A Feast of Flesh is a hooker/vampire offering from the husband and
wife team of Amy Lynn Best (producer) and Mike Watt (writer/director). They
wanted to make something commercial. Amy grew up loving The Best Little
Whorehouse in Texas, and had always wanted to play a madam, so she suggested
a "vampire hookers vs. mercenaries" film with her as the madam. When Mike
Watt decided to give the head vampire hunter an Irish accent, he knew he
would play that role, and the basic conflict was decided, a group of IRA
mercenaries vs. a house of vampire hookers.
A young couple, about to be married, wants to experience a threesome, and
their friend also wants to get another friend laid to get over his
girlfriend that left him and headed out of town. He wins an invite, the only
way to get into the house, in a poker game. Meanwhile, the very same
ex-girlfriend was attacked on her way out of town, and rescued by one of the
vampires. The events set thus in motion will lead to chaos. The IRA
mercenaries previously had an agreement with this particular house: they would leave the vampires alone
if they would not recruit or attack locals. The vamps had
no idea the ex-girlfriend was a local, but the head of the mercenaries was
looking for an excuse to take them out anyway.
Those who enjoy finding goofs will have a field day here, such as a
straight beating a full house, but I did not find any of those lapses to be
distracting. The problems are offset by copious nudity and
entertaining splatter with some good gore effects. My personal favorite is
in the opening scene, where a vampire rips a man's face off and the rescued
girl asks, "can you teach me to do that?"
The filmmakers clearly were not going to let tradition get in the way of
telling a good story and, by offering some new twists on vampire legends,
they were trying for a unique approach to the vampire vs. hunter story. They
succeeded admirably. There are also times when the film betrays its small
budget, but on the whole, it's both competent and entertaining.
