Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

The Green Butchers

(De Grønne slagtere, Denmark, 2003)

Two apprentice butchers, both big-time losers, open their own shop. Nobody comes, until they accidentally lock a guy in the meat locker and he dies. Naturally they are well-equipped to dispose of a body, but they take the extra step of selling the meat as “Chicky-wicky.” It proves so popular they have to get more … (There are two schools of thought as to the taste of human meat. One is the old “tastes like chicken.” The other is that it tastes like Spam, but maybe the Danes haven’t heard of this, or maybe there’s no word in Danish for Spam. Which would make them lucky, in my opinion.) It is handled as black humor, like Sweeney Todd or Eating Raoul. But in the middle it turns serious and loses its way, ends up going nowhere. I have to say, though, that the trip to nowhere is pretty amusing.