FILM GUTTER REVIEWS - ​FAMINE (2011)

Dir. Ryan Nicholson, 77 mins

​It didn’t have quite the brutality of Collar, and had more in common with Gutterballs with its strange mixture of brutal violence and base humour. It’s worth a look if you like horror-comedy with a more extreme edge, but if that’s not your bag then you might be better sitting this one out.

Another fairly random entry for Film Gutter this week, as the regular search for inspiration led me to this decade-old offering from Ryan Nicholson, who sadly died last year at only 48 years old. He left behind a fine legacy of extreme horror movies, and we’ve looked at some of his previous offerings before – Collar and Gutterballs in particular – and both of those were equal parts grim and comedic. That’s about what I was expecting from Famine, and that’s about what I got.

The story itself follows a cast of seniors in high school (as far as my understanding of the US school system goes) who are attending a 24-hour famine in an attempt to land some extra credit. The event is led by bitchy teacher Miss Vickers, who seems to have a particular fixation with ‘geeky’ Jenny. Those inverted commas mean that we’re told she’s geeky, despite the fact she doesn’t look anything like the ‘traditional’ high school geek.

The famine is attended by most of the jocks and popular girls too, and Sarah and Jenny in particular are constantly at loggerheads throughout the night. However the famine has a dark history, as five years before, the previous famine led to the death of a teacher. And, in true horror film style, there’s a mysterious killer stalking the students one by one…

It’s fair to say that Famine is nothing revelatory, and hits plenty of the sorts of slasher horror tropes you will have seen time and time again. However a lot of it is played for laughs – the school itself is called Sloppy Secondary, which sets up the sort of tone from the very beginning, and almost every role is completely overplayed. Jenny has a habit of shouting about every other line for no particular reason, our resident ‘psycho’ Kathy overdoes that particular routine with her random mumblings, and we also have the creepy janitor and the stern German headteacher to boot. There’s nothing especially subtle or nuanced about it, but there are a few chuckles here and there along the way as it pokes at both serial killer movies and even bits of the 90s and 2000s high school movie.

With that said, it’s not all giggles, and befitting much of Nicholson’s work as director the gore is pretty brutal and uncompromising. You might well have seen worse if you watch a lot of these films I review, but there were scenes in here that did have me flinching and uncomfortable for sure. This is enhanced by the gore effects too, which do look really good as always in Nicholson’s work.

Honestly I can’t go nuts on Famine – the jokes probably landed about half the time at most, and for everything that made me smile there was at least one moment that made me roll my eyes or sigh. It’s probably best described as a popcorn horror movie – if you switch your brain off at the door, have a few drinks and a good range of snacks, you’ll probably have some fun with this one. It didn’t have quite the brutality of Collar, and had more in common with Gutterballs with its strange mixture of brutal violence and base humour. It’s worth a look if you like horror-comedy with a more extreme edge, but if that’s not your bag then you might be better sitting this one out.

RATING: 4.5/10. Ultimately Famine was enjoyable enough, although at 77 minutes it was a pretty slight offering. Then again it’s hard to say what more you could have done had you extended the run time, with the plot being slim and all too familiar to many. The performances are generally likeable, deliberately hammed up to the hilt, although the script and the characterisation is pretty hit and miss to go along with that. There’s fun to be had here, but for me there’s no real sense that this one will live long in the memory, so it’s a slightly below average 4.5/10 from me.

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