When the Gulager family assembled the sequel to Feast, they came up
with about two and half hours worth of footage which they (I presume)
considered worthwhile. Too long for a B movie. The best decision available
to them seems to have been to split it into two films, ala Kill Bill, so
they came up with Feast 2 and 3. That presented some problems, of course.
(1) The films are very short, especially part three. This film begins
with a re-cap of part two and ends with a long sequence in which a
mariachi sings over the closing credits, describing what happened in all
three parts. In between, the actual film runs about 67 minutes. (The
actual running time including everything is 76 minutes.)
(2) Part two has no ending. In essence, it is really not a complete
film, but merely the first half of a hypothetical long film which was not
practical to release.
If one considers the matter solely from a financial perspective, the
producers seem to have made the right decision by splitting the two films.
They will get two rentals or sales instead of one, and those who see part
two will have little choice but to part with another rental fee, assuming
they want to know how the movie ends.
Setting aside the monetary angle, one would conclude that the director
(John Gulager, one of Clu's sons) really should have cut the film
significantly, resulting in one taut 90 minute horror comedy. As it stands
now, the gore scenes go on too long and many of them take place in the
dark. Some of those are lit by a sort of strobe light effect, resulting in
a headache-inducing experience. And that's a shame, because the combined
Feast 2-3 has the elements necessary to make it an absolute classic of
horror comedy. The dialogue can be hilarious, the character's names and
mini-bios are a real hoot, the outrageous gore is funny in small doses,
and some of the plot developments are laugh-out-loud funny.
This film develops its plot gags in two different ways.
1) Great surprises. One example: a stranger called Shitkicker rolls
into town, and he's so tough that he convinces the humans that they can
overcome the monsters by taking the fight to them. He's about to lead them
to war, and he's teaching the bimbo how to use a revolver. Sexual tension
is generating between them when she accidentally pulls the trigger and
blows his head off. Hope destroyed. The film plays with genre conventions
like that, constantly avoiding the presumed route and providing the
unexpected twist, right up until the very end.
2) Complete illogic. The demented prophet, Short Bus Gus, who is
obviously not the sharpest thorn on the rose, convinces the humans in the
small town called Smalltown that they should abandon their plan to escape
using vehicles, and should instead make it to "the big city" by crawling
through the storm drains. We already know that Smalltown is in the middle
of nowhere and, just a few minutes earlier, the late, lamented Shitkicker
had told the group that he had been driving an entire day without seeing
anyone. So the city would have to be - what? - five or six hundred miles
away? They have to crawl on their hands and knees through the storm
drains, moving at about 30 feet per minute. Even in the unlikely event
that the storm drains and sewers span the entire desert to the big city,
you can easily figure that such a trip would take them months, even if
they could crawl non-stop. Plus nobody among them is familiar with the
layout of the underground route. Oh, and by the way, the preacher has a
magical ability to make the beasts go away, so if the stragglers were to
stay on the street, the preacher could easily use his powers to allow them
to find as many vehicles as they needed. So, when the preacher makes the
storm drain suggestion, what do they do? Why, they follow him into a
manhole, of course. What else?
Feast 3 can be marvelously over-the-top, and I did laugh a lot at some
of the antics in this film and the previous one, but I also caught myself
yawning through long, repetitious sequences.
Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.
