The Menu           4 stars

I must be hitting a theme this year with movies attacking the habits of the rich and self-absorbed. The latest film in this genre is The Menu, a black comedy-horror (my favorite kind of horror) directed by Mark Mylod (who has done episodes of Game of Thrones and Succession) where we spend an evening with a young couple journeying to an exclusive expensive restaurant on a coastal island, serving twelve guests by invitation only. The restaurant is called Hawthorne where the chef, Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), regarded as a culinary artist introduces each course with detailed descriptions and his personal philosophy and charges $1,250 a plate. Tyler (Nicolas Hoult) can be described as a fanboy of the chef who obsesses over each course while his last minute date Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) couldn’t be less interested in the food. The rest of the guests includes a restaurant critic (Janet McTeer) and her husband (Paul Adelstein), an older couple (Judith Light and Reed Birney), an aging movie-star (John Leguizamo) and his assistant, three corporate a-holes and one elderly woman in the corner. As the meal progresses it becomes clear that the chef has an agenda for the evening when personal attacks are made on each of the customers. He has a connection to every one of them and feels he has been wronged by each in some fashion. The lone exception is Margot who Slowik says wasn’t supposed to be here. At some point the film becomes full blown horror of the revenge variety when it is revealed that Slowik intends that no one is going to survive the evening, thus making things outright terrifying. Effectively, the movie is preaching about the misdeeds of the rich and privileged and about those seeking retribution. The best scenes involve the personal interactions between Fiennes and Taylor-Joy as they engage in a battle of wits and she tries to find ways to counter his actions. Both are well cast in these roles. Hong Chau of Driveways and The Whale does an excellent job as Elsa, the guide who gives the initial tour for the guests. I had not heard of director Mylod before and hope he has more interesting projects ahead. For fans of satirical comedies, this one is entertaining.