Hemet, or the Landlady Don’t Drink Tea

A Grotesque Fairy Tale gone Rancid, and Inmistakably American.

“Hemet, or the Landlady Don’t Drink Tea,” directed by Tony Olmos, begins in a small county town in Southern California named Hemet, where we’re introduced to a handful of bizarre characters with a humorous yet unsettling air.

Like many small towns, Hemet seems at first glance a pleasant place to build a quiet life—but as we soon learn, such places often make the perfect breeding ground for perversion.

It rather follows the “Eddington” trend, where history and narrative are so jumbled that clarity is a lost cause.

It doesn’t take long before we realise something dreadful is devouring this community—quite literally—through cannibalism.

The flaw here lies in how little of that horror we actually see; it’s almost obscured by its own chaotic plot. Yet the nonsensical dialogue offers teasing glimpses of the madness beneath, punctuated by moments that are both funny and gleefully gory.

For a low-budget film, “Hemet” absolutely nails that grimy, fascinating aesthetic. Olmos’ direction works hand-in-hand with cinematography that shifts fluidly from naturalistic outdoor light to cleverly stylised interiors within the town’s crumbling homes.

Editing and cuts carry a distinct 1980s flavour, fully embracing the absurdist, darkly comic tone the film strives for. The SFX are done on a shoestring, but somehow that suits it perfectly.

The acting is both solid and amusing, keeping you hooked right through to the end.

Unquestionably, “Hemet” feels like a post-pandemic allegory—an echo of the fears that haunted us then and still hunts us now.

Rents keep rising, wages keep falling, and the homeless stalk the streets—sometimes, it seems, literally in search of people to eat. The infamous “zombie substance” pandemic certainly hasn’t done the unhoused any favours.

It’s one of those films that’s hard to wrap your head around. There’s no central plot as such, yet multiple threads weave in and out of each other, converging towards an inevitable, chaotic climax.

The story goes more or less where you expect, yet the route it takes is anything but predictable. It’s the sort of film that leaves you asking: what the hell did I just watch?

“Hemet, or the Landlady Don’t Drink Tea” is a strange, offbeat slab of cinematic weirdness that could only come from the truly independent corners of filmmaking.

Director Tony Olmos, along with writer Brian Patrick Butler (who also plays the most iconic and enigmatic nasty-lady, Liz Topham-Myrtle—watch it to embrace her twisted charm), have crafted a fun flick so-bad-it’s-good with a very particular own peculiar charm.

Horror, comedy, and social drama all mix together, creating a fun yet unsettling mirror on society.

A grotesque fairy tale with flavour—and a dash of torture porn, “Hemet” plays strictly by its own rules and demands that you meet it on those terms throwrad paranoids against others.

“Hemet, or the Landlady Don’t Drink Tea” is one mean-spirited, absurdly surreal fairy tale set in a world uncomfortably close to our own, despite being so utterly deranged.

Yes, it’s allegorical as hell. The lens may be warped and wavering, but the message comes through loud and clear—and it’s not exactly uplifting.

For that reason, the film remains oddly relatable, even as it careens completely off the rails in its third act and becomes a full-blown horror show.

“Hemet, or the Landlady Don’t Drink Tea” won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but for those who understand just how spectacularly screwed America is.

It offers a biting wit and chaotic social context that’s hard to deny. Overall, an entertaining and fun watch.