Working in any kind of public-facing role is a test of one’s patience and mettle, and the food industry has to rank highly on any objective or subjective measures of tedium, ick or just downright stress – and that’s just when it comes to the customers. Let us not underestimate one’s co-workers, as it is their very own potential for weird conduct and overstepping all manner of personal boundaries which can make the job so additionally taxing. Spare a thought, then, for Nola (Verity Hayes), who opens short film All You Can Eat with a litany of complaints about her very, very odd colleague at the restaurant where she works. She’s not in the wrong: he’s been using the pantry at Planet Burrito for what seems to be some kind of weird science experiment, petri dishes and all. Environmental Health would have a field day.
Speaking to another co-worker, Nola recounts how she has recently stumbled across him poring over some kind of primordial sludge in there, but even worse, she overhears that he’s listening to some kind of diatribe about the procurement of a special sample of some kind (voiced in the film by Jello Biafra, no less). The sample is volatile, the voice solemnly proclaims, and it absolutely should not come into contact with any sort of foodstuffs. Well, that’s a bridge too far for Nolly, who feels that the only right thing to do in light of this discovery is to act as whistle-blower. But no sooner has she set herself this task, than shall we say ‘events’ conspire which take precedence over any professional complaint.
This is a simple, postcard-sized plot which serves in the main to showcase director Kieran Reed’s love of old school, 80s practical SFX and sci-fi origins which so often end in gratuitous gore and splatter (though a different explanation for events is mooted here). Think The Deadly Spawn (1983) in particular, which has a similar brand of toothsome critter with similar aspirations (the font used on the opening titles is a dead ringer as well, so in many respects All You Can Eat is as much a direct love letter to it as it is to other, albeit still similar films). There’s a touch of the eww factor of Bad Taste (1987) in here, too, and even a bit of Tokyo Gore Police (2008) – in reverse, if you will (an observation which makes more sense if you hone in one one particular scene in All You Can Eat). Interestingly, the film goes for a contemporary timeframe, as much as analogue cassette tapes appear alongside up-to-date mobile phones; it feels somehow in transit between the UK and the US, too, as the style of restaurant, the signage and some of the character voices are American, whilst the work safety notices, and of course Nola herself are clearly British. That’s not a complaint, more an observation, and further evidence that this is a British tribute to often American cinema.
At thirteen minutes running time, the film is by its nature a taster – an extracted sequence – rather than a fully-fledged narrative, and there are a couple of issues here (some of the keynote gore is hard to make out in the dark; some of the dialogue gets a little drowned by the incidental music). But there’s a clear sense of fun involved, and All You Can Eat would no doubt go down well in a festival setting where people’s enjoyment goes up in response to the levels of OTT FX on offer, particularly were the film to appear as an aperitif for a similarly-minded feature-length – which, for that matter, All You Can Eat is intended to be at some point.
All You Can Eat (2022) has been on its festival run: watch this space for more news…