Dark Sky Films serves up a Christmas dinner from hell with Johnny Kevorkian’s sci-fi thriller Await Further Instructions, available in theaters and on VOD platforms now. Our own Patrick Bromley reviewed the film out of Cinepocalypse Film Festival earlier this year, where it earned the Audience Award, and called the film “smart, bleak, and effective.” The film stars David Bradley and Neerja Naik, with David Bradley (Games of Thrones), Sam Gittins (The Smoke), Holly Weston (Howl), Kris Saddler (The Hour), and Grant Masters (Silent Witness).
The plot follows the Milgram family, who have gathered together for Christmas dinner celebrations only to find themselves trapped within their home by a mysterious black substance right outside. The TV transmits a single-line message, “Await further instructions.” Paranoia turns their night of holiday cheer into a dinner party full of carnage. Because the best dinner parties offer up more than one delectable course, these six horror movies featuring dinners from hell serve as great pairings to watch with the main course, Await Further Instructions.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Tobe Hooper set the bar high with one of the most disturbing dinner scenes in horror. It’s by no means the formal affair that most dinner parties are, but it is ritualistic. Poor Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) outlasts her friends and family only to find herself a guest at the dinner table of those responsible for the deaths. Gagged and bound to a chair at the head of the table, she’s surrounded by the deranged family who intends for Sally to be the main course. It’s the climactic third act of one of horror’s greatest films, and it’s extremely intense.
The Invitation
It’s awkward enough to accept an invitation to a dinner party hosted by your ex-wife, in the very home you once shared no less, but what if the thing that drove you two apart comes back in a hugely destructive way? That’s the set up for Karyn Kusama’s suspenseful thriller. The dinner party in The Invitation rips open old, deep wounds for Logan Marshal-Green’s Will, ramping up the tension until it explodes in a shocking way.
You’re Next
This Adam Wingard directed horror comedy, written by Simon Barrett, is centered around a family reunion in rural Missouri. Family reunions are usually a recipe for disaster, but for the Davison family it’s quite deadly. Disfunction gives way to full-blown arguing at the dinner table, until a crossbow is shot through the window and the body count pile up begins. This home invasion movie defies convention, and it all begins with a dinner party.
Waxwork
If the concept of a dinner party is a bit too high brow for your tastes, then Waxwork is for you. A sort of anthology horror movie, a new wax museum owner lures his victims into his horror exhibits to kill them and unleash evil on the world. For China (Michelle Johnson), she steps into the exhibit set at a Gothic castle, with its rather handsome owner hosting a dinner party. Unfortunately for China, that owner is Count Dracula. She’s the only human at a table full of vampires, and she uncomfortably partakes in the slurping of their bloody soup course before realizing she might on the menu for the main course. Bloody, gruesome, and hilarious, the dinner party scene in Waxwork means this might be best saved for dessert.
We Are What We Are
The entire setup of this American remake of the 2010 film from Mexico revolves around the planning of one very important dinner for the Parker family. Opening with the death of Parker matriarch while out buying groceries, it then falls to the eldest daughter, Rose, to pick up the reigns of her mother’s religious duties and ancient customs. This includes preparing their ritualistic meals of feeding on human flesh. For Rose and her sister Ivy, they’re not quite as eager as their parents to slaughter and serve up humans for dinner, making for one contentious climactic family dinner party.
Calvaire
Borrowing similar visual cues from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, this dinner scene also features its lead bound to a chair and forced to dine with the strange town inhabitants he’s unwittingly crossed paths with. Unlike Sally Hardesty, though, poor Marc has been subjected to his captors’ torture for much longer, building up to a Christmas dinner submerged in pure insanity. Not unlike, Await Further Instructions. In a scene that feels like Deliverance meets The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Christmas has never felt so demented on screen. Or as bleak.
Dine with Await Further Instructions, now in theaters and VOD platforms.