Written and directed by Keshav Srinivasan, two roommates, desperate to feel successful in the milieu of New York City, turn to macabre money-making schemes by performing underground surgeries and serving human meat to unsuspecting customers. Starring: Jorge Carrión Álvarez, Louise Heller, Johnny Zito, Stephanie Orta-Vásquez, Darla Allen, Brad Ross, Chloe Bluebell Joyce and Steven Gamble.
You know what you’re getting with The Flesh People right from the start. Keshav Srinivasan introduces this bloody, grungy tale with an intense, gory note which was the perfect choice to kick things off with a bang. Straight away you’re hit with that yellow-tinged colouring, Emmet Luciano’s cinematography is immediately striking some delightfully gritty and grimy notes. It provides an invasive edge of everything being aged, dirty or broken, bringing that messy, filthy environment into every element of the aesthetic.
Those choices feel very much like a throwback to the horror of the late 1980s and early 1990s, with films like Re-Animator, Living Doll or Frankenhooker, which exist to make you uncomfortable, to be gross, gory and are unapologetic about it. Except, with The Flesh People we thankfully don’t also get the exploitative, misogynist or fetishist notes, it’s disturbing and nasty in the right way. Srinivasan has fun with this dark, twisted concept, the film doesn’t lose itself in the mess and gore, he a good handle on balancing story with body horror.
Part of that is how well contained the story is, existing mostly within their apartment and only occasionally veering into the outside world. That choice creates an intimacy of sorts, one that nicely provides the space for the bizarre, demented friendship between Ricky (Jorge Carrión Álvarez) and Geraldine (Louise Heller) to blossom. Keeping it closed in, helps to build a genuine intensity. Their erratic, unstable behaviour can be left to bubble and boil over, without outside influence to remind them, or the audience, how wrong it truly is.
That choice also helps to create the spiralling quality to The Flesh People, things are already going downhill from the get-go and that satisfyingly continues as the film progresses. The way that it moves is casually macabre, because they’re having these disturbed discussions in such a natural way. They’re not becoming evil or villainous, they’re finding ways to survive in a messed up world with messed up solutions, and you can feel free to take all the metaphors about our society that you would like from that.
Another part of why that darkness doesn’t become overwhelming is that it has a good sense of humour. Srinivasan instils in The Flesh People a great awareness of how absurd the situation is, so it can hold this twistedly playful, darkly comedic edge. Undoubtedly, the performances are also a big contributor to that, Jorge Carrión Álvarez and Louise Heller manage to strike a very unique tone with these characters. They’re nonchalant about their violent actions, and they have a warped sense of purpose which is really enjoyable to watch.
Heller brings an old school theatrical persona to Geraldine, everything she does is performative in some way, as she pines for the old days of NYC. While Álvarez’s Ricky is chaotically adrift, still clinging onto his medical dreams, trying to forge a new path to reach them, and making one hell of a mess along the way. Together they create an unlikely friendship, a staple of cinema, they make no sense together and yet work perfectly, their jagged, unruly connection is fun to watch.
The Flesh People is made for horror fans, those who enjoy the blood, gore, chaos and discomfort that the 1980s and 1990s revelled in. Keshav Srinivasan and Emmet Luciano build such a great grime to the aesthetic, embracing that chaotic, messy, grungy, slightly trashy, B-horror vibe. It has a hyper-active style intensity, the way that it moves is relentless, aided by the editing from Tyler Jennings. These characters are forever barrelling towards death (other people’s) and destruction. Something which is brought to life superbly by Jorge Carrión Álvarez and Louise Heller, who craft an infectious energy and surprisingly likable qualities to their casually callous characters. It’s murky, bloody, funny and a satisfyingly twisted debut feature from Keshav Srinivasan.
