Reviews

Feast

I never was much of a fan of the Project Greenlight series. I saw most of the first season and all I saw was some whiny first time director, a movie being made that I didn’t want to see and the Damon/Affleck collective chain-smoking to the best of their ability. When I heard that the third and final season was about a horror film, I felt nothing but disinterest. Upon saying that, I have been more and more intrigued by this film due to its very limited theatrical release and the mixed reviews it has received.

The plot is simple: a group of losers, roughnecks, and wash-outs are huddled up in a tiny dive bar when a bloodied, yet heroic figure comes bursting through the door with some creature’s head in his hands, warning the patrons of impending doom. From then on it is a 90 minute onslaught of gore, laughs and lots of repeated phrases. As a matter of fact, take a drink for every time someone says “lock it down” or the like, within the first 20 minutes of the film and see how much of a buzz you get.

Feast is most definitely a throw back to a horror genre gone by, with some twists thrown in. I appreciated the fact that there were no digital effects in the film when it came to the makeup and the monsters themselves. There is one particular gimmick throughout the film, used mostly for laughs, in which every character gets a brief dossier. This starts off as fresh, yet tends to grow stale quickly. As a matter of fact there are a lot of laughs in Feast, as hapless victims go one at a time in gruesome and interesting ways, not to mention we are pelted with hammed up dialogue used for the same result. This is very reminiscent of Evil Dead 2 or From Dusk Till Dawn, which I think was the idea.

The cast features a who-gives-a-shit roundup of C to D list stars; some you may recognize (Balthazar Getty, Henry Rollins, Duane Whitaker and Jason Mewes) others you won’t. There are no outstanding performances, but nothing too bad. Actually Rollins is quite funny as a “poor man’s Tony Robbins”, giving shitty motivational speeches at inappropriate times.

First time director John Gulager does understand his genre very well and the film looks great, but at the same time the action is difficult to see in some scenes due to either bad lighting or purposeful quick camera work. I understand that there were budget constraints, but when one is making a monster movie it is usually good to see said monster. Another issue I had is the fact there is no real explanation as to what these creatures are and where they come from. In one particular scene I thought I was going to get my mythological explanation, but was cheated by screenwriters Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton when they had to go and break another convention of horror films. One could argue that Feast is highly original and groundbreaking, but on the other hand I feel it does borrow from some predecessors a little too much, yet tries to come off as original with said gimmickry and their cliché-breaking is to the detriment of the film. Despite all this, Feast is a fun little romp and was entertaining. Perhaps it would be more entertaining if I were drunk and with friends.

As for the DVD specs, the transfer looks nice and clean and only available in Dolby Digital sound. Special features include a standard making of, a feature on the makeup effects, deleted scenes/outtakes and commentary by the main production crew. The DVD is also stamped with the “unrated” banner, but since I didn’t see it in theaters I don’t know of any differences. Knowing from past experience it is more than likely a minute of difference in length.

So take this for what you will, it’s not a great film by any means, but it is fun from a sort of drive-in movie perspective. Check it out with a sixer and I think you’ll be entertained.
5.5/10
George