Austrian filmmaker Peter Hengl might have just given us the first definitive Easter horror film. Whereas previous attempts have relied more on the holiday’s contemporary aesthetics, FAMILY DINNER, Hengl’s debut feature, purposefully structures its tale of psychological horror during the Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday.

Simi (Nina Katlein) is a plus-sized 15-year-old who decides to visit her Aunt Claudia (Pia Hierzegger) in the countryside to spend the holidays with her and her family, consisting of her cousin Filipp (Alexander Sladek) as well as Filipp’s stepdad, Stefan (Michael Pink). Aunt Claudia is a famous author who has written several books about weight loss and nutrition. When Simi asks Claudia to help her lose weight, her Aunt is at first reluctant to do so, explaining to Simi that it’s a serious undertaking. Nevertheless, she eventually agrees.

What exactly is Claudia’s weight-loss regiment? Well, she tells Simi that she will need to fast for the entire week until Sunday – that means absolutely no food outside of water. Once Sunday comes around, she will then be put on a low-calorie diet. Claudia even gives her a pendant to wear, telling her to hold it tightly whenever she feels hungry, and the hunger will eventually go away like magic.

If it sounds like overkill, that’s because it almost certainly is. But it’s an effective storytelling structure for several reasons. By giving Simi a specific goal, the film’s pacing never feels as though we’re simply passing the time until the inevitable climax on Easter Sunday. And this goal is tied to the film’s themes of body image and the ways in which people control or manipulate how we think or feel about our own bodies.

In terms of its setup, FAMILY DINNER treads on familiar genre territory. Our central character traveling alone to visit quirky family members in the middle of nowhere and realizing things aren’t what she was expecting has admittedly been done before. But what helps Hengl’s film to stand out is its deliberate plotting and characterization.

Take Filipp for instance: when we’re introduced to him, he’s hostile and crude towards Simi, often mocking her weight. In many ways, it would appear Claudia coddles him, cutting up his food for him into perfect pieces and bringing him glasses of water before bed. But Filipp tells Simi that his mother hates him and he doesn’t want to live with them anymore.

Stefan, on the other hand, immediately starts treating Simi like a member of the household, while his dislike towards his stepson is not the least bit subtle. Since the stakes are not immediately clear and motivations continue to shift, the time that we spend with these characters stays engaging throughout.

FAMILY DINNER takes its time to reveal itself, laying out its clues and then gradually picking away at the darker implications behind why these characters are acting the way they do. There isn’t so much of a “twist” to be found here as much as there is a final blow. So much time is spent building up to its climax that, when it finally arrives, it’s less about shocking us with a bombastic finale and more about reaffirming what our worst fears have been all along.

Some horror fans may take issue with this, as the whole thing is very much a waiting game, but that would be ignoring the stately craftsmanship on display here. It works because there’s a level of attention going on in the storytelling that’s rare these days in the genre space, commanding our concentration at every turn. And our cast is aces across the board, which is crucial for a character-driven chiller such as this.

We’ve seen recent films like Ari Aster’s Midsommar explore what it’s like to experience strange rituals as an outsider. In setting the film around Easter, a holiday rooted in traditions such as fasting, Hengl smartly intertwines religious lore with modern concerns about body positivity with this confident, unnerving feature. With FAMILY DINNER, he has left us hungry to see what he cooks up next.

FAMILY DINNER had its world premiere at Tribeca on June 10th, 2022.