‘Poundcake’ Chattanooga Film Festival 2023 Review: Politically Charged Satire Horror Fizzles
Matt Konopka
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When I sat down for writer/director Onur Tukel’s Poundcake, I went in excited for what sounded like an intriguing slasher satire that would flip the script and go after a bunch of well-deserving white men for a change. What this slice-and-dice film delivers instead is a train wreck of a movie that veers off the tracks early, soars over a cliff, and bursts into a fiery inferno of cringe.
Set in New York City, Poundcake revolves around a mysterious killer dubbed “Poundcake” who has set his sights on cis white men. When he gets his hands on his victims, he then quite literally fucks them to death. You read that right. Told through the perspective of various podcast hosts, we learn that the city is torn on how it should feel about this. Do these men deserve to die this way simply for being white, or do their deaths warrant some empathy?
The first few minutes of Poundcake go about as expected. We meet three drunk white men in the middle of the night, being as loud and obnoxious as possible. Two of them suggest going to the strip club, proceeding to degrade strippers in the grating ways you’d expect, while the third reminds his “boys” they shouldn’t talk about them that way. Disinterested in the plan, the third member decides to go home for the night. It’s here I found myself thinking, “All right, Poundcake. Get those two jerks!”
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Then Poundcake murders the third, mildly—emphasis on mildly—decent guy. And it’s all downhill from there.
Never mind the odd decision to set half of the film in bland podcast studios on top of dull camerawork and characters as thin as my ever-decreasing patience for a film that only gets harder to watch the longer it goes on. Forget the half-hearted performances or complete lack of suspense when it comes to a killer who just pops up randomly for a quick kill and continues on his merry way. The true downfall of Poundcake comes in the film’s constant contradiction of itself. Every time you think you know what it’s trying to say, it throws another frustrating, often insulting, curveball that undercuts the previous moment.
On the one hand, there’s plenty of humor to be found in Poundcake’s approach to cis white men who have misunderstood various political movements or taken them to degrees no one asked them to. One fun bit has a woman clearly tell her trainer that she wants to screw his brains out, only for him to reference #MeToo and say he’s “in a position of power” so he can’t. No, he’s not, and she came on to you, my dude. But it’s guys like this that become Poundcake’s targets, not the typical, misogynistic assholes we really want to see get the ax.
I could certainly be wrong, but it’s as if the film is suggesting that men like the trainer are the problem in society right now. Their ignorance is one thing. The film’s perceived notion that politics have turned cis white men into a bunch of cucks that must be punished, is another.
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About one part horror and three parts scenes of political conversations, Poundcake lives up to its title I suppose by pounding its various messages into the viewer to the point of exhaustion. That might be fine if it had something meaningful to say. But for every scene that pokes fun at white guys (where the film is strongest), there’s another that twists its knife into other races and genders.
We follow a homophobic Black father, a racist Asian woman, and a TERF saying it’s “our time” while giving a Nazi salute after berating a Black female co-worker. Throw in an emphasis on coming together and loving one another, and Poundcake seems to say “Hey, don’t be mean to white men, because everyone sucks! Why can’t we all just get along?” The film conveniently seems to forget that many of the stereotypes that the film perpetuates are fueled by white men in power who wanted to turn us against each other in the first place.
Look, it’s not as if I’m against the idea of everyone putting down their swords and peace and all that rainbow and sunshine stuff. That’s a good message in theory! But you can’t stand between participants in a drag show and the fascist monsters protesting them and say let’s just forgive and forget. One side wants only to exist. The other wants them dead. They are not the same. I believe Tukel has good intentions, but is this really what people want to hear right now? And if that isn’t the message hidden in a confused jumble of empathy and rage toward white men, then what are we saying here?
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As if a meandering premise that pokes fun at all communities when we came to see awful white men get theirs isn’t off-putting enough, have I mentioned that Poundcake rapes his victims to death? Because that might sound comical on paper in a childish sense, but rape isn’t funny. Ever. And it’s not as if the killer starts and then cuts away. Tukel has no problem letting these moments play out in all of their agonizing, squishing discomfort. To say it’s incredibly tasteless is the nicest way I can put it, and that’s coming from someone that loves and writes about all types of horror for a living.
All of that aside, I’d be lying if I said Tukel’s film didn’t get a laugh out of me now and then. But the rare moment of effective humor doesn’t save this tone-deaf satire. Poorly paced and as unengaging as an uncomfortable SNL skit, I’m very comfortable saying Poundcake wasn’t for me. Who it is for, I just don’t know.
Summary
Poundcake is a train wreck of a movie that veers off the tracks early, soars over a cliff, and bursts into a fiery inferno of cringe.
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