DVD Review: Gnaw
Gnaw (2009)
Studio: Dark Sky Films
Director: Michael Bell
Reviewed by: Marc Patterson
Back in August when I posted the trailer for this film, I thought it held some promise. I’m not exactly a huge fan of Texas Chainsaw Massacre copycat films. If I want to see TCM then I’ll pop the damn disc in and watch it. Nonetheless, Gnaw promised something a little different, and you know what? It proved to be different, but only a little.
The film starts with the requisite titling that X amount of people go missing every year. Most are found, but not all. (I’m paraphrasing) I’m going to take a wild guess that we’re about to watch the story of a few individuals who AREN’T found. So far we’re not off to a good start. The next thing you know we’ll probably see some chick getting chased down by a psycho in a beat to shit pickup truck. Wait… holy crap, that’s exactly what we get. Sigh. Only two minutes in and we’re already wearing down the list of clichéd and overused motifs for every backwoods cannibal film ever made.
If you haven’t guessed Gnaw is a terse cannibalistic hack n’ slash fest whose blood runs deep (see barely first cousin deep) with that of TCM; however, this isn’t pure homage. Gnaw has a few tricks of its own to play out and gives patient viewers a run through a barrage of chaos and stomach churning delights. But patience will be the keyword.
Cut to a roadside food stand where we catch up with the cast of young, soon-to-be-slaughtered kids who are grabbing some munchies before getting to their remote vacation in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. Notice the missing persons flier and cross that one off your cannibal killer scavenger hunt list. No cell signal? Cross that one off too.
One by one we meet our cast of kids. They’re nameless fodder for our foodie killers, so I’m not going to bother getting into it. They arrive at their destination, and minor drama ensues as personalities emerge, but all is set aside when they bear witness to a banquet of veritable delights that has been laid out for them. Someone has the best hosts ever. At least for the time being.
With a relatively short runtime of only 76 minutes (6 of those minutes are eaten up by end credits), there’s not much time to get down to business. So we toss on a lightning storm and a power outage, and eventually the herd breaks apart into pairs, and then singles as our victims methodically and predictably meet their respective fates. (And then are fed to the still remaining victims). Yeah, so that last part? I guess you could say that’s the minor difference. Our villains are highly obsessed with the preparation and serving of culinary delights. All of course using human flesh as the main ingredient.
The major downside to the film is not its gross overuse of genre motifs. It’s that this is hardly a memorable film. Leatherface is an unforgettable face of horror, and even ‘ol grandpa with his hammer had endearing qualities. This mother/son duo is rather unassuming and makes no attempt to even attain the stature of a villain that might be considered “iconic”. The dynamic between the mother and son could have used some serious fleshing out, and you know, there could have been some real quality black comedy underlying the nasty sizzling flesh being cooked up.
Despite its inherent predictability and lack of originality, Gnaw is at least smartly executed and a pretty solid slasher film. It’s not hateful to watch. It’s just that it’s not a great film, either. The violence plays in right where it should, and on cue, but most of the really gory stuff takes place off screen, only showing the aftermath. And there’s not much in the way of highly stylized murder-set-pieces. Again, it’s a lot of the “psycho in the back shed dismembering body parts in a slow but torturous way” that we see in a good many cannibal films. At least here, all the screaming was bearable on the ears.
Simply put, the film spends too much timing paying homage to other films, and rather than make anything original worth watching, is happy to play safe and cash in on copycat filmmaking. While it’s not a horrid way to piss away some time, I could certainly think of other films I’d rather watch.
