I first saw Cookers on dvd a year or so ago, and it scared the mortal crap outta me. Indeed, I thought it was it was one of the best horror movies I’d seen in years.Last night I rented it again on an impulse, and because I was curious how well it would stand up to repeat viewing. There are many horror flicks that deliver the first time you see them, but once you know the big surprise in the storyline and who gets killed, there’s no payoff in seeing them again. This ain’t one of them.
The premise is simple, realistic and even quotidian: two white-trash speed cookers, Hector and Dorena, have just stolen a shitload of meth precursors and lab equipment(and apparently shot someone in the process) from the mysterious organization they’ve been cooking speed for . They head for the place where Hector spent his boyhood, looking for an old house in the woods Hector’s buddy Merle told him about, where they can set up shop and synth some speed while staying strictly out of sight. They’d better hide real good too – their erstwhile bosses will be looking for them, and they play mean and dirty
As soon as you lay eyes on these two, you know this can’t end well – they look like they just stepped out of Larry Clark’s Tulsa. especially Hector, a bony, twitchy, greasy-haired specimen whom even your granny would immediately peg for a dopefiend. When they pull up to the old farmhouse in the middle of the overgrowth, it practically gives off Hill House vibes. Eventually Merle shows up – an amiable stoner-hick lout with a mullet, who looks and talks just like you’d expect a guy named Merle to. The plan the three of them hatch is straightforward enough: Hector and Dorena will set their lab up in the farmhouse and cook up their ill-gotten goods while Merle serves them as their designated gofer, the guy who makes runs to and from the nearest town for food and smokes and – ominously enough – ammo for the great big revolver Hector is always carrying around.
It gets complicated right away – they’re apparently not the only ones hanging around the abandoned farmhouse. Or are they? :eek: That’s the hook – are there evil spirits lurking there waiting for vulnerable targets? Is the threatening, weird shit that Dorena and Hector are experiencing for real? Or is it a trick played by minds pulled out of shape by dope and sleep deprivation and fear? Does it even matter one way or the other if it’s real?
Br-rr-rrr. I’m not kidding. Uneasiness and dread just keep mounting as Hector and Dorena go longer and longer without sleep, cooking dope and cooking more dope and doing dope to stay awake to cook some more dope, while the cold shadows draw ever nearer and the eerie whispers sound ever louder, until the terrible conclusion. Even though I knew what was coming, the last 20 minutes of the movie especially had me transfixed, wide-eyed and squirming in near-unbearable suspense and terror.
The acting and dialog are utterly believable, especially if you have ever known any of these people yourself. You learn jus enough about the three of them to get involved: iIfeared for and sympathized with all three of them, especially poor fucked-up Hector – the guy just never gets a break; his life’s detoured onto a grim highway that must lead to a horrible end, and even getting high isn’t fun anymore. The setting of the decrepit, lantern-lit farmhouse and gloomy autumnal woodland gets more claustrophobic by the minute. and the inevtable destruction of our hapless trio of petty felons is moving and horrific and finally somewhat ambiguous.
Taken all in all,* Cookers* is damned creepy and frightening, with little in the way of graphic violence. Anyone with an affinity for stimulants and/or horror movies will find it mesmerizing and blood-chilling. Warning: Do not, watch it alone in a dark, creaky old house.