"How are they going to make a whole movie out of that German cannibal case?" I wondered as the movie began. "Shoehorn Keri Russell into it as a college student investigating the incident in order to pad the movie" seems to have been the answer. The cannibals' portion of the movie is actually pretty good. It's a very twisted romance between two very broken men. Unfortunately, the movie grinds to a halt every time we switch from the cannibals to Russell. There's no reason to care about anything she does; she's looking at the locations these events happened in far after the fact.
I suspect, in addition to the padding it offers, the Russell story was added to "de-gay" the movie as much as possible. I bet the producers were worried about trying to sell a movie that's not only about cannibalism, but features two gay main characters. I can think of no other reason that we're shown Russell in both swimming and bathtub scenes, as neither were necessary to the plot. It's a shame. With some editing, I think this could be transformed into a great short. As it stands, it's just not effective. (5/10)
