Chattanooga FF: Cannibal Mukbang: Eating Human Life and Relationships

Shy and looking for love, a man becomes smitten with an outgoing and mysterious woman, who, much to his surprise, reciprocates the attraction. As his feelings for her intensify, so does his unexpected submersion into the woman’s biggest fixation: the wild world of mukbanging. And with it, lots of bloodshed.

REVIEW:

The poster for Cannibal Mukbang promises blood, sex and food, of which there is a lot of. As a side dish there is comedy, horror and romance bouncing off and eating each other in weird and delightful ways. Aimee Kuge’s debut is a cheerful genre mash that’s unafraid to push it cannibal and Mukbang metaphors to the limits. (Mukbang are online eating shows in which a host consumes various quantities of food while interacting with the audience. It’s a Korean fetish thing.)

The basic story: shy boy, Mark (Nate Wise) meets cannibal girl, Ash (April Consalo) who makes a living by doing Mukbang videos of her eating huge quantities of food that secretly have the one essential ingredient cannibals need and love the most. She brings him into her world. Lots of killing and eating of bad people ensues. Eventually, some of the kills start coming a little close to home, testing their cuisine choices and relationship.

Kuge takes these total opposite characters and gives them a believable and sympathetic life. There is a neat emotional body switch twist that transfers one character shy , loner personality with the confident, vibrant, half charming and half bitchy persona of the other. It’s a short cut for character development, but I found it an interesting way to get the plot moving off a character stuck in the mud developmentally- while showing how love can make people do crazy things outside their comfort zones.

True to its title, Cannibal Mukbang also shows how love can eat itself- how love and hunger are the same thing- and needs to be fulfilled to make life satiating and full. I like directors and writers who think through their characters, themes, and metaphors making sure they have covered every angle. There is about two minutes at the end where Kuge gives into cliché, but it goes by in a blink. No biggie.

Consalo and wise eat up the screen. Consalo excels at bringing each side of Ash to life. The transformation are always natural to her personality. She is adept at pulling back the skin of Ash and showing the darkness inside- her love and devotion too. Wise is adept at creating his character through the Casey Affleck method. He mumbles, lisps and whispers through huge chunks of his dialogue. Wise wants the audience to see Mark emotionally and not verbally. The awakwardness slowly recedes as his confidence and love for Ash grows. The two are always sympathetic and worth rooting for.

Kuge knows what she’s doing. Ash and Mark have different color palettes for their corresponding personalities, set design and costumes —conservative and gray for Mark, vibrant and colorful for Ash. The gore effects are particularly nice. They never get overdone and stay within the range of comedy and horror Kuge wants. The Mukbang scenes delight in highlighting every semi-orgasmic slurp. It’s the kind of genre bending movie true horror fans can easily praise and seek their teeth into, while not alienating the casual fan.