Summary:
Bar patrons face off against bloodthirsty aliens.
My Thoughts:
I’m a horror fan, and as a horror fan I’ve come to realize that horror movies typically get a pseudo-pass from me when it comes to demanding quality. I can enjoy a wonderfully crafted atmospheric masterpiece (“Rosemary’s Baby”, “The Witch”); I can enjoy something that has a few horribly schlocky aspects but also a few cool ideas (“Silent Hill”, “Phenomena”); but I also can enjoy movies that just throw an hour and a half of mindless, gory violence at me in the name of entertainment (“Dawn of the Dead” (2004), “Grindhouse Presents: Planet Terror”). This is just a genre I enjoy, and “Feast” while it might be middling in terms of quality, is pretty top notch in terms of entraining splatter films.
Feast starts off in the bar where we spend the duration of the film. The camera dances around the room, introducing us to a number of different characters with freeze frames that give us little character descriptions such as guessing which characters will live the longest, providing a bit of insight into their backstory, and sometimes providing a little humor. The character descriptions freeze frame thing half worked for me; there were moments where it was pretty funny- like when we get a freeze frame on Jason Mewes (“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”) and it informs us he’s an actor named Jason Mewes. Other times, when the film stopped to give us another freeze frame for some other character, I wondered how long the gag was going to be dragged on.
The writers seemed to think that displaying brief character descriptions worked in lieu of showing any kind character development for almost all of the characters in this movie, which, I honestly didn’t think was that big of a deal. This is a creature feature, and most of the people in the movie are simply fodder for the slaughter, however, it would’ve been nice to have at least one or two characters that sort of stood out from the noise; just saying “This is the Protagonist” doesn’t make me connect with a character.
While the writing was only middling, the slaughter in this film was glorious. This movie has more than enough gore in it to sate fans of the “Evil Dead” movies or splatter comedies like “Dead Alive”. Coming hot off the heels of watching “It Chapter 2” in theaters, I was shocked by how much better/scarier the rougher, grittier gore effects looked in this film vs the super polished, super clean CGI monsters in “It”. I personally, would much rather have something messy and gross and gory like what we see in this film, than I would see a HUGE CGI spider running around on the ceiling of a cave. Maybe it’s just my personal preference, but horror films need to feel tactile and believable, and while sometimes the effects in this movie lend the creature to look like a dude in a poorly-lit rubber suit (which it is), it still looks a thousand times more convincing than something I know for certain isn’t even there. While this film might fail to even aspire to rise about the level of ‘Fun splatter flick’, it does accomplish what it sets out to accomplish: it’s a gory, sometimes funny, sometimes spooky film with enough deaths to satisfy even the gore-hungriest of us all.
Verdict:
If you go into this film expecting a fun creature feature with a few great kills and a few funny moments, then you probably wont be disappointed in “Feast.” I personally really enjoyed my time locked in that hellish bar with the doomed patrons, but I know that it wasn’t a particularly compelling flick either. If you want something thought provoking, something that lingers long after the credits have wrapped up, know that this is not that film. If you’re just looking for a good way to kill an hour and a half, then by all means, dig in to Feast.
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