Worst thing you’ll see all week: Bitter Feast

There’s a drawn-out scene in Bitter Feast in which a woman goes about her business. She’s being stalked by an evil force, played here by James LeGros, a chef upset at the bad reviews he’s gotten from the woman’s boyfriend, a food blogger.

She opens the medicine cabinet. Then she closes it and, there in the reflection, standing behind her, is…no one! Gore Verbinski closed the medicine cabinet on this gag with the unsettling opening of his Ring remake, in which two girls are stalked by a mysterious presence we never see. Amber Tamblyn opens the refrigerator, obscuring our view of the rest of the kitchen, and then when she closes it, we see standing there…nothing!

It’s the fake-out, based entirely on the audience knowing the usual horror movie tricks. It’s about other horror movies. This works in The Ring, which is a movie about watching a movie. But unless you’ve got some sort of meta commentary going on, it’s just pointless filler. Which pretty much describes Bitter Feast, a borderline torture porn, borderline comedy, and borderline commentary on the role of the critic.

The most fascinating thing is the moment that you realize — this might not happen until you look it up on IMDB after having watched Bitter Feast — the guy playing the victim is Josh from Blair Witch Project! The other fascinating thing is how awful James LeGros is as the prissy murderous psychotic TV chef. Oh, James, really? It’s come to this?