Most serious historians consider the myth of Sawney Bean to be exactly that - a myth , someone who never existed and a dark fairytale . It's interesting that people who consider Bean to be based in reality can't agree on where he lived . Some say he lived in Ayrshire whilst others say he lived in Galloway . If you can't even agree on where someone is supposedly to have lived that might tell you something . No one said films had to be realistic especially horror films and this movie uses a premise of " What if a descendant of Sawney was living amongst us in present day Scotland " and from the opening titles reality goes right out of the window

It's not so much the lazy exposition of using captions and voice over that's the problem but feels the need to end it on a long mega laugh out loud that wouldn't feel out of place in a pantomime but if you're expecting high camp you're going to be disappointed if not alienated down to the lack of humour and excess of graphic gore . The action then cuts to a Doctor being driven through the snow clad mountains of the Scottish Highlands of 1990 . Right so the Sawney descendants of Ayrshire / Galloway have relocated to the Highlands ? You can guarantee that no matter what it'll never be revealed why Sawney's descendants have left their ancestral home . The Doctor is supposedly about to deliver a baby to a woman hooded and tied to a giant wooden cross but doesn't get to do this because the man who drove him there pulls out a shotgun and shoots him . So someone went to all the trouble of getting a Doctor to deliver a baby and then shooting him without delivering a baby . It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense but since we're now two minutes in to the running time things can only improve . Except they don't because we're treated to abysmal acting and a plot full of holes and contrivance such as busy city centre streets not having any CCTV cameras

Where the film does deserve some credit is for its cinematography and for a film that obviously didn't cost a fortune it does give the proceedings a haunted bleak feel , so much so it makes VALHALLA RISING seem like a musical comedy . However this is often negated by performances that give the impression the cast are reading out their shopping list . The only exception to this is David Hayman who thinks he's appearing as a villain in a pantomime . Sawney is also portrayed as a religious Scottish maniac but for some reason no one thinks of asking him if he's a Catholic cannibal or a Protestant cannibal . Now that takes some swallowing

SAWNEY: FLESH OF MAN is another stab at low budget torture porn, made with maximum relish. The director seems to be trying to make this film as grisly and unpleasant as is humanly (and inhumanly) possible, and he certainly succeeds in that. But while in horror terms he summons up an appropriately oppressive atmosphere, in terms of scripting and narrative this is a complete dud.

The legend of Sawney Bean is a classic slice of Scottish folklore that's interested me for a long while. I've even visited the locales where he and his clan were supposed to live, so when I heard about this film I was eager to see it. What a shame, then, that Bean is reduced to such a typical cannibal killer with nothing to distinguish him from the bad guys of a dozen low rent American slasher flicks.

The film deserves kudos for casting the creepy and imposing David Hayman as the titular killer, but then proceeds to waste him for the entire running time, filling his mouth with B-movie lines. The plot involves one character ending up in his clutches, then someone goes looking for the first and becomes the next victim, and so on. Realising how thin that plot is, the writer throws in the most predictable 'twist villain' ever, alongside a random monster, but none of these elements makes this film anything more than completely forgettable. No story, no merit...

According to British folklore, Sawney Bean was the head of a 48-strong Scottish clan executed for murder and cannibalism in the 15th or 16th century. This movie posits that one member somehow escaped justice and that descendants of the Bean clan still live in the highlands, living in a network of caves, feeding on human flesh. Investigating a spate of recent grisly murders, reporter Hamish MacDonald (Samuel Feeney) unravels the horrifying truth...

Although the film suffers from a few pacing issues, with proceedings getting bogged down somewhat by Hamish's tedious investigative process, Sawney: Flesh of Man features just enough OTT gore and sporadic bouts of craziness to ensure that the film is an entertaining ride regardless. Sawney is played with relish by David Hayman and he is a delightfully slimy character, slurping blood off his still writhing victims, sexually gratifying himself with a victim's severed hand (before finishing the job by raping a female prisoner),and gleefully hacking up corpses, while the other demented characters in the clan include a cannibalistic dwarf, a pair of deformed brothers adept at parkour, and their monstrous mother who is fed spare body parts drenched in blood.

Twisted highlights include an exciting chase scene through the rugged Scottish landscape that culminates with a girl choosing suicide over capture, an unfortunate traffic warden being buggered by one of the Bean brothers, a brief cocaine-fuelled martial arts scene (I kid ye not),and a ridiculous finalé in which one member of the flesh-eating family produces a machine gun and begins blasting away at poor Hamish (who is still reeling from seeing his girlfriend's severed head in a fridge). Also worthy of note is the excellent cinematography, which captures the untamed Scottish wilderness in all it's rugged glory and looks like it comes from a much more prestigious production.