I do like a good siege movie. Night of the Living Dead and Assault on Precinct 13 being among my favorites. Feast isn’t as remotely sophisticated or thoughtful as those films can be, but it’s an absolute riot of a siege movie.
Trapped in a remote tavern, a group of strangers must unite for survival. Outside the bar, a horde of ravenous, flesh-eating monsters try to break in and dine on the frightened humans inside.
Feast got a leg up by having executive producers like Wes Craven, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck. It’s possible that extra backing helped shape it into something more palatably silly.
It’s a film that quickly lets you know if you will enjoy it, but it makes hard work of endearing itself. Everyone is unlikeable, the camera shakes so much it causes migraines, and it uses a particularly unpleasant shade of orangey brown. But John Gulager’s movie is like a scrappy stock car of a horror movie. It strips out all the bits it doesn’t want or need to ensure we get a (blood)slick engine of gore-soaked creature carnage and nothing more.
A lot of what sells Feast happens early on. The tone is set with plenty of meta nods to the kind of movie it is, with survival probability rates displayed for characters as they are introduced (including one that accurately tells us when a character will die). Several swerves occur regarding who the main protagonist appears to be, and the gnarly monsters like to showcase just how hungry they are for human flesh.
Feast or Famine?
It could be argued the movie never gets better than the splattery chaos of those opening minutes, a missile barrage of crude language, bloody violence, and the dumbest bunch of people alive, most soon dead. But the stupid train keeps rolling on.
A few notable names in the cast raise the levels of acting ever so slightly. 30 Rock’s Judah Friedlander, musician Henry Rollins, and Jason Mewes of Jay & Silent Bob fame give you an idea of the tone at least. The scattershot approach to the cast’s survival chances makes it an all-bets-are-off deal on who might be brutally eviscerated in the next five seconds.
As the siege goes on and numbers are dwindled, Feast keeps chucking more kindling onto the fire with an upping of the ante for the climactic fight. It’s a cacophony of sex and blood that may not resemble anything coherent, but never let it be said Feast leaves anything behind in its bulging box of classic horror tricks.
Understandably, sequels were made, but they would never top the maniacal nonsense of this splatterfest.
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