If ever there was a film to turn you into a vegetarian, Meat Locker would be it. In director Mark G. Lakatos’ short film, the ethical debate of eating meat takes on a body-horror dimension, tossing us into a grotesquely visceral world that encapsulates a mother’s worst fears.
The premise of Meat Locker is simple: A Man and a Woman – both played with impressive range by Dániel Illés – are out to dinner and debate the ethics of eating meat. The debate feels quite pertinent, as a giant, roasted pig sits in front of them. The Man, opting for a bite of an apple instead, argues there should be some moral dilemma involved in consuming meat. The Woman, however, feels differently, as she eagerly takes a ravenous bite of the animal. She explains that eating meat is fine, as to her, experimenting with drugs on unborn children is what’s truly “against God.” For the Woman, our duty to children is one thing, and one thing only: To love them. Of course, her argument isn’t without its hypocrisy, a concept the film makes us acutely aware of as their dinner takes a dark, unexpected turn.
Illés takes on the part of both the Man and Woman here, and plays each with a pitch-perfect regard for the otherworldliness of the film. As Meat Locker delves further into a full-blown body-horror piece, Illés faces the challenge and plays the part with an authenticity that mimics the audience’s reactions. It’s due to Illés’embodied terror that we feel the true scope of the atrocities happening. By rooting Illés’ performance in grounded emotions – then holding them up against the backdrop of surrealist body-horror – Lakatos creates a dynamic of sheer dread: Not only are we seeing these unimaginably horrible events, but we’re resonating with the gravity of them through Illés’ authentic, humanist performance.
In another regard, this grotesque viscerality is also due to the craft elements at play. The cinematography is shot with a claustrophobic eye by Ármin Réthly that confines us in this horrific scenario, while the production design gives a distinct otherworldliness to the terror: The sets look almost like places we recognize, but by stripping them down to their bare elements, they feel undeniably strange. The makeup and effects by Mária Bánovics – similar to Illés performance – root the surrealist body-horror in authenticity. When we see blood, it feels like real blood. The combination of these elements – the intense claustrophobia, the otherworldly settings, the tactile effects – all contribute to the palpable grotesqueness and stomach-turning experience that is Meat Locker.
In this regard, the film is such an intense experience that it’s undeniably not for every audience. For some, the intense horror may spur meaningful conversations. For others, it may be so gut-wrenching that it presents too large an obstacle for them to engage with the film’s broader concerns. Audiences will certainly question the necessity of such gruesome moments, but in many ways, this is the point. Effective horror is often divisive, and is the risk one assumes in making a film like this. As such, although not a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, there’s a clear purpose and line of questioning behind the horror, justifying its existence within an argument that has real-world applicability. Meat Locker isn’t just an exercise in horror, but a dark, surrealist perspective of how our food got on our table.
