[Review] It Came from the Kitchen! [Final Girls Berlin]: Lighthearted Creature Feature Boasts Some Old-School Effects

We’ve all had those days, sometimes even weeks, when straightening up our living spaces just doesn’t rate high on the old to-do list, until something happens that makes it absolutely necessary. Jackie (Savannah Zito), the protagonist of writer/director Jessica Salgado’s creature feature short It Came from the Kitchen!, is having an especially hard time with this as she is dealing with depression. 

Jackie orders some Chinese food delivery but is disappointed to find that no utensils were included. This forces her to go into her disaster of a kitchen, where she comes face-to-face with an oversized menace, with loads of regular-sized pests in tow. People suffering from entomophobia, beware!

Salgado delivers an amusing monster movie that uses low-budget practical effects — you can see wires being used in one scene, which only adds to the charm of the short to this old-school-loving monster kid — as well as a few real critters, as well. Also impressive regarding the short’s visuals is the amazing set design work. Jackie’s apartment is a dump, and it must have been no easy feat doing the set decoration for that, nor for the clean-up after shooting the short. Zito does a solid job as Jackie, and her character is written as highly relatable.

It Came from the Kitchen! is a highly entertaining seven-and-a-half-minutes ride. The short is available to watch now at the link below.

It Came from the Kitchen! screened as part of Final Girls Berlin Film Fest, which ran February 3–6. 

Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry fell in love with horror films as a preschooler when he first saw the Gill-Man swim across the TV screen in "The Creature from The Black Lagoon" and Mothra battle Godzilla in "Godzilla Vs. The Thing.” His education in fright fare continued with TV series such as "The Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits," along with legendary northern California horror host Bob Wilkins’ "Creature Features." His love for silver age and golden age comic books, including horror titles from Gold Key, Dell, and Marvel started around age 5.

He is a contributing writer for the "Phantom of the Movies VideoScope" and “Drive-In Asylum” print magazines and the websites Horror Fuel, Diabolique Magazine, The Scariest Things, B&S About Movies, and When It Was Cool. He is a co-host of the "Uphill Both Ways" pop culture nostalgia podcast and also writes for its website. Joseph occasionally proudly co-writes articles with his son Cohen Perry, who is a film critic in his own right.

A former northern Californian and Oregonian, Joseph has been teaching, writing, and living in South Korea since 2008.