A young girl wants a snack and decides to microwave ground meat. To her surprise, the meat comes to life as Meat Friend and becomes her best friend, her advisor, and a bit of an odd character to say the least.
At this point, Izzy Lee’s films make regular appearances on this site and with good reason. Her films are always interesting, sometimes spooky, sometimes downright weird, but absolutely always interesting. Meat Friend is no different here. It’s an odd tale of a pack of meat being brought to life by a little girl who then befriends it. It’s not particularly horror, but it’s still on the horror spectrum in that a sentient meat being is bit on the horror-sci-fi tangent. Directed by Lee and co-written by Lee and Steve Johanson, Meat friend takes the story of a little girl bringing a being to life, much like kids do with their toys using imagination, but here the being is not exactly wholesome and gives a lot of ex-con style advice. Think of a Chucky-like spirit who is not trying to take over her body, but simply trying to teach her the ways of life it knows. In this case, it’s mostly violence and survival in jail related.
The film stars two people and one meat puppet, creating a truly odd duo and a worried parent who may not be paying enough attention. In lead role of Billie is Marnie McKendry who does decently with the more emotional scenes and feels a bit lost at other times. She is really good as a screaming kid, but when it comes to more line-heavy scenes, she gets a bit flatter. As a 4th performance after a 7 or so years break and for a performance acting against a meat puppet, her work is fairly good. This is an odd situation for any actor, so even more so for a kid. Playing her mother is indie horror genre darling Megan Duffy. Here she’s good, she does her best as the concerned-yet-not-that-much mother. Giving Meat Friend his voice is writer Steve Johanson who gives the puppet personality and that odd, tough guy attitude that is something else when it comes out of a puppet.
Now, the puppet work, the creation of Meat Friend, that is indeed well-done and grotesque in just the right way. The puppet is clearly low-budget, but the look is somehow perfectly appropriate here. This is not a Jim Henson creation and it should not be expected to be so. The puppet is a whole character even with its white eyes and simple mouth.
Giving the film’s style is how it was shot as a bit of an 80s sitcom with the vibe of a family show gone wrong. This is where the Izzy Lee touch is most felt and where the work by director of photography Sophia Cacciola and visual effects by Michael J Epstein come into play to make this a full experience. The film knowns the genres its working within and what it can play with to twist the expectations and hit the nostalgia buttons all at once make this a short film to remember.
Meat Friend is odd, it’s weird even, but it’s also oddly enjoyable. The puppet is where the film really hits its stride in making this a parody of sitcoms and other films. The angle of shooting this like it’s perfectly normal family fair is where the film really works. This is a bit subversive, a bit shocking (to some), and the perfect palate cleanser from all the overly produced, glossy fair in most movie theaters of late.
****Meat Friend is playing as part of the Teenage Waterpolo block at Boston Underground Film Festival on Saturday March 26th, 2022 and will play at Fantaspoa Porto Allegre, Brazil for its South American Premiere (April 15-17, 2022). ****