"American Cannibal" is a refreshingly serious horror film; despite the fact that the subject matter has been treated humorously dozens of times, this one never devolves into camp and treats itself as a serious horror film. It has some pretty serious flaws in its setup, but once it gets going it's pretty disturbing.
The film is about Rebecca, Ashley, Chelsea, three girls who have just graduated from high school. Rebecca and Chelsea are going away to school together, while Ashley is staying behind to continue to work as a coffee shop. The film takes place on Friday night, when the girls are all going out. Walking past their English teacher's house, Chelsea comments that she hates this teacher because the teacher almost flunked her, and the only reason that she graduated was because she cheated on a final paper and had Rebecca write it for her.
To "get the teacher back", they steal her car by "jump starting" it (I think the writer meant "hot wire", but we'll let that slide). While driving, the car breaks down. They realize they can't call a mechanic because then they'll get caught as car thieves. So instead of walking home, or walking a block or two and calling an Uber/Lyft, they decide that they will knock on the door of a nearby house and see if the owner will let them stay for the night.
The owner of house is Doug, who invites them in. Turns out that he's very pleasant, happy to help them out, and a chef who trained in France. He is also the titular "American Cannibal" and things pretty quickly devolve into an unpleasant nightmare for the three unfortunate girls...
"American Cannibal" is worth waiting out. The setup is so bad, you may be tempted to turn it off early. In addition to confusing "hot wire" with "jump start", the fact is that its been over 15 years since a car was made that could be hot wired. The girls are annoying to the max, and even worse, when they are trying to come up with a story to convince the owner of the house to let them stay, one of the girls actually suggests stabbing the owner and forcing their way in. The suggestion is quickly dismissed, but it still makes us revile the girls when we are supposed to be rooting FOR them. And although most of the effects are practical, a couple of times there is an awful CGI blood spurt that is jarringly bad.
I am, however, willing to give good low budget flicks a pass on a lot of things, and on the whole, "American Cannibal" works. Once the action starts, it's nice and nasty and packs a wallop. It refreshingly takes itself dead seriously, and gets quite disturbing. Worth checking out.
