Feast will be remembered by those who caught the last season of Project Greenlight. The brainchild of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck which gave an unknown filmmaker an opportunity to make a Hollywood film. Against their collective will they were saddled with a horror script and did the only thing they could, they hired a stylish, out-of-the-box thinker, to direct. The result isn’t actually a Feast, but, considering I thought I was going to starve, it might make a nice snack for some.
In the middle of nowhere a few locals sit around a bar until a stranger (Eric Dane) and his wife (Navi Rawat), on the run from monsters, break the monotony of their lives. Something is out there, it’s hungry, and it’s coming this way. This band of misfits will have to band together to survive.
The patrons include waitresses Honey Pie (Jenny Wade) and Tuffy (Krista Allen), and Tuffy’s pre-teen son Cody (Tyler Patrick Jones), the owner of the bar (Duane Whitaker), a dumb hick shit kicker (Balthazar Getty) and his wheelchair bound younger brother (Josh Zuckerman), out of work actor Jason Mewes (Jason Mewes), an old lady (Eileen Ryan), a middle-aged punk chick (Diane Goldner), a nitwit (Judah Friedlander), a bartender (Clu Gulager), and a traveling self-help speaker (Henry Rollins).
What good are these people? Not much, but they sure will make some tasty monster food. They are trapped in the small bar when a family of monsters come calling and you realize quite early that some are going to be just too stupid to survive.
What works? Well there are several interesting shots from the stylish first time director, a few nice jokes from a pretty average script, and some unexpected twists on who gets eaten and who survives. John Gulager comes off well as do his two family members that make the cut – Clu Gulager (his father) and Goldner (his girlfriend). Most of the cast do what they can with the script. Krista Allen, surprisingly, is the stand-out.
The worst performance of the film, even more so that the monsters, is Navi Rawat. It’s just a total miscasting (for those of you who remember the show you know the casting director put her in the film over the objection of the director and the producers). She’s a cute girl and I’m sure works fine in television, but is way over her head here. She’s not tough enough or strong enough for what the role calls for.
A side note about casting, where is this town in the middle of nowhere where every woman (Rawat, Allen, Wade) is a model? Who knew inbreds were so cute? Who cares about monsters, I’m packed and ready to go!
Gulager’s film shows the strain of it’s struggled making and you can tell it was done by a first time director. The low budget alloted to the film doesn’t allow the creatures to look very good, and the attempt to shoot all the action in shaky cam to hide the fact is a bust, and possibly give you motion sickness.
There’s some nice twists, some nice shots, some okay performances, but in the end the film still feels incomplete. Horror flicks aren’t my thing so there may be those amongst you who will enjoy this film more than I did. The biggest compliment I can give it is this – it is not a waste of time. Sure, it’s a trainwreck (anyone who saw Project Greenlight knew it would be), but the style and most of the acting work and if the film had been given a bigger budget, some actually scary monsters, and didnt’ really so heavily on the shaky cam to hide the lack of footage (and money) then this film might have been able to overcome its shortcomings. As it is, it’s passable, just not that enjoyable.
Tideland is so bad you honestly wonder if it was made as a joke. It makes Running Scared (if you forgot how much I detested that film check out the review) look merely mediocre. It’s dreadful, and one of the worst films ever made.
