Feast (2005)

Truly Dreadful Film

Pretty Good

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the more extreme and wild horror-comedies of the past twenty years, "Feast" is a sight to behold for fans of horror and extreme cinema. It's filled to burst with virtually everything fans crave... sex, drugs and blood by the bucket full. But what sets it apart is also its frantic and frenetic energy, a great sense of self-awareness and its charming and rampant use of humor and subversion, as it bends and breaks every rule and cliché you've come to expect from the genre. It's absolutely phenomenal entertainment, and as its cult audience will attest to, it's essentially horror-comedy nirvana.The product of the third season of the reality series "Project Greenlight", "Feast" is a wild tribute to creature features courtesy the screen writing duo of Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, and director John Gulager. Melton and Dunstan have become minor icons in the horror community over the past ten years. Their success with this film lead them to contribute to the wickedly popular "Saw" franchise (writing four of the films) and to work on other well- known releases like "The Collector." And it is very interesting to see their wicked and unrestrained roots in this film. Their sharp sense of pacing and comedy are a bit factor in its success. It's top-notch stuff for the tonality they are trying to accomplish with its layers of subversion and double-crossing expectations.We follow a group of various characters from different walks of life who are lounging around a bar, drinking one night. Suddenly, the door is kicked in and an armed man bursts inside, warning them of an approaching threat and showing them the disembodied head of a freakish monster he claims to have slain. Just as suddenly, he is decapitated by one of those same mysterious beasts, leaving the bar- patrons (and his girlfriend who shows up later) in absolute shock and panic. And thus, the stage is set for an action-packed freakshow of scares and laughs as this motley crew must try and survive the night while under siege from these mysterious creatures.With a cast featuring everyone from the likes of veteran actor Clu Gulager (father of director John) to comedy icons like Judah Friedlander and Jason Mewes to actor/comedian Henry Rollins, the performances are widely varied and give us plenty of fun and sharp characters to root for (or against) during the runtime. It has such a wealth of personalities to follow, and it wisely gives everyone just enough time to be properly established. Especially when each character is introduced with amusing text-based intros that include their nickname and even their "life expectancy." It's a fun gimmick that lends a bit of flavor to the proceedings.Director John Gulager has a very untamed visual style in his work. He relishes in fast-paced cutting, broad establishment and gritty, hand-held camera-work. It lends itself quite well to the story. It's a visceral experience through and through, and the sort-of unrestrained aesthetic he injects helps the story pick up the pace and never let up throughout. And while it can occasionally be confusing with his use of close-ups and shaky cinematography, I actually thought this was one of the few films where it really worked to its advantage. We're following characters who don't have the slightest of clues as to what's happening... and often, the direction lends to us feeling that fear and paranoia because we never quite see everything perfectly. It also really helps the dark humor hit home splendidly as it comes so unexpected.While I could nit-pick some of the shakier performances, leaps in logic and wonky establishment of the rules, the fact of the matter remains: "Feast" fundamentally not only accomplishes what it sets out to... it exceeds and excels. It quickly builds the pacing. It piles on the laughs and scares at a mile-a-minute. It supplies us with an easily identifiable group of characters you want to root for. And it delivers the good ten-fold. It's one of the most original and refreshing horror-comedies I've seen in quite some time, and to me, it's up there with the likes of "Evil Dead II" and "Cabin in the Woods" as one of the best of the best.I give it a very strong 9 out of 10. If you like horror... If you like comedy... If you like goo and gore... This is absolutely a must-see.

Mr. Clu Culager, one of the most gifted and underrated actors of the screen, delivers an absolutely stunning performance under the direction of his director-son, John. The teaming of these two talents results in a very inspired, unique horror film, in which Clu Culager does some of his best work. The story is overwhelming in its intensity and the suspense starts from the first shots of the motion picture and never lets up for even a second. Culager has described the creative process of acting as painful and it is no wonder when you put your heart and soul and all you are into a role as he does in this piece. John Culager certainly demonstrates through his direction that incredible talent runs in the family and there is an obvious mutual respect between father and son that breathes fire into one of the finest horror films to be produced in many years. The standard Clu Culager set at the beginning of his career and which he has demonstrated as of the highest caliber in role after role has not faded with time, in fact growing even more superb in essence as the years pass.

(a) Find somewhere comfy to watch this (b) Take your brain out and put it somewhere where it won't have to think much (c) Crack open the popcorn (or 'comfort food' substitute) (d) Enjoy'Feast' is just about the most low-brow film you're ever likely to see. It's also one of the best. The plot is simple... monsters attack a bar at night. Those inside must fight for their life.Nothing new there, but it's still fun. Every movie should know what it is before it's filmed. If it's a drama, it should stay a drama. Same goes for comedy, sci-fi and the rest. This film knows it's not serious and it plays to its (black humour) strengths. It takes great pride in defying the usual horror/monster movie conventions and breaks them in the most grisly and bl00dy fashion.It's totally dumb fun and should become any horror fan's guilty pleasure movies. If you're looking for 'deep and meaningful' you won't find it here, so move on. I refer to my opening statements – remove brain and enjoy it as much as I did (I'm now off to find where I left my brain now it's over... or I could leave it where it is and watch Feast 2 and 3 while I'm at it?).http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/

This one is another stinker, a flick just as bad as Bad Santa, but also one that I had to review for two, rather three, reasons. First, everything is bad here, or at least mediocre, so it could well be slated as a mandatory viewing for film students, so they'll have a good inventory of everything they'll have to avoid while doing their own flicks. Second, as it happened with BS, there was an excellent idea for a plot here but, contrary to BS's producers--who were obviously aware they could rise the brow level of the thing a few notches, but which they didn't do, either because of intellectual laziness or they just thought it could damage its chances in an too-easy-to-content market—these ones here were completely oblivious to the fact that there was actually a good film there, somewhere. Think Michael Moore...The third thing is, I have seen so much praise upon it here that I saw as my moral duty to set things straight by saying, yes, this is a real stinko; period.Plot line: a dozen people are besieged in a rat hole of a bar in the midst of the Arizona desert by a "family" of beasts who seem to have originated in some genetics experiment gone wrong--a weird mix of cattle, coyote and even a bit, it seems, of an intelligent biped well known to us--where they are killed one by one while they try the most hare-brained schemes to escape. The stupidity of the whole plot appears clear considering that these losers are trapped in the best possible place to execute an easy, slick, escape. See: Bar, alcohol, fire...do these words mean anything to them? Absolutely no; instead, they spend their time and energies firing wildly, randomly, their guns to no avail, while the monsters laugh at them--with the only exception of the family baby, which almost requires a M-1 to trespass--all this while anyone with half a brain could have told them they just needed big torches & cocktails Molotov; then they get out holding the torches in a protective ring around them, ready to throw the Molotovs at any beast trying to break in (the beasts got to fear fire, as fire has the nasty habit of breaking organic matter into basic chemical components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc). That's why I said Moore would have gone nuts with such a script as he would have seen it as a masterfully comment on the fixation of his countrymen with guns, as all what these people get by firing them is making their situation worse. On top of that, those who finally escape do it without firing a shot. Did I say Moore would have gone nuts with such a plot, as it shows that people obsessed with guns develop a tunnel vision, become single minded and dumb? But those who made the flick weren't certainly thinking about it, or they didn't even want to have anything to do with such an idea, which is even worse.Then there is the cinematographic work itself, where everything is bad or putrid, in first place the direction. When you have a dozen or more characters shown at the beginning with a presentation card you have to be a really great filmmaker to get away with it and the characters have to be really memorable. But Gulager is not Leone and Feast is not GBU, so the effect is completely the opposite: we lose all interest in following, exploring, these characters, we disconnect ourselves from them and just expect them to follow their cues. This is not a bad idea after all, considering that a) they are unlikable, even more so in the midst of a crisis and b) There is no real character development here; the mean of the beginning will keep mean to the end and so the coward, the disenchanted, the cynic, the opportunist, etc. Just cardboard cuts, nothing more, with hip aliases to boot: Boss Man, Harley Mom, you get the idea. As there is no real script either--just a chaotic sequence of random acts of violence verbal or physical, and plentiful display of gore—there is neither a plot development to speak of, or a pace, or even a mood or atmosphere. Horrible things keep happening, that's all. About the camera work, the only thing you can say about it is that it will always be in the best possible spot to catch the gore and violence in all their beauty and glory—guy gets eye gouged out; gal gets, ahem, molested by a beast; gal gets her leg amputated, and so on. You only need to be aware that all this is just special effects to get yourself completely numb to these scenes, which is the easiest thing to do after all considering that everything is bad, so there's never ever, real Suspension of Disbelief to speak of here.If you are a regular viewer, don't waste your time watching this one; better use those 93 min. doing something more pleasurable--like picking a fight with your Black Belt holding neighbor for ex. Now, if you are really interested in film making, do yourself a favor and watch it, study it, because in it you'll find everything you must NOT do if you ever want to become successful.BTW, why I'm not surprised to see that those who praise Feast to the skies also consider that Evil Dead crapfest a masterpiece?