Fantastic Fest 2025 Review: MEAT KILLS Leans Into Aughts Horror with Mixed Results

Horror films featuring veganism/vegetarianism seem to be trending as of late with titles like Vegan (2024) and Chris Cooney aka The Vegan Zombie’s A44 (2025), so when I saw Meat Kills was playing at Fantastic Fest, I was definitely intrigued. I saw people describe it as being heavily inspired by aughts horror. While I don’t completely disagree, I think it may have been to its detriment.  

In Meat Kills, “Mirthe, a member of the ‘Animal Army’, secretly films a pig farm’s horrors, freeing its children but facing a bloody battle between Nasha’s vengeance and the farmer’s fury.” The film opens with Mirthe getting fired from a pig farm because she is filming the workings of the farm in order to show the world how unethical it is. Following that, we see that she managed to get her footage out and that she took it to an animal rights group. After seeing the motives from both sides, the audience can tell this will be similar to The Devil’s Rejects in that no side is really “good.” 

This is not where the aughts' similarities end. There is a lot of blue and yellow color grading similar to the horror films of that period. One scene finds Mirthe hiding in a pig holding area and another where she is being chased through the area where pigs are hanging by Jonas, who has a circular saw. Both scenes struck me as very reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003). At times I was also reminded of High Tension and even The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).

Similarities aside, there are still plenty of interesting things going on in Meat Kills. All of the characters look at their side of things in black and white. The lack of nuance each side has leads to the extreme behavior taken by Jonas and his family and Nasha and her group. Every time a character starts to question whether there can be some gray, they are pulled back by their group. This type of storytelling caused me to experience a weird feeling of apathy around the midway point of the film because there was no one I could cheer for, which felt like it was sort of the point. It went as far as to make me do some research and there was a small group study done in 2019, in which they found that seeing extreme action taken in support of a variety of causes, including animal rights, can actually reduce the support it gets despite the attention it can garner.

For all you gorehounds out there, this movie really delivers. What I did appreciate is that despite this film having a vegan/vegetarian theme, there is little to no violence against animals seen. There are bodies and some stock footage of slaughterhouses, but animal violence isn’t the purpose of the film. The damage the two groups do to each other in the name of the animals is. There are plenty of stomach-churning moments so if you’re sensitive to that, you may want to choose to eat after the film. 

For me, the performances were the highlight of the film. Emma Josten’s Nasha was the character you love to hate. There are moments you almost like her and then she does something that makes you dislike her all over again. Caro Derkx and Sweder de Sitter’s Mirthe and Jona do a really fantastic job of portraying the inner conflict of wanting to follow along with your cause but recognizing that the actions being taken are hypocritical. Watching their struggles with that, along with their clear affection for one another, even platonic, makes the movie more than just a gorefest. I won’t spoil the exact reason why, but I think Juliëtte van de Weerdt’s performance as Jerrienne deserves a mention as well because, wow. She delivers one of the biggest shocks of the film. 

Meat Kills was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Overall, I liked it and think it’s got a lot going for it. I just wish it leaned less into the aughts horror vibes, which is very weird for me to say. It had plenty of a story to tell and all of the movie nods got a bit distracting for me. That said, Meat Kills is still worth adding to your watchlist and checking out. I’d definitely be willing to give it a rewatch and I suspect I’d like it even more then. 

Movie Score: 3.5/5