With the big studios postponing their major horror releases because of the Pandemic, there is a rare opportunity this year for a low budget, indie horror movie to dominate this Halloween. Kamikaze Dogfight and Gravitas Ventures, known for recognizing budding talent in genre filmmaking, are throwing their latest slasher flick Chop Chop into this mix, with the VOD release of Rony Patel's feature directorial debut on October 20th.
Chop Chop tries to live up to the cool, suspenseful horror films of the early 2000s, but it quickly loses its edge. It starts off with a bang, as a disturbingly creepy pizza delivery man (David Harper) careens down a sidewalk with a fresh pie in one hand and a bag full of bloody human heads in the other. He targets two young lovers at home for a romantic evening, but this psychopath may have bitten off more than he can chew, as the sweet, photogenic couple proceed to kick the shit out of him and his cleaver.
Lovely Chuck (Jake Taylor) and Liv ( Atala Arce) remain enigmatic, as the film jumps from a home invasion movie to an on-the-run crime drama to slasher torture porn, and their crimes and personal situation only become more dire along the way. The problem is that Chop Chop manages to do this with no coherent plot. It is more like a series of vignettes, some successful, some not. There is too much uncertainty and confusion, too many unanswered questions. Just who are these people? Was this whole thing random? What's in the box?! There were pacing issues, stares that go for too long, uncomfortable silences, long pauses in the scant dialogue. Ultimately, I felt the characters needed more development, a logical backstory. Maybe Patel was going for mysterious, but he achieved perplexing.
There's not much to like about Chop Chop, but there are flashes of brilliance, mostly in the especially graphic scenes containing the two psychopathic villains. (Not Liv and Chuck?) David Harper does an amazing job of portraying the pizza man Teddy, a truly creepy, awkward, menacing character, putting me in mind of a new Michael Berryman. Mikael Mattsson as Clark, the merry, masked torturer in the climactic final scenes, was a lot of fun to watch. (Aside: what is the costumer’s thing with bathrobes?) These performances were a little over the top, but I enjoyed them more than the deadpan Liv and Chuck provided for most of the film. Look for a couple of plot twists near the end, but I still can't really make sense out of one of them.
I really wanted to like this movie. I loved the trailer, and I watched the film twice, thinking perhaps I just didn't get it. For writer-director Rony Patel, this was not a wholely successful first outing, but I'm still interested enough to check out what he does in the future. For me, Chop Chop does not make my cut.
Patricia Pirillo