When I first watched the trailer for “Excess Flesh”, I was intrigued by what plot was revealed in it. It showed a tale of two women with opposite body physiques living together and trying to get along when one day the one of them goes nuts and starts to hold the other captive. A wonderful premise for a horror flick, in my mind anway.
The story follows two women named Jill and Jennifer. Jill is the stereotypical overweight woman who is constantly worrying about her body image and how others around her perceive her. Jill is one of those people who rightly wants to be healthier than she is but just can’t bring herself to fully commit in the correct ways and cares too much about what others think of her. Opposite her is Jennifer who is your atypical seemly fit and attractive young woman. She is one of those people that eats whatever junk she wants, yet never seems to gain weight; in some cases even losing weight. Basically, your run of the mill lady that every guy, supposedly anyway, finds attractive and wants to be with. They’re roommates and I guess you could say they’re “friends”. Their relationship is one of those where Jennifer does not come to the realization until it is too late that she is constantly making Jill feel uneasy and intimidated. When the movie first begins you notice that the acting is going to be fairly spotty. It’s one of those movies that have great acting at times and bad at others. The music however I found to be exquisitely phenomenal. The soundtrack in “Excess Flesh” was composed by Jonathan Snipes of Room 237 and Starry Eyes fame and Cristina Bercovitz who also did work on Room 237. I know not many people, mostly among casual movie fans anyway, care too much about movie soundtracks these days. Amazingly done ones really are becoming a rarity; in my humble opinion anyway.
Now for the annoyances this movie presented. This film was extremely slow paced for my taste. Slow paces can work out fantastically with the right build up but here it falls flat after about a third of the movie. There are some cool and impressively done close up shots of the two women eating which are presented. The actresses did a great job at portraying their respective characters eating habits very well. The problem comes in when this is done over and over again throughout the entire flick. Many of the eating shots drag on WAY to long and start to bore the viewer. It really started out impressive, but just like retelling the same joke over and over again to the same crowd, it gets less and less entertaining every time. This could have been a way better film had they cut like thirty minutes of shots with characters eating in them. Other than that gut wrenchingly slow pace, I rather enjoyed “Excess Flesh”. It did hit you over the head with the moral too much for some people probably though. The movie was trying to shed light on eating disorders and show people that might be watching that no matter if they are trying to gain weight or lose it they are never going to be alone. Which is a fantastic moral, especially in this day and age where we have an obesity epidemic and people starving themselves to stay or get skinny. It perhaps was also trying to purvey that a healthy living situation can have a helping hand in how people see themselves. In this story neither character seemed truly happy in my eyes. They both cared way too much about what society thinks of them and never stopped to really look at life and whether or not they are truly enjoying it. Maybe I am trying to decode this film too much and maybe I have just scratched the surface here, who knows? I tend to be one of those people who, once I get down the rabbit hole, dives way to deep into the covered meanings the filmmakers where trying to get across to their audience.
“Excess Flesh” also paid homage/ took ideas from , or as some may say “copied” or “stole” from some other movies that I noticed. I for one am not one who is all that into whether or not a director or writer took from another work of art and will not delve into that here. However, I did see a nod to the amazing film “Requiem For a Dream” and the ending which I will not spoil is right alongside that of another very popular movie which I won’t name either. I see these as nods to what are fantastic films and the director pointing out how he is probably a huge fan of all of them. One thing I will harp on about them though is how blatant they are. This is all a matter of opinion, but I like my homage’s to not be so abrupt and obvious. I like mine very subtle and sometimes not catch-able until your second or third watch. As long as there are not too many made, I do love me some good references; although when you reference a movie that I would rather be watching than yours that is a vital mistake. When the “Requiem for a Dream” sequence came up I found myself wishing I was watching it instead and it totally took me out of the movie for a bit. All in all, the nods were not too distracting and I definitely enjoyed seeing them.
Overall, I though “Excess Flesh” was a pretty decent movie. It has great production value especially considering the low budget it had. It does have some very minor “gross out” segments that the squeamish may or may not be able to handle, but no one who is squeamish is watching a horror flick right? This film is definitely worth at least one watch as long as you can handle slow paced films. If you are one of those horror lovers who is all about the blood and gore, I feel you, but there really is nothing that worthy to be found here. This film presents a good message even though it gets thrown at you too frequently for my taste and probably has many underlying tones I did not pick up on after only one viewing. I give this movie a 6/10 which is higher than what I feel the average film goer will give it but I did enjoy this for what it was. Hope you all enjoyed my first ever review for this site and I look forward to providing you with many, many more!
