Most of the conventional horror is contained in the first 10 minutes. A surgically precise evocation of a lonely gas station at night gives way to reveal someone stalking a driver and passenger. A deliberate crash ensues. A dead woman is taken to a mountain cabin, where the stalker selects a knife from his collection and goes to work. Back home in Granada (this is a Spanish film), the killer fills his refrigerator with the outcome of the murder—the prime cuts stacked in rows. The movie is called Cannibal, after all.
After this terrifying opening, Manuel Martín Cuenca’s film remains a minimalist affair, cued to the deadpan central performance by (the bisexual pilot from Almodóvar’s I’m So Excited!). He plays Carlos, a meticulous old-school tailor whose skill at cutting suits is matched by his precision at—well, you know.