BIG MEAT EATER
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| Not Rated
| | Copyright 1982 BCD Entertainment Corp.
| | Reviewed by Andrew Borntreger on 12 July 2010
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- Rob Sanderson - Arrggghh! The last thing that the world needed was another singing nerd who owns a butcher shop.
- Jan Wczinski - He's one smart boy; he made a flying car. Unfortunately, like most teenagers, he then crashes it into somebody else's property.
- The Rest of the Wczinskis - I guess the funniest thing, besides the fact that removing the "i" from the alphabet would make their name only pronouncible by someone with chitinous appendages that can be rubbed together, is that they all appear to be approximately the same age.
- The Mayor - He spends most of the movie shambling about as a zombie with a mixing attachment for a hand.
- The Mayor's Secretary - She was hired because she can type 60 wpm and looks good in garters.
- Abdulla - The Big Meat Eater himself. That is a big boy. Wow. He can really fill a set of 8XL pants.
- The Aliens - You know those robot toys with the flashing lights on their heads and real marching action? Welcome to this movie's budget.
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This is not a good movie. It is a sci-fi horror and a comedy, but the real problem is that it is a horror/comedy/musical. Did you notice how I made musical stand out from the other two descriptors? There is a good reason that low budget productions tend to avoid the musical part. That is because, when everything goes wrong (as they often do in low budget films), the disaster factor is exponential if the word musical applies.
The same can be said of any calamity when screaming monkeys are present. The worst thing about really excited monkeys is that they always climb onto your shoulders, wrap their arms around your head so that you cannot see, and proceed to shriek in alarm while simultaneously releasing both their bowels and bladder. Imagine if the Titanic's cargo hold had been filled with screaming monkeys. There wouldn't have been a band playing on the deck and there wouldn't have been a call for "women and children first;" there would have been absolute and complete pandemonium as the doomed passangers spent their last frantic moments trying to fend off dozens of crazy, screaming, poo-flinging monkeys.
One of my great fears is being trapped aboard a doomed airliner with hundreds of screaming monkeys. Probably not going to happen, but if it does...woo doggie am I going to be upset.
Anyway, this is a musical, and it starts out with a lot of songs. This is, perhaps, intended to drive off anyone who is not dedicated to watching a horror/comedy/musical. There are two songs in the first ten minutes, one of them helping to illustrate the Mayor's mob connections as he presides over a town meeting in a sweltering auditorium. The second song and dance comes about when one of the wise guys ventures into the basement to tell Abdulla (the maintenance man) to knock it off with the heat and stuff. Instead of turning down the thermostat, the massive mountain of a man kills the fellow and stuffs the body into the furnace. Nobody seems to miss the missing mobster.
Abdulla also kills the mayor, and no, it is not an accident. While he is dragging the body through town in a sack, fate makes the big man stop in front of Sanderson's butcher shop. Fate also causes the sack with the dead mayor to be mistaken for part of a shipment, and be carried into the meat freezer. Fate has nothing to do with Abdulla stomping into the shop and getting hired as second chief assistant butcher.
Oh, isn't that just a peach of pickle.
I might not personally have anything against this movie, but my beef with Rob Sanderson is very personal. He drives me nuts. First off, Mr. Sanderson has a tendancy to talk to the camera, as if doing so is both helpful and a friendly gesture. Nothing that goes on in front of the camera in this film is helpful, and any person involved in its production is not my friend. The best part of the film has to be Abdulla alarming a number of stout female customers with his unorthodox meat processing methods as he sings about being the "Big Meat Eater." I almost got into the movie, and then the women (who are about as attractive as sacks of potatoes wearing granny blouses) all start rubbing their necks and chests.
Damn you, film! What do you want from me? Disgust? You've got it! Suffering? Present, in abundance! My blood? You...actually, you cannot have that. I need it, and only begrudge it to mosquitos in small amounts, and to the Red Cross in larger quantities when they can find my vein. Why is it so hard to get the needle into my vein? I'm about as lean as they come, little more than sinew and muscle. That vein is easy to follow from my wrist to my bicep. Why does it take two or three tries? Oh, thanks, orange juice and a donut. My frustration is hereby relieved.
Don't get me wrong, I like giving blood; I just wish it involved less poking and jabbing.
Where was I? Oh yes, Adbulla abusing the meat, murders, and singing. Only one thing could possibly make this less comprehensible, and that is a flying saucer filled with robot aliens. Of course, that is the next addition to the fetid plot gumbo that we are having for dinner tonight. The aliens are visiting Earth to extract radioactive bolognium from the butcher shop's septic tank. Since the bolognium needs to decay a bit further before they can use it, the aliens settle for doing what every alien does when they visit Earth. Yep, they screw with the humans. Remember the mayor's dead body? The mayor is reanimated as a zombie. Zombie mayor's job is to build a spaceport for the aliens.
It is high time for you to meet the Wczinskis. They are an Eastern European family who were placed in this movie to cause me pain. To this end the film is very successful. We spend nearly half of the movie watching the Wczinskis. The father is the contractor hired by the Mayor to build the alien-directed structure, the grandmother bemoans how America is different from the old country, the daughter is in love with a greaser, the mother is unhappy about the unhappiness in her happy home, and the son wants to build a flying car. It's like watching a Yugoslavian soap opera. I don't like soap operas. I didn't particularly care for Yugoslavia when it was around. Hell, the Yugoslavians didn't like Yugoslavia either.
I am going on and on about nothing, but that is fitting. This movie has more filler than cheap bologna.
Throughout all of this, Mr. Sanderson never suspects that his newest employee is a singing murderer. The man has a streak of naivety so wide that the freezer could be stacked from the floor to the ceiling with dead politicians and he wouldn't notice. Mercifully, Abdulla finally gives up caring. He clubs the happy nerd and dumps the body into the radioactive septic tank. The mutated butcher stumbles out and frightens the female Wczinskis as Jan Wczinski finishes his flying car and blasts off; the young man runs smack into the flying saucer. The flying car, a noteworthy example of Detroit at its indestructable best, is barely scratched. The flying saucer is toast. It lands on the butcher shop and explodes.
All that open sky, and Jan still manages to collide with a flying saucer. Those things (flying saucers) are either more common than I thought or else that kid should not be driving. You know what should not be happening? Me and this movie. I shouldn't be watching it. I should be in bed. That is probably the correct answer. I should turn off the TV and I should go to bed.
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| Things I Learned From This Movie: | |
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- Shorthand is the language of love.
- Having your fingers amputated by a radiator fan will kill you.
- Wallpaper can cause high blood pressure.
- There is something that turns out better when it is made by a machine and not by hand, and that is ground beef.
- Beef is an adhesive.
- Billy Jack has seen "Big Meat Eater."
- The only person who can impersonate David Bowie is David Bowie, and even he gets it wrong sometimes.
- Nine out of ten flying saucers failed the IIHS head-on collision test.
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- 8 mins - Esperanto by dummy for dummies. Oh, goody.
- 17 mins - "Mom, Grandma is teleporting again!"
- 27 mins - You are filling the septic tank with meat scraps?
- 38 mins - Is this the same attic room as Galactic Gigolo?
- 47 mins - Never mind, Galactic Gigolo was filmed in Connecticut. This has to be New Jersey or Staten Island. It just has to be.
- 56 mins - So that is where spotted meat food product comes from.
- 56 mins - Sorry for the pun.
- 61 mins - This would never happen in a Boar's Head commercial.
- 68 mins - Ally Sheedy?
- 74 mins - This movie might not be over, but I am.
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| | Audio clips in wav format | SOUNDS | Starving actors speak out | |
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| File | Dialog |  | bigmeateat1.wav
| Mr. Sanderson: "My name is Bob Sanderson. Pleased to meet ya! Meat to please ya! Get it?"
Abdulla: "Grunt."
Mr. Sanderson: "Oh, you're hungry. Oh well, I am too. I didn't have time to have any breakfast this morning, but I'm afraid we're not quite open yet."
| | bigmeateat2.wav
| Mr. Sanderson explains why they put the meat scraps in the septic tank (or it gets the hose again).
| | bigmeateat3.wav
| Alien: "There is a vast resevoir of rotting meat mutating into radioactive bolognium underneath the meat merchandising structure."
| | bigmeateat4.wav
| Jan: "But I need the money now!"
Mr. Wczinski: "Your atomic thermonuclear toaster will just have to wait!"
Jan: "Dad, I'm not talking about some stupid appliance."
Mr. Wczinski: "Watch your mouth! We think very highly of appliances around here."
| | Theme Song | Listen to a clip from the soundtrack. | |
| | Click for a larger image | IMAGES | Scenes from the movie | |
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| | Watch a scene | VIDEO | MPEG video files | |
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 | bigmeateat1.mpg
- 9.2m
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I finally gave up trying to find a scene that really represents this film, and picked the one I would have picked if I was looking for a scene like that anyway.
By the way, if that didn't make sense: good.
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| | Leave a comment | EXTRAS | Buy the movie | |
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