After stealing a huge stash of drugs, speed freaks Hector and Dorena plan to cook up an enormous batch of Crystal Meth and get rich quick. Hector’s old buddy Merle, has the perfect hideout / meth lab: an old abandoned farm house in the woods where no one will ever find them. Unfortunately, no one will hear their screams either. Turns out they may not be alone after all. It seems this farm house is the site of an horrific urban legend. Paranoid and tormented by demons and terrifying visions, they fall prey to their descending spiral of drug use, sleep deprivation, and mysterious horrifying hallucinations causing the scared and frightened trio to ultimately turn deadly against each other.
Fangoria called it “Scary and Imaginative”; Film Threat called it “Amazing film. An Edgy, creepy little horror thriller”; Keith Van Sickle (Film Critic KTPX 106.9) called it “Haunting, Disturbing, Compelling… Cookers draws you in and never let’s go; The Washington Review called it “Artistic, intense and a definite thriller.” It’s plastered all over the cover for any horror film fan to see, but have you ever heard the term; NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY IT’S COVER?’ Well in this case, it’s never judge a DVD by it’s cover.
The acting was great, but the overall film did not live up to any of the above. I honestly wonder if they were even watching the same film? Cookers is to date, one of the WORST horror movies I have ever seen, and I would go as far to call Cookers, an insult to the horror genre. The whole haunted house thing, seems an afterthought with very little paranormal effects throughout the whole film which would honestly work better as an anti-drug campaign – Tagline, this is your life on drugs!
Even the ‘Shadow Man’ urban legend leaves more to be desired. It reminds me of the one where the girls ‘dog’ is licking her hand, then she finds her dog hanging, gutted in the shower with the message behind it written in blood, ‘humans can lick too.’ but poorly told.
The summary, varies from the truth of this film too. Merle shoots himself in the head after leaning a double shot, shot gun loaded cocked and facing up as he tries to go over a barbwire fence. Cause of death – Stupidity, not the paranormal or from paranoia or at the hand of Hector or Dorena.
Hector is alone and falls down a deep hole, in the basement after some ‘freak out’ which is far from paranormal as the writer’s want you to believe, playing on his established ‘dream’ he told to Dorena as ‘truth’ which is debugged within the film by Merle in general conversation with Dorena. The so called ‘paranormal’ event can be explained as a high drug addict’s delusion. They failed to extend outside their very small box.
Dorena, escapes after a very mild encounter with the help of a so called ‘spirit’ that matched Dorena’s story of being dumped by the road side by her abusive father. All explainable. Honestly, I was expecting more and was left incredibly under-whelmed and disappointed.
Overall, the main-focus of this film, was the drug use, the trip outs and an insight into the possible life of any drug user out there. Horror played a very minute part in this so called ‘horror’ film. In my opinion, Cookers is not worth the reviews it received or watching. It wasn’t scary, creepy or thrilling. It’s more like Casper the Friendly ghost on drugs. If I had to rate this film, it would be one out of ten stars. Sorry people. Leave this one on the shelf.