A large part of what makes Feast is how it was made. If you missed out on the third season of "Project Greenlight", you might think this just another direct-to-video horror movie. Far from it, my friend!
This is the product of the third and last Project Greenlight competition, as seen on Bravo, produced by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Wes Craven, and Chris Moore. The winning writing partners and hand-chosen director did a fine job, after much work, and deserved the full theatrical treatment, though it barely received that, getting limited release in theaters only days before DVD release. The director in question, John Gulager, is a chubby David Lynch-like fellow with a famous cowboy actor father, who also appears in the film as well as John's long-time girlfriend. They fill out a cast full of odd actors like Balthazar Getty, Duane Whitaker, Judah Friedlander, and Henry Rollins, all giving the performances of their lives.
For those familiar with the neverending drama of the TV series, the movie turned out very well and those little reshoots and additional tweaks to the movie perfected what is an incredibly humorous and enjoyable splatterfest, the type of thing that Dead Alive would be, were it not a retarded piece of shit.
For those that didn't see the show, it ended with uncertainty as the Weinsteins and Dimension broke away from Disney and Miramax. Part of the deal meant that only a hand-selected few movies could be carried with the Weinsteins to reboot the Dimension name with, the rest of the catalog going to Buena Vista. Looking back, Feast might have been better off with Disney, as they likely would have dumped it immediately onto DVD, if not theaters, and it would have come out while it was still fresh in people's minds. Instead, it was saved and the Weinsteins took it with them to their new company and the refreshed Dimension... where it proceeded to sit for over a year before being unceremoniously dumped.
It's rather sad after all the hard work and given that this is easily one of the best straight-up fun horror films to hit the market in years, especially since everyone is either pushing Saw-level torture fetishism (not that it's a problem for me; I like it just fine) and shitty Japanese ghost movies being remade into shittty American ghost movies.
So, anyone that's a fan of a good bloody comedy should definitely dig in to this film. As seen on the show, the script was pored over by the writers endlessly, cutting down the necessary budget, honing it to perfection and, you know what, it worked out great. There's a touch of kitsch there, but it absolutely takes every genre cliche and twists it. It knows its references and toys with them, from the little bar beseiged by beasts to the hero to the various character archetypes. It's a self-aware deconstruction of horror, putting back in all the humor and fun it deserves.
I find it hard to believe that any fan of genre films would dislike this movie. It's chaotic, silly fun and attempts to go against every expectation you have by changing up at every turn.
We should be so lucky as to see more of this. I want more Gulager! I want more silly fun! I want more Project Greenlight doing movies that aren't coming-of-age films!
