Chop Chop: Pizza delivery gets messy in new trailer

The intriguing trailer for the new horror Chop Chop promises a descent into a nightmare of criminal activity and slasher bloodshed.

Pizza is important – not only as the sustenance of horror fans gathering for some group viewing, but in horror films themselves. Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon were menaced by a pie they didn’t order in Bug.

More recently, the plight of pizza delivery staff was explored in Slice and Satanic Panic. Now, Chop Chop looks to bring a unique flavor to this niche horror trope.

The press release summarizes the film as follows:

"“An innocent night between a young couple takes a bizarre turn when a psychotic serial killer comes knocking at the door. As the couple starts to fend for their lives, we soon learn there might be more to the lovers than meets the eye. A long fight for survival leads them into a series of unsettling encounters within the criminal underworld.”"

While the pizza delivery in Bug was an absurd punchline at a pivotal moment, and played for laughs in Slice and Satanic Panic, Chop Chop looks like a very different beast (with much emphasis on the “beast”).

Directed and co-written by Rony Patel, the film announces its difference right away: the poster features the visage of a grizzled face with some Richard Kiel orthodontics (that will likely be used for ill). True to its title, the trailer features a generous amount of sharp implements meeting flesh: a power drill and meat cleaver figure prominently in the gruesome proceedings.

But the trailer for Chop Chop isn’t just a gory highlight reel. There is much implication in who the characters are, how they relate to each other, and who, exactly, is having violence inflicted upon them (the “why” of all of it is left hanging). And while the images of viscera in plastic bags and a shirtless killer wearing a skin mask (in the vein of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its imitators) definitely bring the horror, I’m even more intrigued by the crime-thriller elements threaded throughout.

If Chop Chop can create a genre hybrid of Noir and horror, it may be one of the highlights of 2020. We’ll all find out when the film is released to VOD on October 20.

Will you be watching Chop Chop? Let us know what you think of the trailer in the comments.