Check out our next interview in our filmmaker interview series, with Aimee Kuge! Aimme Kuge debuted her horror film Cannibal Mukbang at the Austin Film Festival in 2023. She tells us about her experience in a sit-down interview with our senior film programmer Andy Volk. We dive into her experiences at AFF, her influences and passions behind her horror film, and potential future projects and creations. Watch the full interview here.
Andy: Aimee, thanks so much for being here! I am excited to dive in and unravel Cannibal Mukbang! How did you first come across mukbang and what was it about ‘mukbanging’ that made you want to make a movie about the subject?
Aimee: The first time I started watching people eat online was probably 2012. I was in college and going through what many college people I think experienced – a lot of weird body things, working out in different ways, finding independence, and figuring out how to eat independently. I went through a period of just unhealthy eating, and I started to watch people eat online. Mukbanging took on full force for me from 2018 to 2020. In 2020, it got a little wild with TikTok and everything and the pandemic and everyone’s at home cooking and stuff, and I just started to think, ‘this is a weird thing that’s picking up speed no one’s talking about.’So many people watch these videos, but no one talks about it to each other. They’re always doing it alone. I used to work for a mukbanger. I can’t say who, but I did social media for her for a while and got a little insight into her life, and it coincided with a few other things that spurred me to write Cannibal Mukbang.
Andy: That is a cool roundabout way of knowing the history of it, both on the personal side and understanding people were involved with it. And what was it about it that made you want to tackle it with a horror lens?
Aimee: So there was a specific moment that happened. I was at a party and a friend of a friend was talking about her friend going on a date. And the woman met this guy on a dating app and had a wonderful date. She went to his apartment, and he made a huge meal. She wanted to stay over and wanted the date to continue, but he was like, oh no, you should go, we’ll talk soon. And so, she left and was super excited about it. The next day, her stomach is in knots, and she’s not doing well. She is very, very sick, sick enough that she ends up in the hospital. At the hospital, they tested what was in her stomach and they said, ‘There’s human DNA in your stomach.’, she freaks out and tries to contact this guy, but he’s not on the dating app anymore. So, this is a story, I don’t know if this is true, but I just heard this friend of a friend of a friend. I don’t know this person, but it stuck with me. All this happened when I worked for this mukbanger, and I thought, what if someone was a “cannibal muk”? They’re eating people online and we don’t know if they’re eating human meat while we’re watching them eat.
Andy: That is wild! I can see how that spurred into the movie’s genesis, figuring out who this character might be, and how it influenced a relationship. You have a lot of influences here, established early on during the opening credits. How did you figure out your stylistic approach, and what films influenced you?
Aimee: Yeah, the films that influenced me the most are Jennifer’s Body, Raw, and Larry Fessenden’s Habit. That film struck a chord with me because of how romantic charming and character-focused it was. I think stylistically too, I wanted to mix some Fulci in there and have a bit of a retro feel. I wanted it to be like It Follows where you can’t tell what period it is. It’s modern-day, but then there are some 70s nods just with how my DP Harrison Craft colored it and did the post-treatment. I think stylistically, it has a lot of different eras mixed in there, the early 2000s hyper-girly vibes of maybe Mean Girls or Jennifer’s body, but mixed in with some of those 70s throwback elements.
Andy: You get that a lot from the actors, who give incredible, committed performances with everything from prosthetics to eating. What went into building those characters? How did you start to get the actors on board? Did they help flesh out the characters, and what were some of the challenges of putting them in that space?
Aimee: I got extremely, extremely lucky with casting. I saw Nate Wise audition for Mark, and he was the first Mark I watched, and I knew it had to be him immediately. I thought, ‘This guy has this charming, clumsy, mumblecore energy to him that I haven’t seen in a while, and I haven’t seen so authentically.
And then for Ashley, it was a little more challenging because her character is so complex. She has to play sort of a siren, but then also so romantic and sweet that you want to take care of her, but she’s also this badass. She plays the younger version of herself and the modern-day version of herself, which was a little more challenging for me to cast. I went with April just with this sort of gut feeling. I decided when we conversed about how she felt about the script. She connected with Ash immediately and had a lot of amazing insight into her character, and I just felt like she connected with her right away.
And yeah, we had a lot of rehearsing before leading up to filming. I had chemistry readings with April and Nate over Zoom and met with them in person. I wanted to make sure there was some tension between them because they would be so close and the whole movie is about their relationship. So, we met at a bar and talked before I decided to cast them, and I felt this palpable energy between them. You could cut it with a butter knife. They were making fun of each other but also got along pretty well. I took a shot and was like, ‘Yeah, this will be awesome. I just felt it.’.
Andy: You can tell that actors are having fun, even with how disgusting it is. One thing too that I loved was that you dove into Ash’s backstory. It’s heavy, and not every horror movie would explain and try to provide true empathy for the villain. What led you to decide to give her such a layered backstory?
Aimee: I think that for me, writing Ash felt so fun to play with her character and amp up the stakes as much as I possibly could. And while I was writing, I just kept thinking, ‘How can I connect with Ash as much as humanly possible?’ And with Mark, too, with all my characters, I want to connect with them. I thought if something happened to my sister, I would freak out. It would break me, we’re best friends. Ash’s backstory was written with her real sister. I wanted there to be that driving force behind what she does, because what she does, even though it’s fun for horror people, it’s pretty crazy. It’s not good to kill people and eat them. So how can we make her likable?
Andy: What was one of your favorite audience reactions during a screening, and what was one of your favorite reactions from an audience member?
Aimee: My favorite screening of Cannibal Mukbang’s circuit has been the Hideout Theater. It was the first screening at the Austin Film Festival. That audience was so, so great. We were just in that theater, it was a little smaller, and we were all so close to each other, and everyone was laughing, reacting, and freaking out at the right moments. In the end, everyone clapped, and it felt super good. Everybody there, I feel like, all are on the same page, and they were reacting to everything I wanted them to. I felt like a little wizard in the background, like, ‘Laugh!’ and they laughed. It just felt great.
Andy: Well, you should. It’s truly a very unique film. What were some of your favorite experiences at AFF?
Aimee: AFF is the best film festival I’ve ever attended. The community there is so passionate and underrated. Everybody was so kind and open and everyone just wanted to talk. When I landed, I immediately felt like I was in the community. It was so welcoming.
I think that as a whole, it was just a magical week and the panels I think were done so well. I went to Emerald Fennell’s panel and the experience of seeing her talk about her career and then going to see Saltburn was amazing. I saw Karyn Kusama’s panel too, and that was great. Those two people I respect with my whole heart and what they’re doing is amazing. I think the panels were amazing and all the parties were so fun too. The community in general was fantastic. I highly recommend it.
Andy: Going to the panels, going to other screenings, listening to Q&As, was there anything that you learned that has helped you on your journey following Cannibal Mukbang?
Aimee: When I did my pitch at the Workshop of Horrors, with Vertigo, I learned from them that if you are writing something creature-based or a trope, always question how you can make it fresher, and what separates it. I knew that, but hearing it after I pitched, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, everything you do has been done before’. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it but constantly try to push yourself to make something a little different and a little more unique and something that will resonate more with audiences and with you, if it resonates with you, that’s the most important thing. So yeah, getting that insight from the people who work at Vertigo was incredible, and I don’t know where else I could get that other than AFF.
Andy: My last question is going back to Cannibal Mukbang. What was it like working in that practical effects space seeing such beautiful grossness as we did in Cannibal Mukbang?
Aimee: I have a background in doing special effects. So I love it. I love gory movies. I think that part of why I like horror is it faces you to confront your fears and who isn’t afraid of getting their guts torn out and having horrible things happen? So yeah, I used to do special effects for other people’s films, and I wanted that to be a big part of the movie. I wanted it to be as gross as it was sexy and horny. I wanted it to have things that would stick in people’s heads. And I hope that they do. Many artists came together and tried to showcase how gross we could make things. I hope Mukbang 2 is 10 times grosser than Mukbang 1.
Andy: Wait, does that mean there’s a sequel?
Aimee: Yeah, there’s a sequel coming at some point. April and I are working on it. April and I are co-writing it, I will be the director, and she will be in it. If you know the movie, then I think you’ll have an idea of what will happen.
Watch the trailer for Cannibal Mukbang at the link below, and check out the filmmaker interview series on our socials.