Bitter Feast (2010)

Joe Maggio directs this wickedly and somewhat comical story of torture. Peter Gray(James LeGros)is an arrogant, self-absorbed celebrity chef that has had one bad review too many. A pompous influential food blogger JT Franks(Joshua Leonard)writes another scathing review of Gray's show and cooking abilities. Gray finally snaps and his hatred of Franks becomes obsessive. In a way, JT's words will come back to hurt him. The TV chef kidnaps the blogger and shackles him in the basement. On the menu is a full course of witty tortures. But alas, the beaten up JT is far from being helpless. Next up is a tactful battle of gigantic egos. Rounding out the cast: Amy Seimetz, Megan Hilty and Food Network's Mario Betali.

This movie is lame...sooooo lame... The story, even though a bit original, is boring. A chef, that gets angry at a bloguer, for saying bad things about his program, and about his restaurant, kidnaps and tortures him, really bad, in order to make him suffer some regret for the "bad deeds" he has done. Stupid story, stupid actors, with stupid role play... The only good part in this film, is the death of the detective, that the bloguer's wife hired to search for him... Unfortunately this kind of crap is more and more normal, nowadays... Stay away...if you want to see torture movies, try Last House on the Left or I spit on your grave...both versions (72 and the modern one). This one is forgetful...a waste of time...

The only reason I didn't give this film a 10 out of 10 is because that is saved for a movie I haven't seen yet! With that being said, Bitter Feast is a masterpiece original in suspense and horror. Starts off good enough as it draws you in with the urge to want to see where this movie is taking you. A very original story line as we've all seen hundreds of movies of this genre that are simply produced from a cookie cutter and quite predictable! This film is nothing like that and without going into detail about scenes I liked more than others, their was one aspect to the movie that really made it great to watch and that was the music of the movie especially the sound of the "drum" beating periodically thought out the movie as although it was more of just a sound effect, to me it was what really pushed the movie over the top and obtain the high rating I felt it deserved. Great beginning, middle and ending!! Three very important components for a movie to be successful.

Peter Grey is a pompous, talented chef whose life is about to take a turn for the worse after an unnecessarily horrible review by blogger JT Franks. Grey's already skewed world perspective changes drastically as he resolves to kidnap Franks, torturing him with a series of seemingly simple cooking tasks.Bitter Feast gets points for originality and gloss. The film looks quite good for an independent effort and the actors really throw themselves into the roles. They actually hired actors, not faces, to flesh out the interesting script. James Le Gros especially never goes over the top but plays the role rather subtly and Josh Lucas is excellent, being sympathetic and unsympathetic all at once. The always reliable Larry Fessenden shows up as a slimy private eye trying to locate Franks.Don't expect your life to change, but if you're looking for a movie with some originality and panache, then dig in!