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Eat Locals is a play on the phrase ‘Eat Local’, same as ‘Shop Local’, i.e. buy from local independent shops rather than the big chain stores that’ll live forever, anyway, but Eat Locals – with an ‘s’ – refers to… yes… eating people.
The main cast, including Eve Myles, Tony Curran and Annette Crosbie, are a group of vampires who meet every 50 years to add/remove members of their clan, and just now, happen to be renting a place from farmers Mr and Mrs Thatcher (Dexter Fletcher and Ruth Jones). With sharp editing and good direction, the score builds tension nicely, while there’s lots of dark humour in here, with plenty one-liners thrown in where a lot of Hollywood movies would’ve forgotten to bother, such as when Boniface (Curran) comments on Vanessa (Myles) bringing home new Romany boyfriend, Sebastian (Billy Cook), “I’m not racist. I’ll kill anyone, no matter where they’re from”, thus putting the fear of God in him.
However, there are problems not only for the humans, but also the vampires when the army surround the house, led by Larousse (Mackenzie Crook) and Bingham (Robert Portal), and the film plays out over the course of the night – the favourite time in the 24-hour clock for a vampire.
As you’d expect, not everyone will make it to morning, but while the film slows down a bit in the second act, there’s still a few surprises along the way in that section, plus it all builds to a very strong final act, as well as throwing in a few big laughs along with all the regular ones.
Eat Locals marks the feature-length directorial debut for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels‘ Jason Flemyng, and I keep meaning to see the critically-acclaimed Wild Bill from this film’s writer, Danny King, and Dexter Fletcher in the director’s chair.
As for Eat Locals, this comes highly recommended for Halloween viewing, and you could double bill with the recent Double Date for a big helping of great British horror commedy.
The film is presented in the original widescreen ratio of 1.85:1, and looks as sharp as you’d expect for a modern movie shot digitally, bringing the occasional gore to life.
The sound is in DTS HD-MA 5.1, and there’s not a huge amount of split-surround action, but there’s some decent use of the score, as I mentioned.
The extras are as follows, and while there’s not a huge amount, there’s enough to ‘get your teeth into’ (ahem):
- The Making of Eat Locals (7:31): A great mix of chat from the cast and crew, along with clips from the film, even though it’s a very short piece. Mackenzie Crook could walk onto the set of many a big Hollwood film, but as he’s shown before, and as he confirms here, he prefers to work on low-budget productions. He’s said before how he turned down big-money roles in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge because he wanted to concentrate on his superb hit BBC comedy, Dectorists.
- Interviews: Brief Q&A captions-then-video answers, the sort of which could easily be slotted into daytime telly like Breakfast, and they come from Danny King (4:51), Billy Cook (3:45), Charlie Cox (6:33), Dexter Fletcher (4:01), Freema Agyeman (6:01) and Mackenzie Crook (2:35). All of these are worth a look.
- Trailer (1:47): In the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio.
The menu mixes a static image similar to the cover on the left of the screen (the cover places Annette Crosbie centre-stage, while the menu features Charlie Cox in that place, then Eve Myles, and then Ms Crosie on the far right), plus some footage from the film on the right, all mixed with a piece of the score.
Chapters are a woeful 8 (how many times have I said that one every five minutes is ideal??), but on the plus side, there are English subtitles.
Eat Locals is released tomorrow on Blu-ray, DVD and Amazon Prime, and click on the packshot for the full-size image.
Detailed specs:
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
8.5 10 8 3 |
| OVERALL | 7.5 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 93 minutes
Studio: Spirit Entertainment
Cat.no.: SELBD2077
Year: 2017
Released: October 30th 2017
Chapters: 8
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.66:1 (Super 16)
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Jason Flemyng
Producers: Neil Jones, Rod Smith and Jonathan Sothcott
Screenplay: Danny King
Music: James Seymour Brett
Cast:
Henry: Charlie Cox
Larousse: Mackenzie Crook
Sebastian: Billy Cook
Peter Boniface: Tony Curran
Angel: Freema Agyeman
Alice: Annette Crosbie
Bingham: Robert Portal
Mr. Thatcher: Dexter Fletcher
Mrs. Thatcher: Ruth Jones
Vanessa: Eve Myles
The Duke: Vincent Regan
Private Rose: Nick Moran
Private Gary: Nicholas Rowe
Thomas: Jordan Long
Mina: Elly Fairman
Lucy: Tine Stapelfeldt
Soldier: James Warren
Private Crown: Ben Starr
Private Jones: Rhys Parry Jones
Eighteen: Johnny Palmiero
Chen: Lukaz Leong
Private Woodcock: Danny King
Soldier JD: James Daniel Wilson
Private Frost: Rocci Williams
Private Putney: Simon Allix
Soldier: Neil Webster
Mick: Roman Clark
Nick: Kavan Stables
Private Stoker: Dean Kember
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.