Some guys won an award on a TV reality show about aspiring filmmakers. They turned the opportunity into not one, not two, but three movies about monsters.
Reality TV, discovering talented, gifted individuals since… well it’s never really happened yet.
Of course reality TV hasn’t discovered any musical geniuses, sports legends, Kardashians or dancing celebrity dancers to improve the world either. So one shouldn’t complain…
Anyway one guy parlayed his TV show success into a trilogy of films. I have now seen them. This is how that went.
Feast
The film opens where it ends, in a seedy tavern in the middle of nowhere. In the early stages we meet the various characters and onscreen text gives us their vital stats and life expectancies – no names in this film.
Then the Hero and the Heroine show up in quick succession, panting, gasping and incredulous – that this is the best film role either of them could get. They give a warning but it is too late…
The insurgents are hairy, spiky, noisy, aggressive, bitey and vomity. In one scene they are also horny, and not in the synonym for spiky way.
After the initial assault the film essentially replicates the ‘Vampire’ section of From Dusk till Dawn, though not nearly as successfully. The survivors of the initial onslaught barricade themselves in and proceed to peek through cracks they shouldn’t peek through, lean on thin walls they shouldn’t lean on and openly wonder ‘why it is all so quiet’ at inopportune moments. This leads to plenty of opportunities for loud ‘surprises’, followed inevitably by gore and blood spattering moments, where the inadequacies of the creature outfits are covered over clumsily by quick camera movement and equally rapid editing that makes it hard to tell what the hell is going on.
In some scenes the creatures look like guys wearing rugs over their bodies with cow skulls on their heads, in other later sequences they drop this foolproof disguise (!?!) to unveil skinless toothy buggers – though the production budget obviously only allowed a couple of these sequences.
Where Feast tries to differentiate itself is in its randomness, don’t get too attached to any one character here, you never know which is next. The ‘Hero’ lasts only a few seconds, the (so-called) ‘Name’ actor only a bit longer. Not to be too crass (says the guy about to be too crass) but unless they are rocking tight tanktops or rockin’ cleavage there is no-one here to miss, Hero or otherwise. So while it is a ‘let’s see who makes it and how gory will it be for those that don’t’ film only the most horror-starved will care much about either.
I would ask why you would use From Dusk till Dawn as a template, only to omit all the bits that made that film worth talking about? Gore and blood simply isn’t enough these days, seeing that a thousand low budget horror flicks, the news and Tosh.0 can give anyone all the explicit, gruesome gore they can handle. (While I am well aware that the internet can supply this too, I guarantee the sequel has nudity.)
Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. The first Feast, is bloody and noisy but not at all original, creative, memorable or worthwhile. Just like a reality show really.
Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds
So my nudity prediction was proven spot on in the first three minutes *Bingo!*, I didn’t pick the unnecessary animal violence though…
Feast 2 picks up in the early morning after the night before at the bar. An angry biker lesbian learns of the death of her partner and immediately decides that she must avenge the death.
With a small gang of stereotypes – lesbiotypes? – in tow, the ‘Biker Queen’ (yep no names again) follows the target – and the shoddily suited monsters – to a small town nearby.
The suit monsters got there first…
With the town already in chaos leather clad new arrivals team with the usual grab bag of ‘cwazy characters’, ‘oddball personalities’ and midget wrestling brothers… with the unified aim to escape a town under siege.
Might I say that aside from looking crappy and second rate, the beasties are entirely killable and in truth not that scary. What they have in savagery and toothfullness is obviously overcome by the fact that they can be shot and killed – and the gang do have guns at almost all times. Oh and also, no-one seemed to die anyway, so being wild eyed and panicky instead of circling the wagons and walking out of town makes precious little sense.
As with many unnecessary sequels to films that weren’t that good in the first place this is lazy, uncreative and to put it bluntly, boring as hell. The ‘centrepiece’ being a protracted dissection sequence that only serves as cinema’s longest prelude to a fart gag ever. All that preceded that scene and all that came after proved similarly entertaining – by which I mean not at all.
Feast 2 is one of those films bad enough that you hope the credits are unnecessarily long, so that you have to watch less of it.
Final Rating – 4.5 / 10. A lot of noise, vomiting and bodily fluids over a long, generally unpleasant night out might work if you’re Lindsay Lohan, but shouldn’t be enough to recommend a film.
To be blunt the best thing about this film is the title…
Feast 3: The Happy Finish
For a film that clocks in at sub 80 minutes to start with, it seems almost unfair when they use the last 5 or so minutes from Feast 2 to kick off Feast 3: The ‘Happy’ Finish. Then the other 70 minutes painfully grind by with a bland rehashing of the first two films and I started feeling grateful for brevity.
In fact the happiest part of this edition is that it represents finality for this frankly amateurish trilogy of ineptitude.
Some more ‘getting to know you’ Kooky Kredits (TM) which weren’t funny the first time guys. Then the same crew less a few take to the streets and sewers of the overrun chaotic town in an attempt to escape the cheaply suited savage monsters.
Among the regulars are the guy with the pipe through his face, the girl who manages to get down to her panties every 3 minutes, the lesbian biker who looks like Chaz Bono impregnated Lizbeth Salander, and the two permanently nude biker-ettes.
Perhaps realising just how very boring the second film became, at least the threequel kills people off on the regular, then brings in replacements off the bench to top up the ranks with fresh meat, including a guy who thinks that he can control the wee beasties with only the power of his mind.
There’s more gore, more gross out attempts and it is as loud, obnoxious and pointless as ever. But by now even the hacks behind the camera know this is pure stupidity and embraces the dumb.
Final Rating – 5 / 10. It’s still terrible, but slightly less hateable. If that sounds like a recommendation then I sincerely apologise in advance for your inevitable disappointment.
Final Trilogy Rating – 5 / 10. A series of films that ran out of ideas about 20 minutes into the first film, yet still had the temerity to churn out two more equally crappy sequels.
It’s like someone untalented and unworthy won a TV competition and was determined to remain in the spotlight – so to speak – for as long as possible.
Wait. What?
Given that all three of these films were made by the same guy, it should be little wonder that Piranha 3DD sucked so much.
I feel like I have been the victim of a social experiment, and I am sadder for the experience.
