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Feast
DVD/APPROX. 92 MINS/2006/USA UNRATED
DVD/APPROX. 92 MINS/2006/USA UNRATED
8
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For those who don't know the origins of the movie FEAST, I'll do a quick recap here. It all began with the show PROJECT GREENLIGHT (which
aired on the American cable TV-channel BRAVO), wherein actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck choose a script and a director from a competition, and
then the show follows the director as he takes the film from script to screen. The show lasted three seasons. The first two seasons resulted in
small art house movies that frankly sounded pretty lame. So, for the third season, they decided to try to make a genre picture that might make
actually make a profit. Filmmaker John Gulager, who up to this time had mainly just directed some short movies, was given the chance to direct a
feature film. The script chosen was FEAST, written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton.
Gulager had problems throughout the film's production, first with the budget, then with trying to get various family members and his girlfriend in
the cast (almost everyone related to him seems to be an actor). Once the film was actually made, against all odds, the studio that backed it,
Miramax, ceased to exist and there was a chance the movie might never see the light of day. But somehow it was released briefly to theaters in
some U.S. cities before going to DVD (it's due out in the U.S. on October 17, 2006).
After all of the obstacles that stood in its way, it's amazing this film was ever completed. And since I was a fan of Gulager's season of Project
Greenlight (the first season of the show that was actually watchable!), I really wanted to see the final result. Gulager definitely seemed like an
underdog throughout this story, trying to make the movie his way, and getting thwarted at almost every turn (and almost getting fired once or
twice along the way).
The final cast includes Gulager's father, Clu Gulager, as a crusty Bartender, and his girlfriend Diane Goldner as a biker chick ("Harley Mama" in the
credits). So those are two victories for Gulager's struggles. The rest of the cast includes a motivational speaker called Coach (punk icon Henry
Rollins), a thuggish bar patron named Bozo (Balthazar Getty), and a middle-aged waitress who discovers her heroic side, named Tuffy (Krista Allen,
who has done everything from Emmanuel soft-core films early in her career to tons of television credits from CSI to Smallville, but who I first
discovered in the HBO show Unscripted). There’s also a guy in a wheelchair called Hot Wheels (Josh Zuckerman), a sleazy bar owner (Duane
Whitaker) a younger waitress who wants to be an actress named Honey Pie (Jenny Wade), a beer delivery guy who gets spit on by the monsters
and slowly starts to mutate (Judah Friedlander), and an old woman barfly named Grandma (Eileen Ryan), who’s there for comic relief. There's even
Jason Mewes (Jay from CLERKS) as a fictional version of himself - an out-of-work actor named Jason Mewes !- who’s' one of the first people to die.
So now you're up to speed. What's the movie about? Well, it's simple enough. A bunch of people in a bar suddenly get thrust into a nightmare
when a lantern-jawed guy shows up with a sawed-off shotgun and tells them that a group of monsters is outside, and is going to try to kill them.
It turns out this heroic-looking guy and his wife accidentally hit a monster with their car out in the desert, and were attacked. Somehow they were
able to last this long, but they've come to the bar for help, with the monsters in hot pursuit. So it's just these people's tough luck that now they
have to fight for their lives.
The motley crew of patrons then gets put in a situation where some will live and some will die.
The monsters themselves are never explained, which is probably a good thing, because then we never have to get caught up in origins that don't
make sense. The actual violence in the movie is filmed in fast-motion (reminiscent of the "zombies" in 28 Days Later), almost to the point of being
annoying (it's not always easy to tell what's happening). The creatures are fast and they're vicious. At first they are dressed in animal skins, but
later, when we finally see what they look like, they're similar to the Marvel Comics character Venom, maybe crossed with the creatures from Alien.
There’s even a baby monster at one point that spins around the bar like a whirlwind, cutting everything it touches with razor-blade hands.
In lieu of actual character development, we are instead treated to a scorecard as each character is introduced when the film begins. Each person's
image is frozen, and below them we get a list of stats, like a baseball card, telling us their name, something about them, and what their chances
are of living through the movie. This gives us background info for all of the characters in the minimum amount of time, and provides some humor as
well.
And then, the monsters close in.
The movie moves quickly. You certainly won't have a chance to be bored. And while the script is simplistic and pretty cliche, I actually enjoyed it
while it was on. It's not rocket science, and wasn't even particularly scary, but it was a fun time. I've certainly seen a lot of big Hollywood horror
flicks that were much worse than FEAST. Considering what he had to work with, director Gulager seems to have fun with the material and has time
for a few camera tricks.
If you like straight-on monsters vs. people movies that move like a rollercoaster, then you're going to have a very good time with FEAST.
I hope it leads to more work for Gulager. I'm really curious to see what he'd do on a production where he had more control. As it is, he seems to
have done okay, despite being constantly under fire during the filming of FEAST.
aired on the American cable TV-channel BRAVO), wherein actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck choose a script and a director from a competition, and
then the show follows the director as he takes the film from script to screen. The show lasted three seasons. The first two seasons resulted in
small art house movies that frankly sounded pretty lame. So, for the third season, they decided to try to make a genre picture that might make
actually make a profit. Filmmaker John Gulager, who up to this time had mainly just directed some short movies, was given the chance to direct a
feature film. The script chosen was FEAST, written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton.
Gulager had problems throughout the film's production, first with the budget, then with trying to get various family members and his girlfriend in
the cast (almost everyone related to him seems to be an actor). Once the film was actually made, against all odds, the studio that backed it,
Miramax, ceased to exist and there was a chance the movie might never see the light of day. But somehow it was released briefly to theaters in
some U.S. cities before going to DVD (it's due out in the U.S. on October 17, 2006).
After all of the obstacles that stood in its way, it's amazing this film was ever completed. And since I was a fan of Gulager's season of Project
Greenlight (the first season of the show that was actually watchable!), I really wanted to see the final result. Gulager definitely seemed like an
underdog throughout this story, trying to make the movie his way, and getting thwarted at almost every turn (and almost getting fired once or
twice along the way).
The final cast includes Gulager's father, Clu Gulager, as a crusty Bartender, and his girlfriend Diane Goldner as a biker chick ("Harley Mama" in the
credits). So those are two victories for Gulager's struggles. The rest of the cast includes a motivational speaker called Coach (punk icon Henry
Rollins), a thuggish bar patron named Bozo (Balthazar Getty), and a middle-aged waitress who discovers her heroic side, named Tuffy (Krista Allen,
who has done everything from Emmanuel soft-core films early in her career to tons of television credits from CSI to Smallville, but who I first
discovered in the HBO show Unscripted). There’s also a guy in a wheelchair called Hot Wheels (Josh Zuckerman), a sleazy bar owner (Duane
Whitaker) a younger waitress who wants to be an actress named Honey Pie (Jenny Wade), a beer delivery guy who gets spit on by the monsters
and slowly starts to mutate (Judah Friedlander), and an old woman barfly named Grandma (Eileen Ryan), who’s there for comic relief. There's even
Jason Mewes (Jay from CLERKS) as a fictional version of himself - an out-of-work actor named Jason Mewes !- who’s' one of the first people to die.
So now you're up to speed. What's the movie about? Well, it's simple enough. A bunch of people in a bar suddenly get thrust into a nightmare
when a lantern-jawed guy shows up with a sawed-off shotgun and tells them that a group of monsters is outside, and is going to try to kill them.
It turns out this heroic-looking guy and his wife accidentally hit a monster with their car out in the desert, and were attacked. Somehow they were
able to last this long, but they've come to the bar for help, with the monsters in hot pursuit. So it's just these people's tough luck that now they
have to fight for their lives.
The motley crew of patrons then gets put in a situation where some will live and some will die.
The monsters themselves are never explained, which is probably a good thing, because then we never have to get caught up in origins that don't
make sense. The actual violence in the movie is filmed in fast-motion (reminiscent of the "zombies" in 28 Days Later), almost to the point of being
annoying (it's not always easy to tell what's happening). The creatures are fast and they're vicious. At first they are dressed in animal skins, but
later, when we finally see what they look like, they're similar to the Marvel Comics character Venom, maybe crossed with the creatures from Alien.
There’s even a baby monster at one point that spins around the bar like a whirlwind, cutting everything it touches with razor-blade hands.
In lieu of actual character development, we are instead treated to a scorecard as each character is introduced when the film begins. Each person's
image is frozen, and below them we get a list of stats, like a baseball card, telling us their name, something about them, and what their chances
are of living through the movie. This gives us background info for all of the characters in the minimum amount of time, and provides some humor as
well.
And then, the monsters close in.
The movie moves quickly. You certainly won't have a chance to be bored. And while the script is simplistic and pretty cliche, I actually enjoyed it
while it was on. It's not rocket science, and wasn't even particularly scary, but it was a fun time. I've certainly seen a lot of big Hollywood horror
flicks that were much worse than FEAST. Considering what he had to work with, director Gulager seems to have fun with the material and has time
for a few camera tricks.
If you like straight-on monsters vs. people movies that move like a rollercoaster, then you're going to have a very good time with FEAST.
I hope it leads to more work for Gulager. I'm really curious to see what he'd do on a production where he had more control. As it is, he seems to
have done okay, despite being constantly under fire during the filming of FEAST.
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