By David Dent
The cinema of transgression relies, for its effect, on a combination of unusual images, shock, disturbing subtexts and a general visual pummelling. All but the most extreme titles eventually succumb to the adage that ‘the old immorality becomes the new morality’. Dan Schaffer’s Electric Meat, if you’ll pardon the pun, comes preaged; maybe it’s me just being an old git, but if you’re going to trade on the legacy of transgressive cinema, at least make it edgy.
In this 90 minute black and white, near silent barrage of suspenders, legacy technology and pouting close ups, Caspian Faye plays a butcher by trade whose real talent is ‘out there’ photography (his work looks like vintage Paul Raymond to me). Faye lines his rented room with rejection slips and flyers from phone boxes and indulges in a (n un) healthy fantasy life involving past models.
The butcher happens on the corpse of a girl, who he used to photograph, so he takes her home and re-arranges her from time to time while keeping her in a basket.
Downstairs his landlady, a former model (Emily Booth) waits for her overdue rent and decides to have a nose in her tenant’s room; what she sees sends her on a mind bending recovery of her former self and a pact with the half dead to seek revenge.
Or something. Schaffer’s debut feature, mainly filmed in one location, makes the best of what he has and then repeats until ennui sets in. The main problem with the film, apart from its overall aimlessness and lack of any style or panache, is that it thinks it’s way more dangerous than it is. If Electric Meat were filmed thirty or so years ago it would probably take a few risks, but here we are in 2026 where the clothes (mostly) stay on and the cast’s gyrations seem borrowed from a Hot Gossip dance workout. The director has clearly seen all the cultural touch points (Nekromantik, Repulsion, Eraserhead, Richard Kern’s shorts) and then filtered them into something that may have been bearable as a 20 minute short. Not good.
Bloody Flicks 