Thursday, July 23

Some thoughts on Feast (2005)

You know, this is just some leaky barrel, radiation, toxic dump waste, enviro-crap, freak-beast accident that crawled out of the sewer, man. That's all this is.

I like many of you thought this would be a trainwreck while watching Project Greenlight 3. John Gulager was/is a big whiny prima donna, the show made it at least appear a grueling shoot, and financial clouds constantly seemed to loom. I was generally surprised by the end product the first go around, but revisiting it yesterday I found myself a little less enthused with this "feast."

There's a lot of clever fun here and this is all familiar stuff done well. Gulager turns little conventions on their heads like destroying the expectations of ol' character archetypes; heroes don't survive, badasses are torn asunder, and Henry Rollins ends up in pink tights. The monsters have their own unspoken mythos that remains as mysterious to the viewer as the terrified bar patrons. From the creature's dead animal adornments, the rearing of their beastly offspring, to the spitting of slime that appears to have a patented rot action. Speaking of which, Judah Friedlander certainly gets the shit end of the stick on this deal. Much of the runtime the man's perpetually slimed with a wellspring of maggoty hair and gory wounds to boot. Though the character's final seconds of screen time are hilarious. Gulager does self indulge with the casting of his wife, but who can't forgive with her winding up a face-raped explosive device?

If I had to gripe (you know I always do), the climax quickly becomes far too chaotic. By my count, there's two adult feasties and one "baby." I know one eats about fifteen shotgun butt sandwiches, but I can only assume the other gets a bear trap headache? It's sadly jumbled and the last demon child simply vanishes. Though judging by Project Greenlight, the rush was on during these later sequences. Feast is a textbook splattery crowd-pleaser, it's comfort food for genreheads, speeding by with a briskness that sheens over its faults in darkened theaters. If only it had gotten a wide release...

Do I need to see the sequels one day, anyone?
.

4 comments:

Rick Bman said...

Avoid the sequels at all costs. I watched the first sequel and it was such a waste of time.

said...

The sequels had punk lesbian bikers and midget luchadors yet somehow they went so wrong...

Ryan Coddington said...

The second is tolerable, but still not good. And the third is just horrible. Pass on them unless you have a case of beer and some friends with you.

Abigail said...

ya watche em. i got a kick.

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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