Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Feast your eyes...

Feast
Feast II: Sloppy Seconds
Feast III: The Happy Finish
Average creature feature trilogy with gnarly monsters and enough bloodshed to satisfy gorehounds while possibly disgusting sensitive viewers.  Mostly everyone is fair game too so don’t warm up to every character introduced.  Don’t expect an origin tale for the creatures either.  I don’t know what they were waiting for if Feast IV was planned since part three was released in 2009 and the first two were released in 2006 and 2008, respectively.  All three films are linear so you should probably watch them in order even though each successive one reiterates parts of their predecessor.  Feast takes place in a bar in the desert and features too many characters, some we don’t meet much at all, but passable violence.  We don’t get much of a good look at the creatures as scenes happen too rapidly and the camera often shifts focus.  It also drags quite a bit in the middle.  Feast II: Sloppy Seconds picks up right after Feast in a nearby town ravaged by the creatures where previous survivors and others seek refuge in buildings.  There’s better characterization this time, a better look at the creatures, and there’s still violence aplenty.  A creature autopsy will likely repel viewers but it never particularly made me nauseous since it was rather cartoony considering the type of film---this coming from a horror nut though.  A slightly longer run-time than the first makes this suffer from occasional tedium as well.  Both films might’ve benefited from chopping some time off their 92 and 100-minute run-times.  Feast III: The Happy Finish gets it right by being a scant 80-minutes and wasn’t bad at all as far as threequels go.  There’s plenty of notable violence, some surprises up its sleeve and, despite what the title implies, isn’t a very happy finish at all for whoever survives.  Plus, the shorter length as mentioned doesn’t make it overstay its welcome.  Oh, but you do get to see a creature consume a head, watch it traverse its digestive system, and see it pooped out.  It’s actually not as nasty as it sounds, but I never preferred potty humor myself regardless of the genre.  A Spanish-singing guitar player refreshes your memory for all three films at the end to top it all off. 

In conclusion:  It’s not the greatest trilogy (for horror or any genre for that matter), but indiscriminate horror fans should enjoy all three.  None aren’t worth watching if you make a marathon out of it.  It’s a bloody, over-the-top, campy creature feature franchise that wouldn’t have felt out of place in the ‘80’s.  Dig in!  1/23/2018

---Sean O.