Feast (2005) Review
You know how it is…you’re sat in a bar minding your own business, overhearing inane conversation from the lowlifes frequenting the venue that evening, when all of a sudden a bloodied hunk of a man burst through the door. Only in this set-up the hunk in question is not going to be the man that saves the day from the very hungry monsters about to converge upon the premises. No sir! Director John Gulager is looking to subvert the standard and take us on an entertaining rollercoaster ride where the pecking order of characters may not be as obvious as it may first seem.
Executive produced by the likes of Ben Affleck, Matt Damon (why can I not hear that name without thinking of how he spoke in Team America: World Police?) and horror legend Wes Craven, amongst others, Feast won Gulager Best Director at 2005’s Fantastic Fest but that meant nothing to paying audiences where it barely saw a return on its investment only to pick up speed on its home rental release, become a cult favourite and spawn two sequels to date – Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds (2007) and Feast 3: The Happy Finish (2009).
Director John Gulager co-wrote Feast (and its sequels) with Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (better known for their risible work with the Saw franchise) and he does a pretty good job of making a movie that even an old fart of a movie critic like me sits up and pays attention to.
From the initial opening scenes whereby every character in the bar is accompanied by on-screen blurb saying who they are, what they’ve done and their chances of survival are, to the surprises in terms of who gets munched and who survives Gulager’s film isn’t quite as neat and funny as it thinks itself to be. That’s not to say that for its short running time Feast doesn’t entertain it just falls short of where it’s trying to be.
Where he does score points is in the casting especially by getting his dad Clu Gulager – who we all know from the rather wonderful Return of the Living Dead (1985) – as the venue’s barman. He knows how to play for black laughs and gets them. Elsewhere the cast is agreeable and the film knows not to outstay its welcome given its limited location and premise – a bunch of people holed up in a bar in the middle of nowhere as monsters attempt to make snack food of them.
The real star of the movie is Eileen Ryan as “Grandma” whose alcohol consumption and constant smoking throughout the bloody chaos is a delight to watch. And having her retreat to a walk-in fridge whilst everything kicks off is a neat touch it’s just a shame they had to bring her back for an unsatisfying last shot.
Feast is a nice shot at blending laughs with liberal splashes of gore – including an amputated monster willy that won’t stop twitching – that falls short of being completely satisfactory by having too much fun sniggering at its own assumed smartness.
