The Bitter Taste - FrightFest Halloween UK Premiere Review
Director: Guido Tölke
Starring: Nicolo Paseti, Julia Dordel, Anne Alexander-Sieder, Imme Beccard
Written by: Julia Dordel, Guido Tölke
Produced by: Julia Dordel
Cinematography by: Guido Tölke
Original Score by: Clemens Damerau
Synopsis:
After being captured by an undead countess and her cursed followers, Marcia, a retired pentathlete, must rely on her outdated and rusty athletic abilities to endure a terrifying hunt for human prey.
Thoughts:
Editing is a tool used in film making that can often go unnoticed, in a good and bad way. Good editing is telling the story in a smooth and precise way that you don’t even notice the edits. Great editing can be flashy and thematic, making you take notice that the film maker is truly under control of the story they’re telling. Bad editing is when it cuts to 45 different angles of someone doing a simple act, for the sake of creating an emotion that wasn’t captured on the day of filming or in the script. So, why am I talking about editing so much? Well 'The Bitter Taste' is an editing nightmare, maybe some of the worst I’ve seen this year and the worst part? The editing is the tip of the iceberg in terms of problems...
It’s a real shame that 'The Bitter Taste' is as bad as it is because you can see all the influences it’s pulling from. An Ash Williams/Lara Croft type female heroine going up against the evil monsters from 'Resident Evil 8' sounds fun on paper, and you can see elements of it here and there, but the execution of the film making is so badly done by director Guido Tolke. Like I said, the editing in this film is unbelievably bad and not even in an artsy film making way, I mean on a basic level it is BAD. When a film cuts from one scene to another, it usually just cuts to the next scene BUT in 'The Bitter Taste' it fades to black before it cuts to the next scene. A fade to black is often used to show some time has passed between scenes, in this film, it’s used in EVERY scene transition. It’s mind boggling.
There’s some terrible after effects lens overlays used and just makes the film feel like it's been edited on Windows Movie Maker. The CGI on the monsters, especially during running scenes, which were laughably bad and often reminded me of Uwe Boll’s 'House of the Dead'. Along with the editing, the cinematography isn’t doing the film any favors. It often breaks the 180-degree rule, which can be an artistic choice, but in this film it’s clearly not. I wanted to point out the editor and the cinematographer, but upon watching the end credits, I learned that they are the same person...Guido Tolke, the director. Yikes.
Julia Dordel plays the main character, Marcia, and at times she’s a real struggle to watch. Dordel’s stale acting and boring line delivery makes the movie a slog to get through and often makes you wish you were following any other character. Anne Alexander Sieder plays the local police captain, and is a lot of fun to watch with the few scenes she has. Sieder clearly understands the type of film she’s in and plays up the no nonsense, bitchy chief character. I will say that it was great to see a mostly female cast and a lot of the monster characters are really chewing up the scenery in the third act when the plot becomes a lot more schlocky.
'The Bitter Taste' clearly wanted to be a fun schlock fest, pulling from horror video games and 70s/80s grindhouse films, but it’s let down by a director that's taken on more than he can handle. Some people might enjoy this if you’re a fan of the later 'Resident Evil' films, but it really wasn’t for me.
Verdict: ⭐️½
-Adam Neeson
'The Bitter Taste' received its UK Premiere at FrightFest Halloween on November 2nd
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