I've been hearing about Feast for a long while now. I know I'm late to the party on this - one friend of mine has probably recommended it to me a half-dozen times over the last five years. And really, it's right in my wheelhouse - it's a semi-goofy, gruesome, and above all fun monster flick. Feast is laugh-out-loud funny at times, and has more than a few surprises up it's sleeve for the creature feature fan.
Our introduction to the characters is done in a pretty unique way - they will freeze frame on a person, then flash some pertinent info about them. For example:
Name: Bozo
Job: Not Likely
Occupation: Town Jackass
Life Expectancy: Dead by Dawn
Name: Hero
Occupation: Kicking Ass
Life Expectancy: Pretty Fucking Good
Feast is the sort of movie that knows you've seen these horror movie scenarios play out hundreds of times. No one outright winks at the camera or anything, but this is definitely a post-modern horror film - not as meta- as Scream or Cabin in the Woods, but definitely enough to intentionally mess with your expectations.
Shortly after we're introduced to our diverse crew of a dozen or so people hanging out in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere, a bloodied man bursts in the door, carrying the head of a strange creature. He's warning everybody about the horrific beasts that are waiting for them outside, and how they need to barricade themselves in if they want to live. Then all hell breaks loose. The rest of the movie is these bar patrons trying to escape the bar and the wrath of these hungry monsters... who want to turn them into a Feast! (Sorry.)
It's a really well directed film. Director John Gulager (son of Clu, who is excellent as the bartender here) shoots with a lot of energy - the monster attack scenes are all frenetic and fast paced. The tone of this movie is a little too goofy to have a lot of legitimate tension, so they play more like good action sequences as opposed to anything that can muster up a sense of dread. And in these "group of people trapped in a " movies, the filmmakers really need to convey a good sense of the physical space - and Gulager does that very well in Feast. You always knew where the characters and the rooms are the in relation to each other, how the exterior of the bar related to the interior, and so on.
The gore is excellent. A lot of the time, it's the type that will make you wince and laugh at the same time (Honey Pie (Jenny Wade) checking on Beer Guy's (Judah Friedlander) eye injury being the best example of this). The gore/splatter effects were solid across the board, and they are plentiful. The monsters look pretty good too. You don't really see them until the end (up until then they are just wearing the skins/furs of the things they killed). I wanted a little better understanding of just what they were, but I understand why that was left out. It makes sense that a bunch of people trapped in a bar wouldn't have access to that information, and you might as well save the explanation for later. I'm already looking forward to parts 2 & 3.
And typing out the character names above made me realize that no-one in this movie has an actual name. Besides Jason Mewes, who very meta-ly plays "Jason Mewes, Occupation: Actor." But other than that, just about everyone is playing slight variations on stereotypes that you know and love from countless other monster flicks.
It's well acted and very well cast through and through. Feast is really quite the ensemble piece, but I feel like special mention must be made of Duane Whitaker as Boss Man. He plays the role as a sort of coked-up Boss Hog, and was fun in just about every scene he was in. Also, I would be remiss not to mention that Henry Rollins is also here as a motivational speaker, doing an entertaining riff on his "angry ranty guy" persona.
I don't want to give too much away. It's a pretty straightforward story (people stuck in bar attacked by vicious bloodthirsty beasts), but the execution is great. It's gory and goofy and over the top in all the right ways. If you haven't seen it and dig monster movies, don't wait five years after someone tells you it's awesome to check it out.
I would highly recommend this film.
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