FrightFest review – Salt Along the Tongue

FrightFest review – Salt Along the Tongue

Upon the death of jam-making Mina (Dina Panozzo), her daughter Mattia (Laneikka Denne) is taken in by Mina’s more outgoing twin sister Carol (also Panozzo), a foodie who has taken a more mainstream course by presenting a Cooking With Love show and lives in the centre of an all-female gang (coven?) who produce the show and have a set of ritual pursuits which extend beyond cookery to drunken nights out at a bowling alley.  Mattia, aware that there’s an element of magic (indeed, the evil eye) to her family’s kitchen activities, becomes the focus of what seems to be a curse and has extreme effects on Carol and, eventually, her extended friend circle.  Australian writer-director Parish Malfitano’s film has a horror movie structure and plot – it’s even a mystery, with a senior witch (Maria de Marco) called in to work out who’s cast the malign spell – but its style is something else … inhabiting the worldview of its multi-cultural heroines, who have to codeswitch constantly as various identities overlap and clash, not always happily, and as fascinated by the business of food preparation as the occult.

Here’s the FrightFest listing.