October Horror Season 2: Day 14

Monsters week is over after tonight's viewing of 2005's "Feast" starring Balthazar Getty, Henry Rollins, and Jason Mewes.



I wasn't too sure what to expect here since it was a pretty random looking Netflix recommendation, but I knew things were going to turn out well about 2 minutes into the film when each character was introduced with a still frame write up that included snarky "Fun Facts" and "Life Expectancy".

The whole movie is set in a dive bar in the boonies of some undefined country where a bunch of sad losers gather more out of habit than interest.  Suddenly "Hero" bursts in and warns of a monster attack, and promptly dies.  He is replaced by his girlfriend, "Heroine", who's life expectancy is given as something along the lines of "Better than the last hero's, we hope."  The movie is well aware all its characters are really caricatures, but instead of becoming self-parody it just refuses to care.  The "So what?" swagger really carries the audience through what always turns out to be the most boring part of any "survival" monster movie:  The group's internal strife as characters fight for dominance or personal escape. There's all the requisite back stabbing and accidental death you should expect, but it just slides past so smoothly.  All too often it feels like movies in this genre hit a point and have to slam on the breaks so they can have some good "human" drama before resuming the pointless killing, in Feast it makes sense.

Also like Slither last night it plays itself just amusing enough by its own ridiculousness to avoid having to make jokes at its expense.  However the blood and disgusting gore is turned up several points, which makes it slightly difficult to watch in parts...but how often does a movie actually make you need to turn away from the screen because it's too gross?  At this point even Saw movies are so hilarious you just kindof watch them and go "Oh, well lookie here.  This character needs to remove that other character's sphincter with this rusty scalpel and carry at least 12 pounds of fecal matter and intestines to this rusty bucket without spilling anything on the electrified wire before the timer runs out and the pear of anguish surgically inserted into their chest cavity expands.  Yawn."  (Also, Saw producers:  You are not allowed to steal my idea, if this shows up in a Saw or Hostel sequence I'm coming after you.)

In short, it was so good I'm actually planning on getting the 2nd and 3rd movies to see what kind of dive the series took.  Knocks Slither out as best movie of the month thus far.

Tomorrow Dramatic Serial Killer movies starts with "Zodiac".