Holocaust Holocaust

Posted on Aug 11, 2010

Destined To Be Ingested (2008)

Directed By: Sofian Khan

Review Written By: Horse
Mondo Film & Video Guide Contributor
IMDb.com Link

Every so often a movie will come along with a title that just screams, “You gots to see this” for any number of reasons. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the first I can think of; what a fucking movie I envisioned in my pre-teen head… not quite what I had expected. Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Frankenhooker, A Night to Dismember, Silent Night, Deadly Night, Beaver & Buttface and Clockwork Orgy are other movies I had to see on title alone. For this one I went in blind with only a title to guide me. Sure I could go look up advance cover scans, reviews or trailers, but I wanted no spoilers, I just wanted to see some fuckers get eaten! Who and how many are “Destined to be Ingested”? Let’s find out.

First, the disc itself. Promo with no cover, but the artwork of the disc is a nice, juicy, highly squeezable woman’s butt in a bikini bottom covered in blood. Hell yeah, this just makes me want to see this more! Of course it also raises questions. Who or what will be doing the ingesting? Sharks? Cannibals? Zombies? Rats? Household Pets? I’m completely in the dark but on the edge of my seat as the film starts with some gorgeous underwater shots. I was guessing and betting cannibals, but this is looking like shark. Punch the air as the title comes up — let’s get Ingested!

No help in what to expect, but I’m hoping for leg-warmers and metal sluts. We’re on a boat with Captain “Macho”. Like calling huge dudes “Tiny”, “Macho” is far from the truth. Dude is checking in around 400 lbs, but has some funny lines and a charm to him. He’s like Ricardo Montalbán mixed with Horatio Sanchez and a bad dub. A sexy blonde climbs on board, followed by another fat yuppie guy. “Did you see the shark?” asks Macho. Sweet, I love shark movies! One other couple (Tom and Anna) emerges and we have our hero cast. These people will never be on the academy’s list, but should make for fine appetizers. Bring on the sharks!

With fat yuppie boyfriend passed out, sexy blonde Sandy bows before Macho. This is the most literal use of the “brown-chicken, brown cow” porn music sound I’ve yet to hear. Worth a mention, but where are the titties? That must be her ass on the disc artwork. Fatboy wakes up just as they see an island, but not the right one. “That’s not the island you stupid spic” and both go overboard fighting. Shark fin and some tense music, yes! Gotta be sharks. One of these big guys is lunch, right? Errr, wrong. Close call, but the shark swims away hungry and everyone but Macho goes ashore.

These being yuppies, it’s not long before a big bag of coke is produced and shared along with champagne. Anna and Tom go off on their own “exploring”. Anna wants to explore Tom, and I think they did. We come back to them both asleep, but she’s still clothed. Anna walks off while Tom has a black and white nightmare/flashback to 4 years earlier and his DUI and what looks to be Anna winning the lottery. I guess this is to set up their relationship as both rocky and well-financed.

Back onboard, Macho twists up a joint and smokes while checking out Sandy through binoculars. But just over the ridge he sees a native who looks like a classic cannibal: dark tanned skin with black tribal markings all over. He throws a spear though Chester’s (fat yuppie) gut and chases Sandy into the water with a tomahawk, apparently hitting her over the head, but it’s not totally clear if he kills her. “Fuck this Macho, I’m out of here” and Macho is just that. Can’t say I blame him, but now we know what we’re in for, cannibals! Break out the hot sauce and let’s have some barbeque!

Anna and Tom see the boat leave, find blood on the beach, grab their stuff and look for shelter. They find a cave and eat; we cut to fire and drums. Chester is still alive somehow and screams as some lower abdominal organ is removed. Not sure what that was supposed to be, I’ll guess liver. Fade to black, still no ingestion and I’m getting edgy. 30 minutes into a 77 minute film and no consumption, or nudity.

Tom finds the organ along with Chester’s watch on the rocks by the beach, and we go into a stranded-on-an-island drama segment. I’m starting to see this film is just switching gears constantly and will not fit into any nice, neat category. Like Michigan weather, if you don’t like it now, wait a few minutes and it will change. I’ll consolidate this into: he drinks, she has a problem with that, she throws out the coke, they fight, and he starts building a raft since they know they’re fucked if they stay. “I’m not going to fuck it up this time” he assures her. Well, a glance at Tom’s “raft” is more than enough to know it won’t float by itself, much less with 2 people on it. He throws a tantrum when it sinks, then a local with Milli-Vanilli braids spots, and soon hits him with a blow dart. They swim out to the ocean and it’s implied that Tom gets killed, but nothing is shown again. This is getting troubling.

The native, Kohi we learn spots Anna and pauses. He’s smitten and tells her to wait in cannibal (his native tongue), of course she runs. Soon her catches her and takes her to a cave. It’s implied but confirmed later that this is forbidden, all outsiders must die. This also marks a most unfortunate new gear. It’s the Blue Lagoon meets Jungle Fever forbidden love bullshit segment. Anna is a bit of a slut though, getting Kohi into her before even knowing Tom is dead. Kohi must also be a great teacher as after a couple nights, Anna wakes up and tells him of her dream, speaking his language fluently. Where the fuck did all this come from and whatever happened to Sandy? Is anyone gonna get eaten?

6 MONTHS LATER says the title card and Kohi brings Anna carrying a volleyball under her dress; errr, I mean now pregnant, to his village. We find Kohi is the chief’s son, and Anna is as welcome as the plague. Father demands she be killed, but dies that night during a ritual sequence with ambiguous meaning at best. I’m confused. What is clear is that they cut up the body and eat it, albeit mostly off-camera. Finally! The chief was “Destined to be Ingested”!

As Kohi moves Anna into the fly digs of the chief, we hit one last mind-blowing gear. As the shaman works on a raft or something, we see Sandy walking out of the woods. He screams “The dark ones are here” and suddenly we are in a decent, but short zombie movie. That’s right, out of fucking nowhere its Sandy, Chester and Tom, and soon many others as the one bite rule applies. I should add, none of the first zombies have been consumed in any way, so how they are zombies may have to do with the chief dying, maybe not. I know now that there’s only 10 minutes left in the film total, which explains why the ending felt so abrupt and WTFish. I won’t spoil it but basically we needed less Blue Lagoon and more Zombie.

Other things worth noting: Not only does this film keep switching genres, it also ignores most clichés from them. The majority of it takes place in the day, in the sunlight. Not once does it rain. Unfortunately no one gets naked either. You can see through Anna’s shirt when she first is introduced, but that’s it. Also, while I cracked on the cast early, the worst were killed first and the rest really were solid. I was never taken out of the film by an actor which sometimes happens with unknowns. It has a very nice look to it with good cinematography, the music score is way above average and there’s none of the annoying editing that plagues many newer horror movies. I’m pretty sure the whole tribal language is made up as well; it doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before. Zombie make-up is also very good, although limited to just faces, necks and a bit of blood. Down points are that it doesn’t have enough gore, nudity or flesh-eating.

After two viewings I’m still not sure about it, I love some parts but hate others. I can’t say go buy it the day it comes out, but it deserves to be seen by anyone into any of the genres I’ve mentioned, except sharks, definitely not enough sharks. Not sure if the DVD will have any extra goodies, the screener doesn’t.

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