from 'Eat Locals', considering the cast and premise. Have gone against the grain before, having found panned films not that bad (some are still not great though) and acclaimed films not that good (while still seeing the appeal), and was prepared to do so here. Do tend to agree with critics with that being said admittedly, absolutely refuse to do the common thing online and resort to critic bashing which is getting really ridiculous and annoying now and needs to stop. 'Eat Locals' however just didn't work, with the right execution it could have been guilty pleasure fun but ended up a bloodless film with little to no bite. 'Eat Locals' does have good things. The cast make a very game effort, despite having to work with thinly sketched characters and a mostly dire script. Annette Crosbie and Dexter Fletcher give the best performances. There are some funny one-liners sprinkled here and there. However, as said, most of the script is dire. It is very clunky and awkward, as well as often forgetting to be funny, a big problem for a film with comedic elements. Most of the gags are laboured and laughter free, saw a review that called them long-in-the-fang, sums them up pretty aptly. The horror elements also fail, forgetting completely to be scary or shocking. It's all incredibly predictable and plodding and the cheap production values and gratuitous gross-out gore do not help. 'Eat Locals' even includes moments of action, which are poorly choreographed, edited and filmed (very haphazard) and lack any kind of excitement. That's one of the film's biggest problems, that tonally it's muddled and like it doesn't know what it wants to be, parts including the army, the mafia and religion add nothing and add to the kitchen-sink weirdness. Story-wise, it's an incredibly feeble, thin and deadeningly dull (the first act especially drags) one, where one actually questions whether there is actually one at all. Jason Flemying is a very capable actor but is very ill at ease in his directing debut. The music rarely gels with the rest of the film and sounds cheap and discordant on its own. 'Eat Locals' looks cheap and the characters are basically sketchy stereotypes with next to no effort in trying to make the vampires interesting. In summation, had potential but poorly done. 3/10 Bethany Cox

I really didn't expect much but was surprised. Just a fun movie that didn't require a ton of analysis. If you want to have enjoy a few laughs with a lighthearted take on bloodsuckers, you can't go wrong here.