Haddonfield Horror’s X-Mas Feast – Sawney: Man of Flesh

It’s getting close to Xmas so prepare the table, get seated and tuck in to Haddonfield Horror’s Xmas Feast, whats on the menu? Human and lots of it. @TigersMS78 sits down at the table a takes a chunk out of Sawney: Man of Flesh…

Based upon the supposed cannibalistic cave dwelling family the roamed the Scottish country side in the 15th or 16th century as the voice over at the beginning of the film that despite the family being captured and executed, one of the family got away…so you can already guess what the film is about.

Sawney: Man of Flesh decided to take (possible) historical events rife with potential and turn them into a run of the mill, crazy killer film that leans very heavily on films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The film starts with an explosive child birth and then skips ten years to an abduction. From here we meet the family (sound familiar?) with Sawney Bean, his sons (who switch between moving about like chimps and then like international parkour champions) and his mother who sounds like a wild animal and is always locked behind a big metal door. Enter the plucky (and woefully under developed) journalist Hamish (Samuel Feeny) who is sure there is a story there after his friend went missing and was found mutilated and the Detective who is giving Hamish so inside information.

Starting with the positives, the film looks fantastic. Shot on digital, it just looks great, making full use of the Scottish highlands as a backdrop. The effects aren’t bad either, obviously there was a small budget but what was there was done very well and Ricky Woods’ direction was nice too. The acting was alright as well, despite the script being undercooked.

However unfortunately the story was all very much been there and done that. The crazy family, pseudo religious patriarch, the usual tropes. The characters were all under developed, with Sawney reduced to nothing more that a sneering, chuckling and yes licking villain, the journalist was a stereotype as was the detective. The film still moved along at a decent pace however and the 3rd act was going along swimmingly until someone decided that a semi-automatic machine gun was a good addition to the film…it was so against the style of the film, it drew a laugh from me.