Feast is a film I’ve been waiting a while to see. I was a big fan of The Project Green Light episodes in which followed first time director John Gulager in the hardships of dealing with a Hollywood studio and making this film. Gulager bought life to the show, and I admired the way he fought so hard to get the picture done the way he wanted it done. We all know that he didn’t entirely get his way, but in the end I have to say that Feast turned out to be one great monster movie.
Feast is your basic good time horror film full of guts and gore. It’s a basic film set mainly in one location, a bar in the middle of nowhere to be exact. The film is basically about a bunch of locals who hang out in this run down bar in the middle of the Californian desert. Their all minding their business doing what they all do best, when some guy bursts into the bar holding a shotgun, covered in blood. He then explains that their are these flesh eating creatures after him and that they all must work together lock down the bar and fight these creatures. That is until one of the flesh eating creatures (Spoiler alert) reaches though the bar window and bites his head off, a few minutes later, his wife walks in and this time the local bar crew believes the story, and they start to take action and begin to lock down the place. However not all goes as planned as the creatures find their way into the bar and begin to take out people in the bar one by one. The story then goes into a survival of the smartest story line with a battle between man and beast.
I have to admit after watching Project Green Light, I really was not sure how well Feast was going to turn out. However the script was a solid and it gave birth to a great humorous horror film. Feast is not just full of blood and guts, it does have it comical moments as well, and in all it’s glory does remind me of a high budgeted creature feature. The film that honestly came to mind was “From Dusk Till Dawn” that would be the best way to describe the look of this film. If you were a fan of that film you’ll be able to appreciate the look of Feast. I do think however that Feast was a lot more violent in terms of what the creatures did to their victims. There are actually some shocking death scenes that were unexpected. I don’t want to spoil the shocking scene by giving it away, however it made one of the characters in the film stand out more and developed her into a more solid and interesting figure in the film. Feast is violent, bloody and just plan gross, but I loved every minute of it.
The overall acting was not half bad, coming from a first time director, you’d kind of expect that the performances might be all over the place or stiff, But I think Gulager did a good job in explaining the characters to his actors and helped them bring their characters to life. It’s kind of hard to really pick out who is the real lead in this film until the very end of the movie, as it seems the cast as a whole was the main focus of the script instead of their being a main focus on just one particular character.
The special effects were very good, there was not much CGI, in fact I’m not really sure if there was any at all. Most of it seemed to be just straight up make-up effects and plenty of fake blood and guts to go around. The creature costumes looked great, and the art & costume department did a great job designing the creature suites and creating the great sets.
Overall, I am very happy that Feast turned out to be a good film. It’s great to see that an unknown director made a horror film that the fans can enjoy. Sure the movie may be a bit campy at times, but I had a blast watching it. The DVD also includes deleted scenes, outtakes and a few documentaries about the making of the film. Feast will be released on DVD on October 17th, 2006.
– Horror Bob
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