SAWNEY: FLESH OF MAN is another stab at low budget torture porn, made with maximum relish. The director seems to be trying to make this film as grisly and unpleasant as is humanly (and inhumanly) possible, and he certainly succeeds in that. But while in horror terms he summons up an appropriately oppressive atmosphere, in terms of scripting and narrative this is a complete dud.
The legend of Sawney Bean is a classic slice of Scottish folklore that's interested me for a long while. I've even visited the locales where he and his clan were supposed to live, so when I heard about this film I was eager to see it. What a shame, then, that Bean is reduced to such a typical cannibal killer with nothing to distinguish him from the bad guys of a dozen low rent American slasher flicks.
The film deserves kudos for casting the creepy and imposing David Hayman as the titular killer, but then proceeds to waste him for the entire running time, filling his mouth with B-movie lines. The plot involves one character ending up in his clutches, then someone goes looking for the first and becomes the next victim, and so on. Realising how thin that plot is, the writer throws in the most predictable 'twist villain' ever, alongside a random monster, but none of these elements makes this film anything more than completely forgettable. No story, no merit...
