Gotta love a low budget horror film that takes place in a sorority house.  Usually it means there’s going to be lots of blood and lots of nekked ladies!  The Cook does a good job of delivering on both.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t deliver on much else.  It falls victim to the standard low budget follies: poor acting, lame script, terrible stereotyping, and sub par directing are among a slew of other problems that are too numerous to list.  At least the bloody sight gags are decent enough.

It’s a long holiday weekend at the Lambda Epsilon Zeta sorority house, and a handful of girls stay behind to indulge in three days of partying, sex games and strangely delicious meals prepared  by the weird new chef. But as the sisters begin to disappear one-by-one, the remaining coeds – The Slut, The Stoner, The Bible Beater, The Dumb Hot Blonde, The Predatory Lesbian, The Tease, The Dominatrix and The Good Girl – will find themselves trapped in a nightmare of graphic slaughter, involuntary cannibalism and heaping helpings of gourmet nudity.

Video is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen.  Audio comes in both Dolby 5.1 and 2.0 Surround.  Both the video and the audio are about what one would expect from a new low budget film.  They’re decent enough to accomplish their goal but far from being anything outstanding.

Extras are somewhat limited.  The DVD opens with trailers for Wrestlemaniac, Hatchet, Spiral, and Behind the Mask.  We also get a behind-the-scenes featurette filled with quite a bit of on set video footage.  There’s a commentary with executive producer/writer/editor Nicholas Bonomo and actors Mark Hengst, Makinna Ridgway, Kit Paquin, Nina Fehren and Brooke Lenzi.  The track is full of talking.  They just keep going and going and going.  There isn’t a lot of technical discussion either since it’s full of actors mostly. The final extra is audition footage of Mark Hengst.

The Cook doesn’t bring anything new to the table and what it does offer… isn’t the best we’ve ever seen. What it does have are some very attractive ladies wearing next to nothing and a lot of nice bloody sight gags.  Fans of this type of fare would be best to give this one a try before buy.  Rental is definitely the way to go.  Had there been twice as many extras, then I might lean a bit more towards buying it. As it is, most people will probably want to steer clear of this flick.

Review By Robert Harding