🟨 Dinner to Die For (2025) Review - Giant Crusty Dong | Film Waffle

Dinner to Die For (2025) directed by Diana Mills Smith

South African horror. That is a new one for me. On hearing that, I expected something historical like the Boer Wars. Real The Last Door like. Maybe a trite commentary piece about apartheid if I wanted to raise my social credit score.

But no. Dinner to Die For is about... bread. 

Yes, indeed. A somewhat more tame topic as compared to imperialist wars or systemic oppression.

But don't let that crusty exterior fool you. Inside is a plush interior that is both steamy and subtle in a way that made this one of the more nuanced horror movies I've seen in a long while.

Quick Summary

Hannah is a food photographer who can't write a decent cookbook to save her life. After getting rejected by her publisher one too many times, she and her crime-loving friend hatch a plan to add the girl next door's "secret sauce" to the menu.

Story & Characters

We begin with an incredibly slick montage of homegirl Hannah whipping up some fresh grub for her cookbook.

Here Hannah is making us breaksticks!

Oh, wait. No. It looks like pane francese.

Oh, wait. Why don't those score marks line up with the cuts she made?

Actually, those may be two different breads. Idk man, my IQ barely scratches double digits some days.

Also, why isn't our girl using a baker's lame? If you're gonna bake dozens of pretty loaves, then that's something you should have. A Victorinox ain't gonna cut it.

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Maybe I'm thinking about this all too much. My fat ass in America is used to big loaves that mirror our waistbands as seen on ATK. It's all carbs. You eat it, and it tastes good, and then you go on Wegovy because fuck personal responsibility. 

Unfortunately, they don't label the type of loaves in the movie. Instead it's all lumped under the generic "bread." Boo! Commit, ladies! Proper nouns! Identify that shit! Where is my cerulean sweater scene parody!? 

This. "Bread?"

Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you.

You go to your pantry and you select, I don't know, that powdery Wheat Flour, for instance, because you're trying to tell Instagram that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you make your loaves out of.

But what you don't know is that that flour is not just Wheat. It's not Cake. It's not All-Purpose. It's actually Double Zero.

And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2022, Caputo Flour did a showcase of Double Zero Pizza Crusts. And then I think it was King Arthur Flour, wasn't it, who created a viral Scaccia TikTok? 

And then Double Zero flour quickly showed up in the product lines of eight different food conglomerates. And then it filtered down through the specialty shops and then trickled on down into some tragic Walmart where you, no doubt, fished it off of some clearance shelf. 

However, that flour represents millions of farmers and countless mills. And it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the cooking industry when, in fact, you're using a flour that was selected for you by the chefs in this kitchen. To make a loaf of "bread."

...

I just spent the last two hours working on that. I will not be apologizing.

What the hell am I even writing at this point? We need to get this review back on track.

After doing all this cooking for us, Hannah receives a call from her agent. He tells her that her work is trash in the usual piece-of-shit, Human Resources way of, "Oh, you know. Your skills just don't match up with what we are looking for at the moment."

Dejected, Hannah spends the night watching crime shows with her BFF, Evan, who is more interested in Hannah's cake than her bread baking. The following day, we meet local Afrikaner Blaire as she conquers Hannah's toilet in the name of Boers and Bowels!

Five seconds later, Blaire is drooling over Hannah just as Evan was. Like, damn, is this a Bi romance fantasy I'm watching play out, or what? Did Pride come early this year? Are the months flipped in the Southern Hemisphere?

It's this love triangle and Hannah's cookbook failures that dominate the screentime. And, honestly, the film makes a good show of it.

I love how our girl Hannah gets dolled up in some kickass makeup before her food photoshoots. The photoshoots she does alone. While working from home.

Honestly? Good for her. 

Real talk. I've known some women who do that. Put on makeup even when working from home to get themselves into a working mindset. It's like putting your game face on. 

Not sure if any of them ever laid on their makeup quite as thick as Hannah here, but clearly our girl is committed. That's only partially joking. I do think it says something about Hannah's character. Insecure, yes. Aloof, yes. But maybe also a hint of independence? Of being strong on her own. Like she's putting on the makeup just for herself, not for anyone else?

It paints Hannah's love triangle with Evan and Blaire in a new light, yes?

I point this out because it ties into what I said in the introduction. This film is not afraid to be subtle. And yet, it also plays with symbolism in a way that doesn't feel preachy. 

That's a hard tightrope to walk, which is why I think most horror screenwriters either shy away from subtext and make a slasher. Or they say "fuck it" and go full Antichrist, hammering the audience with all subtext all the time. Neither is very engaging, in my experience.

Bringing us back to the review, it is implied that Hannah had an abusive boyfriend in the past. Did she kill him? Does she feel ashamed? Will she kill again? Does the pushy BFF that wants to get in her pants have anything to do with the giant, erect bread dong? 

Hmm. We may never know.

The film occasionally engages in less subtle tropes when the story drags. Flashes of viscera, gore, and beheadings. People that Hannah may or may not want to kill. You know. All that fun stuff. Not my favorite, personally, but they are used sparingly enough that they aren't intrusive.

No complaints about the story. Ditto with the dialogue. 

The main trio of Shamilla Miller as Hannah, Steven John Ward as Evan, and Nina Erasmus as Blaire was solid. Few times did I feel the need to question a line or its delivery. There was real sense of chemistry between the actors. Cheers on that front. Carrying the movie so well on the backs of such a small cast is a great achievement.

The climax was good. A bit too on the nose in my opinion. But, hey, The Lighthouse was on the nose too, and people ate that shit up even though it SUUUUCKED. 

Whoops. Sorry. Digressing again.

Mechanics & Structure

A common theme I noticed with this film is how much it does with so little. Not necessarily minimalist, but economical. I already mentioned how the tiny cast makes it work, but other details also wrap up the complete package in a nice bow.

Foremost of these is probably the music. The opening credits list a few names for custom music and compositions. That's always a welcome addition, and I think it added a lot of extra personality to the film overall. Really evoked that fancy dinner party feel.

Also, the set! One location, Hannah's house, for nearly the entire setting. And it works. It drives home the intimate atmosphere. Makes the character interactions all the more potent. 

The use of angles and lighting is also top-notch. Fitting for a movie centered around a professional photographer, perhaps, but it was so well done I have to applaud it. Every scene was beautiful to look at.

Also I like the movie poster. 

Not wowed about the blue though. And Evan and Blaire's pictures in the knife look very 2000's in both pose and fidelity. Reminds me of some of the Halloween movies from that decade. Like Halloween: Resurrection. The one with Tyra Banks. Yeah. If you know, you know.

Conclusion

I'm surprised this movie got as mixed reception as it did on reviewing sites. It's sitting at 3.7/10 on IMDB at time of writing which is puzzling. Like, damn, I get that it was not the most intense film, but it wasn't offensive by any stretch. I have to wonder if marketing the movie as "splatter horror" hurt it, when the film's gore is quite tame.

In any case, Dinner to Die For was a relatively tight horror thriller that kept me intrigued. Sure, it may not be revolutionary in its themes or execution, but it is solid. Solid enough to tell a good story with a good cast and still have some interesting subtext lurking underneath.

Not a bad watch at all.

🟨 Rating: 7/10