Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars Hiram Bleetman, Carrie Cohen, Nigel Croft-Adams, Sara Dylan, Oliver Squires,
Gary Faulkner, Rachel Mitchem, Julia Vandoorne, Jennifer Wren | Written by Michael Bell & Max Waller
UK Certification 18 | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 76 minutes | Directed by Gregory Mandry
Low-budget British blood and guts film Gnaw takes a page out of Tobe Hooper's book by dropping a group of out-of-towners into an isolated residence inhabited by a cannibalistic family, and systematically killing them off in all kinds of nasty ways at the hands of a masked murderer. But what the film lacks in comparison to the excellent and timeless The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is its absolute inability to scare or shock with its creatively bankrupt use of violence, gore and atmosphere.
Set in the East Sussex countryside as opposed to a hot and dusty plain beneath the Texas sun, Gnaw's cast of unlikeable cookie cutter characters are all hacked, sliced and minced to death and turned into various foodstuffs, from pies to burgers sold at a roadside stand operated by the butcher himself. It's another “you are what they eat” kind of movie with a killer who literally wears a dead cat on his head. Obviously William Shatner masks and cracked porcelain doll faces weren't to his liking.
It's a completely by-the-numbers film that offers nothing we haven't already seen countless times before in the genre – music boxes included – and so there simply is no excitement to be had from start to finish.
If you can't be bothered to reach for the remote to turn this boring Brit cannibal horror off, I heartily recommend that you eat your own face off instead. It will work just as well. Of course, if you can be bothered, why not just grab your copy of that Ed Gein-inspired opus from 1974 and have yourself some real fun?
EXTRAS ?? Humble Pie: The Making of Gnaw; an audio commentary with director Mandry; and the trailer.