The first Feast film, which I have not seen, was a product of the
Affleck/Damon reality show project, Project Greenlight. Splatter
aficionados were quite pleased with it because it defied their
expectations of a safe, mainstream kind of effort. Instead, it was a
demented, over-the-top gorefest about a small group of humans trying to
survive in a world being attacked by some super-human beasts.
Feast II is more of the same twisted and uninhibited NC-17 stuff, but I
gather that this one was too jokey for the gorehounds. It's essentially a
sick comedy. The humans still alive include a bartender (Clu
Gulager!), a gang of lesbian bikers, and two "midget wrestlers," plus a
used car dealer, his unfaithful wife, and her lover ... and various
others. Shock II is trying to accomplish only two things: to shock you
with gore and to make you laugh at sick, gallows humor. There's casual
dismemberment, bodies rotting while still living, a messy autopsy of one
of the beasts, inter-species rape, a baby thrown to the monsters and
devoured, and so forth. The shock value is increased by the cavalier
attitudes of the characters, who are either total bad-asses or complete
cynics. There is not a decent human being anywhere in the film, which
makes it hard to root for them in their battle against the monsters, and
the number of sympathetic characters is matched by an identical number of
plot twists.
Humans die one by one. End of screenwriting assignment.
Oh, yeah, and the story is internally inconsistent and has no ending.
(This is part two of a trilogy, preceding Feast 3: Happy Ending. No
kidding.)
The film was obviously sculpted for a highly targeted audience and has
absolutely zero mainstream crossover appeal. Although it has some
imagination, some sick laughs, and some good acting performances, you
won't like it unless you're really into the Troma style of "splatstick" -
gore for lowbrow yuks.
Period.
I did enjoy seeing Clu Gulager again. Hell, before I watched this film
I had no idea Clu Gulager was still alive.
And, judging from his performance, neither did he.
I'm kidding. For a 79 year old man who had rarely spoken above a mumble
when he was young, Clu actually turned in a surprisingly feisty and
energetic performance. In fact, one might say that Clu is responsible for
the entire movie, in a sense. His son directed; another son starred; a
grandson had a small role; the director's wife (therefore Clu's
daughter-in-law) also starred.
The family that slays together ...
