One of my all-time favorite hobbies is collecting VHS tapes. Sure, it's not as fun now that all the major rental stores have either been shut down or don't carry the format anymore, but it's still fun to browse online. On that note, any self-respecting VHS collector knows one of the rarest finds is a big box VHS of 1987's LUNCH MEAT.
A group of fun-loving teenagers decide to head up to a cabin in the woods for the weekend. However, the gang encounters a backwoods, cannibal family looking to chop them up and sell their meat to the local hamburger joint. Will anyone survive?
Indeed, will anyone survive the grating experience that is the unbelievably inept LUNCH MEAT? I know I did, but just barely. Honestly, this is one of the only films I've come across that nearly fails on all levels, both in actual quality and genuine entertainment. However, a few bits of cheesy goodness put it one or two levels above the bottom of the barrel.
The people who made this obviously had no idea what they were doing, which is blatantly obvious because of how poorly executed everything in this movie is. The acting is horrible and these people are clearly friends and family of the director (it does have Ashlyn Gere, who starred in one of my favorite cheesy slashers, 1986's EVIL LAUGH). Also, I have to throw in that one character sounded a lot like Roger from the show American DAD.
The biggest problem I have with LUNCH MEAT is the chase. Here's the case: first, we get thirty minutes of hilarious character development (hilarious for the wrong reasons, of course). Then we get a forty minute long chase scene that's just that: people running around. Nothing happens except PEOPLE. RUNNING. AWAY. It has to be one of the most excruciating things I've had to sit through in a while.
The film does have the occasional fun and/or funny moment, but they are few and far between. For the burger stand, they just put a white sign reading "So-and-So's Burgers" on the side of a run-down building in downtown Detroit (or some other place). Some of the character interactions are amusing as well. Once the final couple begins to fight back, the pace picks up considerably, but it resorts back to mediocrity after a while.
Overall, I don't want to say LUNCH MEAT is worth watching, but I don't want to advise anyone to avoid it at all costs. It has its fun moments, but the painful-to-watch middle section is enough to scare anyone away. Also, for a film to sell itself as a really gruesome movie filled with carnage, there isn't a whole lot of bloodshed. In fact, I might even say I enjoyed CANNIBAL CAMPOUT more than this. It's that bad.
My advice: If you stumble upon it by chance, watch it once just to say you did. Then throw it in the trash.