Meat Kills review
The pigs march themselves onto the slaughterhouse floor.
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Meat Kills
Directed by Martijn Smits
Written by Paul de Vrijer
Starring Caro Derkx, Sem Ben Yakar, Sweder de Sitter, Emma Josten, Derron Lurvink, Bart Oomen and Chardonnay Rillen
Meat Kills Review
When you think of horror movies from the Netherlands…your first thought probably goes to the strange international curiosity that was The Human Centipede. Pop culture has made that movie into something everyone has heard of…even if they’ve never actually seen it. The recent remake of Speak No Evil certainly brought at least a little more attention to the original film…also a product of Netherlands horror. Meat Kills isn’t likely to become a pop culture fascination. It probably won’t get an Americanized remake either…though you can never say never. Despite the lack of help from an international stage…it should make its way into conversations about horror movies from the region. As long as you aren’t turned off by subtitles…Meat Kills is a good one.
A group of activists infiltrates a rural slaughterhouse hoping to free their stock of pigs. They arrive too late…and decide to take their fight directly to the family that owns the operation. It backfires. What follows is a bloody, violent clash between the two groups. A night where some may be more innocent than others…but no one’s hands are clean.
Meat Kills delivers an appropriately brutal time at the slaughterhouse. The gore is well done. The kills are innovative and, if you’ll allow it, fun. I couch that statement because the violence isn’t played for “fun”. But when violence is done as well as it is here…we sickos tend to find our own joy in it. The movie is going for tension…and achieves it in what I thought was a pretty interesting way. None of the characters here are “good” people. There are shades of grey, of course. Some people are likable enough even if they’re involved in some pretty seedy behavior. But I wondered more than once who I was supposed to be rooting for. If that sounds like a problem…Meat Kills knows that it’s walking a hard line to walk. Its resolution confirms that it understood what it was doing the entire time.
On one side…we have the activists. Their goal to prevent the harm of animals sounds noble…but their methods are clearly over the line. They break and enter, vandalize and eventually turn to violence. The family they target isn’t clean either. The story begins with Mirthe (Caro Derkx) exposing their unethical methods to the activists in order to join their ranks. Now, not everyone in the family is equally liable for these actions. The patriarch and business owner certainly is. His oldest son is as well. But his two youngest children, including a sick young daughter, feel free from this violent blame game. Meat Kills takes the daughter out of the equation early by making it clear she isn’t a target. Which is the right move…since everyone else on the killing floor has at least some level of deserving to be there.
Meat Kills gives you one person on each side that you can empathize with as the night turns deadly. Mirthe immediately thinks things have gone too far. Unfortunately, her own actions (even in self-defense) doom them all to an unstoppable series of revenge killings. On the family’s side there is Jonathan (Sweder de Sitter). The youngest son in the family…he doesn’t appear to be a part of the slaughterhouse. He doesn’t even seem to agree with his father’s methods. What he does have, however, is a backstory with Mirthe from the time she spent working undercover for his family. One part Romeo and Juliet for the activists vs. slaughterhouse sets…one part natural antagonists due to Mirthe’s betrayal of his family and trust.
But neither Mirthe nor Jonathan are purely good. Jonathan inevitably joins the hunt for their invaders. Mirthe’s betrayal and accidental murder set the stage for everything that happens. They try to minimize the damage…do the best they can in a situation that requires steel resolve to survive…but they aren’t really innocent. They’re the best of a bad lot. And Meat Kills knows it. The climax of the story, following a lot of blood and death, allows them to play protagonist but never lets them forget they aren’t heroes. The final image of Meat Kills is the perfect resolution to this idea. A wonderful way to cap a story that indulges in brute force violence on characters who deserve it happening to them as much as they deserve to do it to someone else.
When the activists cross the line and begin inflicting violence on the family…they cover their faces with pig masks. As we are sure that the tables will inevitably turn on them…the choice becomes more meaningful. The pigs have lined themselves up for the slaughter. Their enemies aren’t wearing masks made of human skin. They aren’t a group of cannibals or disgusting people. They’re just people. People who know how to use the slaughterhouse to their advantage. People who do this for a living…and don’t blink in the face of violence. There are no larger than life monsters on either side of this fight. Just regular folks…both willing to the other to survive the night. A night that, just maybe, none of them deserve to survive in the first place.
Scare Value
Meat Kills pits two groups of people against each other with no clear protagonist. Some people are more likable than others, of course. That holds true on both sides. Once the powder keg explodes and the violence begins…the movie presents situations where rooting interests aren’t completely clear. It has a unique feel, plenty of fun and innovative kills and, best of all, understands that its unique character presentation matters. Meat Kills pays off its character gambit perfectly in the end. Capping off a movie that stays brutal and unpredictable throughout.
3.5/5
Meat Kills Links
Streaming on SCREAMBOX
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