Feast (2005)

A group of strangers become trapped in an isolated hole in the wall desert bar by a group of bizarre killer monsters in Feast, a gross out horror film that seems to love showering its main characters in torrents of blood, slime, and monster ejaculate. Feast appears to be produced by Ben Affleck and is apparently the product of his reality TV show, Project Green Light. I haven’t seen the show, so I will just focus on the finished product itself.

Feast is a film that wastes no time on characters and even less time on plot. You never really learn what the heck is after these people, and none of the characters of the film are even named. Instead each character gets a quick title card freeze frame laying out their name (the hero, the drifter, the bartender etc), an interesting fact about them, and their life expectancy. This is a strange, quirky way to start out the film, and makes you feel like you will be in for something different and unique. However, Feast is a fairly typical creature feature, with a huge body count and lots of gore. The cast is an assortment of silly horror clinches, the best of which is a motivational speaker who tries his best to keep the groups spirits up, with humorous effects. They all pretty much exist though to be killed in brutal ways, and are quickly thinned out over the course of the movie.

One thing I will say about Feast is the monster attacks are fast and frantic with plenty of people getting killed in mid sentence, and the monsters usually strike in a chaotic blur of blood and claws. In fact, I don’t think there is a single character that sees their death coming in this movie. It does a good job of keeping you on the edge of your seat.

The monsters themselves are pretty creepy looking, and have an interesting twist. They seem to have hyper active sex drives, and reproduce very quickly. Yes, this film contains a monster sex scene, a monster penis, and monster ejaculation. Another great aspect is the fact that most of the monster effects are done using conventional effects with a few cgi shots here and there. Overall, the monsters are pretty well realized, even though the viewer doesn’t really learn much about them.

Apparently there are two sequels to Feast, and I will probably check them out as the film just ends and leaves you wanting a bit more both because of confusion and because you really never figure out where these monsters came from. Overall the first Feast is a slightly above average horror film that could have used a bit more story and plot to make it something truly special.

6/10