Every time Beth (Lyndsey Craine) dies - at her own hand - she wakes up in another horror movie. This time, it's a cannibal romantic comedy. And that idea, that Beth wants to die but might learn something from each new film, is a great one. It doesn't come back into this film at all, which is the first of the misfires that this movie commits.

Director and writer Liam Regan, my enthusiasm for this diminished somewhat when a Troma logo came across the screen. As for the story, well, only one student at Henenlotter High School - get it? Get it? The film seems to nudge you; the same school also is the setting of Regan's My Bloody Banjo - can win the "All You Can Eat Massacre" contest and get a handgun of their own with which they can either soot their fellow students or kill themselves.

Yet there may be hope. Beth has a crush on English teacher Miss Campbell (Lala Barlow) which seems to play out as a need to consume human flesh. This is the exact opposite of her vegan ethos yet eating one's enemies is such sweet revenge.

The rest of the film uses teen movie stereotypes from Heathers, Tragedy Girls and Mean Girls to move along its tale of girl cliques and male sexual predators. Of all the imagery and ideas taken by this movie, I liked that one of the female bullies favors Road Warrior Hawk makeup.

The movie - well, the evil teacher Nancy Applegate (Annabella Rich) - refers to Beth as "the millennial product of the American high school trope" and that would be an intriguing meta comment were it not so on the nose. Sure, her mother is dead, she has a horrible stepfather and school sucks, but why does she want to end her existence beyond a "woe is me" attitude? Far be it from me to expect good taste in film, much like exploitation, but I do definitely demand a character who has a reason for their deepest desire, even if it is dying.

If she really wants to live in a movie life that isn't nostalgic horror, why does she play into the same cliches throughout? That motivation is never truly explored. Instead, there are endless references to other movies - if this were a Marvel comic, there'd be an editor note in every panel, cluttering this up with reference upon reference - and can you top this gross-out humor. Trust me, I love humor like that. Lloyd Kaufmann saying "Alex Baldwin" and blowing out his brains is anything but wit.

To be satire, one must have some position from which to state why something is worthy of ridicule, lest it becomes exactly what it is deriding. If you want to make fun of direct-to-video horror, that's not that hard. If you want to make a satire about hot button issues like date rape and teen suicide, go for it. But you better bring your best material. And if this is it, well, I have no interest in seeing what comes next.

Right, well when I sat down to watch this 2022 horror comedy titled "Eating Miss Campbell", from writer and director Liam Regan, I didn't know that it was a Troma movie. And had I known that, I might actually have skipped on the movie entirely.

Luckily I didn't know that it was a Troma movie before I had sat down and started the movie. Thus, as the movie was already playing, I opted to give writer and director Liam Regan the benefit of the doubt. And luckily so, because "Eating Miss Campbell" was actually the best of Troma movies I have stumbled upon, not only in writing and story contents, but most certainly also in production value and most likely thus also in budget. This was actually a proper movie whereas the other Troma projects feel like home video projects.

The storyline in "Eating Miss Campbell", as written by Liam Regan, was strange and bizarre, but in an oddly dark, twisted and entertaining manner. There are just so many really far out there things taking place throughout the 84 minutes that the movie ran for. I enjoyed it and was genuinely entertained by the contents delivered by Liam Regan. However, I think that a movie such as "Eating Miss Campbell" is somewhat of a rather acquired taste and it is not one that will easily cater to everyone in the audience.

The only two performers on the cast list that I was familiar with were Laurence R. Harvey and Lloyd Kaufman himself. However, leading actress Lyndsey Craine really carried the movie quite nicely with her performance as Beth Conner.

Visually then I will say that the effects in the movie were quite good. A fair amount of visceral graphic effects, which I definitely enjoyed.

My rating of "Eating Miss Campbell" lands on a six out of ten stars.