Cannibal Cop

 



Director - Donald Farmer (Shark Exorcist, Vampire Cop)
Starring - Roni Jonah (Volumes of Blood, Easter Casket), Jason Crowe (Harvest Lake, The Bad Man), and Alaine Huntington (Catch of the Day, Hi-8)
Release Date - 2017
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "He takes a bite out of crime"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

 

     I wanted to return to my no budget roots after my mini Unearthed Films marathon.  I have several no budget flicks I needed to check out but I wanted something goofy and fun.  The stress of the last two weeks has wore me down and I just wanted to relax with my favorite genre.  As I worked through my review stack the SRS Cinema's release of Donald Farmer's Cannibal Cop caught my eye.  I was under the impression that I had already reviewed this one but I was wrong.  I once again want to thank MVD for sending this one my way to check out!

     The film follows officer Warbeck (Crowe) who is a cop that follows his own rules.  He gets the job done no matter who he has to screw over to get there.  He shoots a suspected drug dealer and fatally wounds him.  When he passes his girlfriend takes his corpse to a voodoo priestess and brings him back but at a cost.  He is now a flesh craving zombie.  He bites Warbeck which turns him into a crooked cop with a taste for flesh and tossed in the mix is a young woman who is hellbent on bringing him down by recording him doing something illegal.

     I went into this one very excited.  I recently met Jason Crowe at Cinema Wasteland and we filmed a small cameo for my film Bearacuda.  I had seen him in several films prior to this but this was my first film that he was in after our meeting.  Sadly, this film was not as entertaining as some of the other films Crowe has appeared in.  The acting in this one is solid for the most part.  Crowe, and his often partner in crime Roni Jonah, were fantastic.  They are natural in front of the camera but their characters are not that enjoyable.  The supporting cast is solid as well for the most part.  There is some minor characters where the actors just wasn't as dedicated as the rest but that doesn't take away from the overall film but does the scene.  The story for this one has a bit of a weird story with a mash up of different horror elements that fails to finds it's footing.  The "cannibal" angle is actually not true cannibalism considering he is infected with a zombie virus from the man brought back to life with voodoo.  It blends two different zombie mythologies together which will turn some fans off.  My biggest complaint about the film is the pacing, which is on the slow side, and the music is just too loud during the dialogue.  Finally, this one does have several on screen kills but the kills themselves are very lackluster and forgettable.  The effects that we get are very minimal and basic but they also show the film's budget.  Overall, Cannibal Cop feels like a rushed film that just doesn't find it's mark.  It had potential but failed to pull itself together enough to capitalize on that.