Review of ‘Sweet Taste of Death’, Eli Roth’s new film

The filmography of Eli Roth It contains all the flavors of horror and action cinema. Bland in the remake “The city vigilante” starring Bruce Willis, tipsy in the thriller “Knock knock”sour and stumbling in the slasher “Black Friday” or directly unpleasant in wild and indigestible tapes like “Hostel” either “Cabin Fever”. “Sweet taste of death”for its part, is a gummy: fun-looking, addictive to chew, ideal for parties and nutritionally zero. And that, and nothing else, is Roth’s claim.

It is worth remembering that Eli Roth participated in the creation of false trailers in the diptych Grindhouse by Quentin Tarantino and Roberto Rodríguez that simulated a double session of exploit cinema; among them, by the way, that of “Black Friday”a decade and a half before its actual realization. So, “Sweet taste of death” It can only be understood and enjoyed from that grand guiñolesque side, a kind of frustrated candidate to be part of those uncomplexed and viscous projections of the Tarantino-Rodríguez duo. The absence of well-known actors and the fact that Roth reserves the role with the loudest knockout for himself contributes to the low profile of the production.

Starting from a premise that reminds us, in part, of the legend of Hamelin, Roth creates a demonic ice cream man who turns the children of an idyllic town into a faithful army who, bewitched by his sweets, gleefully commit the most graphic and unpleasant attacks against those close to them. In his shameless pursuit of the grossest satisfaction, the horror of “Sweet taste of death” It turns into comedy.

For this reason, the film does not have the substance or provoke the concern of “Who can kill a child?” in its warning about the intrinsic evil of children, although it starts from the same context: a town dominated by the savage face of childhood. Yes, a funny and cinephile sketch that refers to one of the iconic moments of the Hitchcockian classic is allowed. “The birds”.