Devoured (2012)
6/10
Tip: Devour this movie. Not the food in it though.
20 September 2013
This movie is for the most part contained within a restaurant where Lourdes works as a cleaning woman to make money for her sick son's operation. We see the restaurant filled with patrons only once (early in the movie) and some close-ups of the chef's gloveless, grubby hands preparing food in the kitchen while people at the other end obliviously lap it up. For the most part though, it's after hours or before hours with Lourdes who is usually alone but sometimes with 2 other people who work at the restaurant. One is her boss, a real bitch who enjoys giving her a hard time. The other, a guy, is a first-class jerk who is always coming on to her and whose function at the restaurant beyond boffing the boss seems to be prepping meat (Don't laugh).

Lourdes is seeing and hearing things and believes the restaurant is haunted. We don't know if she is cracking up or actually experiencing certain things. But since we, the viewers, see things that she does not see because she --for example-- has her back turned, this would seem to be independent (of her) corroboration by us, the viewing audience that the restaurant is indeed haunted. Now when not mopping up, having strange experiences, and run-ins with her boss, Lourdes is (1) On the phone begging her mother to speak with her son. (2) Having personal fantasies --no, not that kind. (3) Talking to some guy she bumped into early in the movie when something spooked her and she ran out of the restaurant. (4) Desperately giving blow jobs and who knows what else to patrons for money (so we inferred anyway).

At the beginning of the movie I was captivated by it's style and anticipatory and intrigued by what was starting to happen with this woman; the things she was experiencing. What was behind them? But then the movie seemed to settle into a routine; her going to work, cleaning up, calling her mother, fantasizing about seeing her son and her friend, run-ins with her boss, and some curious unnatural experiences. I say "routine" because things didn't escalate as quickly as I would have liked. BUT THAT'S JUST ME, READER. You may have a different sense of pace should you choose to see the movie --AND YOU SHOULD, since it acquitted itself very well with a very interesting twist and explanation at the end. Well worth the wait. Love, Boloxxxi.
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