I am rather alarmed at how short an interval there was between me hearing that they were making a Feast 2, and Feast 3 arriving from Netflix. This is a series that they really decided to just run into the ground as quickly as humanly possible. I suppose, in fairness, there's something to be said for the fact that they're set back to back, with all three more or less taking place within the same 24 hour period, if not the same 6 hour period. That being said, odds are you haven't heard of'em. The first Feast set out with the fairly noble goal of making an 80s style horror flick for the TVtropes audience. It was very very schlocky, simple, action-packed, and had a lot of fun playing around with audience expectations. Not the sort of thing I'd recommend to... the vast majority of people really, but if you have an appreciation for old school latex monsters producing buckets of blood sort of fair, it's a good modern effort, marred only by containing an unbelievably tasteless scene, even by genre standards, involving a monster doing something to someone's mouth that can't be discussed in polite company.
Feast 2 completely failed to realize what it was about the first one that made it work (sense of fun and some interesting originality to the design of the monsters), thus they somehow managed to drop the ball on all the good stuff, retooling the monsters to rather non-threatening and stupid looking, and making it their mission to be the most offensive movie possible. The aforementioned tasteless scene from the first movie? They open with that, and then attempt to up the ante from there. The only remotely enjoyable scene in the movie is an instance of literal dead baby humor. In fairness, that scene honestly does do an outstanding job of crossing the line twice, but otherwise, just terribly unenjoyable. One might ask, therefore, why I would possibly subject myself to Feast 3. The answer, besides the sort of morbid curiosity that brings you these consciousness streams, is that my awareness of a third entry comes from a multitude of reviews that all say if you liked Feast 2, you'll hate this. I am, therefore, gambling that the opposite holds true. Let's find out!
Oh yes, interesting note going in. This series introduces people by pausing things and throwing up character sheets for them, labeling everyone stuff like Bartender Single Mom and Total Loser. So... odds aren't bad that I'm going to end up using official names for a change. It should also be noted that this is one of those DVDs that shoves the previews in your face beforehand, and man, Pulse is a horror movie that so BLATANTLY rips off Serial Experiments Lain. We also have something here called Wizard of Gore, which looks rather hilariously cheesy, and evidently stars Crispin Glover and "the Suicide Girls." I wasn't aware that was really an official group of people. Just figured it was an archive of photos of slutty goth girls or something... and wow, a REALLY misleading trailer for Diary of the Dead. I don't know how exactly you can manage to edit clips from that into a things jumping out at you real fast sorta deal... well, OK, I DO, because I just saw it. Lots of cuts to static and jumpy noises added to the soundtrack. I'm just saying it's totally not at all what that movie is about. In any case, previews defeated, on with something I'm probably going to regret watching!
We open with some shots from the previous movie, as something of a Previously On... sorta deal. I suppose I might as well give you the whole character run down as they toss up their character sheets. It's kinda the main gag of the series and all.
"Thunder- Will the catapult work: No. Life expectancy: Kid's Meal." Oh right. The second movie actually kinda ends right before they fire one of the two midget luchadores with a makeshift slingshot across the street onto the rotting corpse of his grandmother as part of an escape plan. I STILL say it was a terrible movie though.
"Slasher- Favorite Films: Unfaithful, The Burning Bed, Extremities. Ironic twist: Loveable asshole. Life Expectancy: This one's gonna make your eyes water!"
"Lightning- Origin: Born of passion... and Tequila. Secret: Fluent in Spanish. Life Expectancy: He was supposed to die in the last chapter."
"Biker Queen- Special Skills: An Eagle Scout in a Hell Cat's body. Current Occupation: Gang Leader. Previous Occupation: Manager Marie Calendars."
We now have a brief intermission so Thunder can fall short of the target, hit the pavement, and be eviscerated.
"Greg Swank- Classification: A medical miracle. Regrets: Killing a baby. Life expectancy: Could go any minute." Yeah, the aforementioned dead baby gag? He heard a baby crying in a car, made a big speech about ethics before swinging down off the roof to rescue it, then upon realizing he wasn't running back fast enough, says "Sorry Baby," and very dramatically tosses the giggling infant over his shoulders to die horribly. Speaking of dying horribly, the instant his character sheet is off screen, the motorcycle powered slingshot jettisons a large metal object through his head.
"Tat Girl- Rank: Lieutenant. Special Skills: Hammer Time. Life Expectancy: U can't touch this!"
"Hobo-Character Arc: Can anyone really be that big a douche bag? Special Skills: Tastes like Shit. Life Expectancy: He's been askin' for it. He just won't get it."
"Secrets- Past View: Willing to believe in anything. Present View: Ready to believe in herself. Life Expectancy: Believe in bad luck."
"Honey Pie- Character Arc: Done with getting beaten. Re-born to beat down. Motto: Shit Happens. Life Expectancy: Head of the class." At which point her head is immediately ripped over and passed with rather astounding rapidity through a monster's digestive tract. Yeah, joke gotten. It's the 3rd movie so you're going with 3 immediate deaths upon introduction. That'd be a nice tradition if the second one had done it with 2 people.
"Bartender- Character Arc: A WWII vet now fighting his greatest battle, blah blah blah. Life Expectancy: Has died a few times already."
Anyway, yeah. Sorry. I was expecting those to be way more amusing when I started. Also less profanity laden. Incidentally, even with me hitting return after all of those? The curse of boobs by paragraph 3 holds true. Which is really to be expected since "Tit Girl" and "Tat Girl" have been topless since an hour or so into the second movie, with the really poor rationalization that their shirts were required for the construction of the slingshot (unlike the much more substantial shirts of, you know, every other character in the movie). I didn't recall them surviving long enough to set off my prude alarm outside of flashbacks though. Most likely because I'd actually managed to block out enough of Feast 2 that, well, I was willing to rent Feast 3. There's a lesson here. If you totally can't remember any details about something? Odds are there's a very good reason, and you should trust your brain's judgement in withholding info. Also, it's worth pointing out that "Greg Swank" there, who you'd figure would be renamed Baby Killer now that he has a notable feature, so hey, he is now in my book, is actually not dead yet. He's got a big pipe sticking through his head, but this series is actually really fond of having people continue to stagger around after clearly obvious deaths. Heck, Thunder's alive too! He looks on in amazement as uh, OK, I'm just going to call him Bert runs over his trailing intestines and lack of lower body. I promised that I'd quote all character sheets though, so I guess I'm sticking to it and apparently running through the entirety of my annual profanity quota.
"Shitkicker- Weakness: Allergic to pussies. Strengths: Addicted to love. Life Expectancy: Better than God!" He then gets his own little moment of cheese straight out of the original Resident Evil intro. The live action one. From the first game I mean, not the awful movie. Just look for it on youtube or something.
Anyway, after killing a monster with a motorcycle wielded as a melee weapon of sorts, and another with too-dark to see what was going on exactly, our deplorable protagonists wander over to meet the new guy, Tat Girl makes some sense of her bizarre character sheet by throwing a hammer at Hobo, who appears with a gun in hand, and then the various biker girls beat him up until he defecates in his pants, leading to the obvious joke. I forgot what exactly was so deplorable about Hobo because, say it with me now, I blocked out just about everything about Feast 2. The topless girls steal some jackets off some corpses for decency's sake, but fail to zip them up for indecency's sake.
Bert's plan is to give everyone guns, get'em into cars, and rove around with properly thought out combat tactics killing monsters, which is the sort of plan that works great in real life and in gaming situations but routinely fails in horror movies. On a number of levels even. He also just generally comes across as a likable moral center for the party. Then he gives Secrets a nice little lesson on how to fire a pistol how to fire a gun, at which point she immediately accidentally shoots him in the face while going to hand it back. OK, I knew that this guy was as doomed as humanly possible, but that was a pretty funny one honestly. After that things rapidly deteriorate into a shakey-cam and bad lighting situation, guns are dropped, people hide in a jail cell for a bit, a sign on the sheriff's office they're in reveals that our setting is officially called "Smalltown" and... the monsters lose interest and wander off for long enough for people to run across the street again and throw Hobo at a monster who tries to eat him, but, well, character sheets only lie about life expectancies, and it's too disgusted to eat or even kill him.
... OK. This is one of those ones where I need a moment to process and explain what I just saw. Roughly half the characters end up in an aluminum shack on [Price] Slasher's used car lot. While they plan their next move, one of the monsters cuts a hole in the wall behind slasher, and proceeds to impale him through the back. Phallically. A few moments of wall humping later, this causes an immediate Chest Burster situation. This also kinda blatantly contradicts the first movie where, yeah, the monsters have a surprising affinity for uh, behavior such as this, and this same 5 seconds between conception and birth deal going on, it's, you know, only with each other. Not with some dude's kidney.
Meanwhile, Baby Killer is honestly pretty much the party's MVP. Despite having a pipe going through his head, and severely impaired speech what with the jaw and the brain and all, he's coming up with plans and opening safes and all kinds of stuff. But, back in the aluminum shed...
"Slasher/Hybrid- Fun Fact: Used to slash prices, now slashes people. Life expectancy: Will take his Secrets to the grave."
OK, movie? Could we please have maybe a LITTLE consistency with the monsters? Just a tiny bit? Please? Anyway, whoever it was that was in there with him is rather liquified. Moving along, a bunch of people take refuge briefly in Hobo's secret underground bus, which is a really weird thing to have, and have themselves a bad camera fight scene. I think it's the 3 biker girls, one of whom dies, another of whom sets Hobo and a monster on fire, and then Biker Queen manages to start the bus and drive it out from underground, while Tat Girl taunts the other survivors rather than letting them on. Of course, it turns out that the underground schoolbus, while baffling, only has enough gas for this to lead to an awkward situation. Everyone piles in, a bunch of monsters pile on, and then uh... a mysterious robed and hooded figure scares them off by holding wandering up and going "Back demons!" I so totally was not expecting that. He's introduced as the
"Prophet- Real Name: Gus Engelsen aka Short Bus Gus. Special Skills: Warding off Beasts. Non-Special Skills: Walking. Fun Fact: Doesn't swear or use derogatory epithets."
He explains in his dippy dorky voice that he can control the monsters, that they can escape through a storm drain, and just generally talks like he's LARPing... which, best I can figure is the case, really. So everyone starts crawling through the Jeffery's tubes, for the longest sustained calm of this entire series, clocking in at almost 2 whole minutes. Eventually everyone hears a weird high pitched whine, which turns out to be coming from Prophet's hearing aide, which may have been what actually was scaring the monsters off, since turning it down causes one to attack more or less immediately. There's a bit of struggling with grates in confined spaces, Tat girl arbitrarily decides to tack the jacket off because it's almost actually covering her boobs, and sudden they are pounced on by
"Puker Girl- Origin: Covered in monster vomit & thrown into sewers by concerned citizens." Oh yeah, it should probably be noted that being vomited upon by the monsters for some reason causes you to generally go all acid-melty, be perpetually covered in maggots, and generally make the audience nautious whenever you're around, which is often. Puker Girl is also apparently quite insane, and thanks to the character sheet pause shot is clearly holding up a severed penis, about which she announces in crazy speak "Blood makes it feel good!" Unpausing the movie from copying down that character sheet, it gets a second page. "Side effects of being barfed on: Dementia, Murderous appetite for blood, Searing Pain." And a third "Blood makes it feel good!" Gee. Kinda wish I hadn't gone and elaborated now. Despite her clear social problems, she apparently has 2 goons who come out of the shadows and restrain Tat Girl so she can be stabbed about 15 times in the chest, PROBABLY killing her, when suddenly (and yes, this is a lot of people jumping out of nowhere in rapid succession) descendant from above is some sort of crazy ninja with arm blades and a football helmet who kills the crazy sewer people and gives a cheesy badass speech before his character sheet pops up.
"Jean-Claude Segal- Fun Fact: LOVES the iPod Shuffle. Fun Fact 2: Taking acting lessons. Life Expectancy: Ripped Abs - Ripped Apart." He gets a silly Resident Evil intro too. As did Prophet. Anyway, Biker Queen morns, which is kinda her whole thing really, while Jean-Claude makes some sort of crazy light source from common household chemicals and a Mountain Dew bottle. Oh, and Secrets yoinks Tat's hammer. Oh and a monsters pops out of that high-traffic ceiling and rips off Jean-Claude's arm. Yeah, this sort of thing is way too predictable now. Bartender ties the stump off for him, and keeps the arm because hey, big ol' blade strapped to it. Oh and Baby Killer's kinda losing it and starts wondering what happened to the baby that he, you know, killed.
So uh... lots of sewer crawling and monster attacking, and... one of the tunnels seems to lead to a techno club, which is rather surprising. Before we get into that though, Bartender decides to use an old battlefield medical tactic to seal his wound by pouring in and lighting gunpowder. "Did you learn this in the marines?" "Nope. Rambo 3." So yeah. Not only does this fail to work, but it blows off his other arm. Meanwhile, Baby Killer's growing delirium has him attempting to breast feed a midget luchador, then Biker Queen gets into a fight with more sewer crazies lit by a strobe light. It's going poorly, probably, but Bartender and Jean-Claude catch up, with Bartender shouting the encouraging words "You only need legs to kick ass!" Wanna bet he loses at least one leg? Anyway, a lots of amazingly poorly lit carnage goes on, but at one point Secrets uses the stolen hammer and the pipe going through Baby Killer's head as a makeshift way of firing off a shotgun shell, which is pretty neat really. Also, someone eventually fixes the lights, and people are able to climb up a ladder to presumed safety. Bartender is helping people up, "Come on, gimme your hand!" Eventually it gets to be Jean-Claude's turn, and well, a dirty look is given. Also the crazies and monster regroup and rip his legs off and I'm going to assume kill him. Or maybe they don't, and he bits their legs off. You never know.
Shortly thereafter, it is indeed proven that it was the hearing aid, so Prophet dies, then the monster that killed him is taken out by... Slasher/Hybrid out of nowhere... who then yanks the pipe out of Baby Killer's head, killing him. This causes Secrets to totally snap, the three of them had this whole love triangle thing going you see. Oh, and when I say totally snap, I mean she screams, rips his throat out with her teeth, with everyone else eventually joining in(on biting it to death mind you!) and then pounds the pipe through his heart with the hammer. Biker Queen got puked on at some point in all this so decides it's heroic sacrifice time. She straps the monster corpse to a dirt bike they find, and someone activates it's weird cut-their-stomach-open-when-they're-dead-attraction-scream from Feast 2 that I am so not going to try to explain, so, in theory, any other monsters in the area will chase after her.
Everyone else, which is down to uh... Bartender, Secrets, and Lightning, start wandering down the street. Bartender, in a moment of sheet weirdness suddenly announces that it's their duty to repopulate the earth. "Right now." And begins to disrobe. Did I mention he's a really old guy who's been holding his slashed open throat closed since it was his presumed cause of death in the first movie in the series? Yeah, it's really weird.
...
...
Not as weird as what interrupts this scene though. In what may very well be the most out-of-left-field moment in anything, ever, to the extent I feel I need way more buildup than I am giving it, are you ready for this? Are you? Secrets and Lightning are suddenly stepped on by a totally awesomely skeletal and creaky ridiculously giant robot.
...
And then a mariachi who looks like Elvis comes out of nowhere and sings, in Spanish with subtitles "This is the story of FEAST/ Part 1, Part 2, Part 3/ It began in a bar/ They left in a car/ And now they're squashed on the street/ AY-YI-YIIIIII Dios Mio! OH MYYYYYYY! What is the history of FEAST? What on earth are are the beasts? I'd like to tell/ But there's no chance in hell/ And those that guessed didn't fare so well/ AY-YI-YIIIIIII! Dios Mio! OH MYYYYYY! It started when the monsters attacked/ A little tavern's front and back/ The folks put up a fight/ A few survived the night/ And then they drove off into the light/ AY-YI-YIIIIIII! Dios Mio! OH MYYYYYY! And then began number two/ The next day as bikers rolled through/ Most of the next town had died/ And a meth-head denied/ A place for the bikers to run and hide. AY-YI-YIIIIIII! Dios Mio! OH MYYYYYY! That brings us to part three/ The epic end to the trilogy/ There was a prophet in a cape/ Karate Kid and a creature rape/ And a big robot left all mouths agape! AY-YI-YIIIIIII! Dios Mio! OH MYYYYYY! And the monsters did thrive! How could anyone survive? Nothing will kill them! Not axes or bats! They'll eat grandmas and babies/ And have sex with cats! AY-YI-YIIIIIII! Dios Mio! OH MYYYYYY! And so is the end of the FEAST/ Part 1, Part 2, Part 3/ Maybe Part 4/ will have all the answers and more/ But if not, don't fuckin' blame me."
OK, a bit excessive quoting that whole song, but uh... OK, we just ended the third movie about a prolonged encounter with speedy vicious monkey-monsters out in New Mexico by having totally awesome mech accidentally step on 2 out of 3 remaining characters and then Mexican Elvis singing about how absolutely random that was. You know what? I suddenly like this movie. I was really not enjoying this much at all, but that was amazing. I actually kinda had that bit spoiled for me by indignant reviews, but it STILL came off as the most random thing ever.
Oh, and sorry for the lack of screens this time, but it's frelling 6 AM and I don't think any single frame but the robot foot and Elvis mariachi is sufficiently free of gore/nudity to post on my site.