Yummy

In the official selection of the Fantasia festival, which will take place virtually from August 20 to September 2, the Belgian film Yummy, directed and co-written by Lars Damoiseaux, is a barely disguised tribute to the many genre films. It's not by chance that when we discover this film, we think about many zombie films that have left their mark on our memories (those of George A.). Romero but also the very successful The Army of the Dead (2004) by Zack Snyder), in the same way one will also think of other films like Re-Animator by Stuart Gordon (which the festival will pay tribute to during a panel discussion), Braindead (1992) by Peter Jackson (the animal creature in the film) and in a way to Machete Kills (2013) by Robert Rodriguez )for his scene about the use of a part of our body (we won't say more)) and Piranha 3D (2010) by Alexandre Aja. .

In the midst of the current pandemic, discovering Yummy becomes a jubilant pleasure in that this film refers us to the many failures of our current system and is aimed particularly at those clinics in Eastern European countries offering surgical operations at prices defying all competition. At a time when American horror films are becoming increasingly rare, Belgium seems to be able to effectively fill this void, as Yummy shows so well. The plot is simplistic, but the treatment here is just as successful, not only by sparing use of humour, but also by relying on special effects, make-up and other truth-telling prosthetics.

From the very first minutes the action is set up and we discover a young couple, Alison (Maaike Neuville), and her boyfriend Michael (Bart Hollanders) and her mother Oksana (Taeke Nicolai) going to a clinic in Eastern Europe for plastic surgery. Alison wants a breast reduction so that she no longer has to endure the taunting of many people. However, things are not going to go according to plan and when Michael releases a patient tied to his bed, he has no idea that he has just released patient zero in this clinic, who will turn everyone into a zombie. The only survivors will therefore try to escape but will also have to kill these numerous creatures.

If Yummy succeeds in capturing our full attention during the whole story, it's partly thanks to a convincing realization based on a scenario with multiple twists and turns, but above all thanks to successful special effects and a really invested casting. After many short films (Patent zero (2016), Chopper (2015),...), director Lars Damoiseaux seems to have perfectly assimilated the rules of zombie films but also wants to treat them a little differently by bringing a good dose of action, a direction that will remind us of the fury of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead (1981) and especially the absence of a happy ending as it is too often the case in American horror films.

Yummy
Directed by Lars Damoiseaux
Produced by Kobe Van Steenberghe, Hendrik Verthé
Written by Lars Damoiseaux, Eveline Hagenbeek
Starring Maaike Neuville, Bart Hollanders, Benjamin Ramon, Clara Cleymans
Music by Nico Renson
Cinematography : Daan Nieuwenhuijs
Edited by : Pieter Smet
Production company : A Team Productions
Release date : December 13, 2019 (Bobbejaanland), December 18, 2019 (Belgium)
Running time : 89 minutes

Seen June 27 2020

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