Cook, The

In addition to the well-crafted humorous moments, "The Cook" also serves up some tasty gore and mouth-watering t and a. Almost all of the girls in the film are unusually hot for a straight-to-DVD, low-budget horror film, and almost half of them disrobe at one point or another. While I earlier stated that I´m past the age where nudity is a necessity for films like this, I also have to admit that it´s nice to see a film that isn´t full of cringe-inducing boob jobs and meth-scarred faces. My only complaint about the women of "The Cook" would have to be directed at the scriptwriters who seem to be drawing off some adolescent fantasy by having a strong majority of the girls engaging in lesbian activities throughout the entire flick. But I guess that´s to be expected of a low-budget horror flick starring an almost all-female cast, written by three guys that have never gotten a script to the screen before. I always thought it was supposed to be one out of every ten people that were gay, but I guess that statistic needs to be revaluated to include that one out of every two sorority girls share more than scrunchies with one another.

Video:
"The Cook" features an anamorphic widescreen presentation with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and at times it looks better than the film´s budget might suggest. But the picture quality is fairly inconsistent, and the lighting is dreadful in multiple scenes. All in all, it´s better than most low-budget horror flicks but not above average.

Audio:
Both the Dolby Digital Stereo and 5.1 audio tracks are fairly average, with the exception of the scene where a lame, slow, jazz song with vocals discussing "sweet loving" overtakes the entire scene.

Extras:
The audio commentary with executive producer/writer/editor Nicholas Bonomo and actors Mark Hengst, Makinna Ridgway, Kit Paquin, Nina Fehren and Brooke Lenzi is lively and fun and stays away from the annoying problems that plague most multi-person commentaries. It also revels the film´s origins came from a trip to Ikea where the director thought it would be cool to have a killer that used a melon baler on his victims.

"Behind The Scenes: The Cook" is an almost five-minute montage of behind-the-scenes footage, with a generic rock soundtrack. It´s a nice addition to the disc but a bit dry. "Mark Hengst (The Cook) Audition Footage" is three minutes, validating the filmmaker´s choice for casting the charismatic Hengst.

Film Value:
Funny, gory and sexy; "The Cook" is the most unexpected fun I´ve had watching a DVD so far this year. The cheesy "National Lampoon presents"-style cover is totally misleading and would have kept me from picking it up at the video store. Thankfully, I had it sent to me, and I was able to enjoy this smart, fun film. Some of the gore might be too much for some viewers who pick it up based on the misleading cover. But if you´re looking for an enjoyable horror comedy that doesn´t take itself too seriously while delivering the sex and violence, give "The Cook" a try. Besides, once Mark Hengst becomes a star, you could say you were into him before he got big.

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