User reviews

First - let's clarify a few things which people seem to be confused about.

* Feast's budget was about $3,000,000.00, not $1 million.

* I am not sure whether the word "independent" should be used for a film which required (I assume) voluntary (donations?) 'production' efforts from Harvey Weinstein, Wes Craven, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. "Project Green-Light" or not. It's really too bad that their hourly rates don't show up in the reported budgets for projects such as this - would help to clarify a lot of misunderstandings regarding the nature of allegedly independent, supposedly low-budget releases.

* The cast is far from a group of of nobodies. Look them up right here on IMDb. For a supposed low-budget film, Feast relies very heavily on name-recognition and star power.

John Gulager does a very nice job of telling a claustrophobic, absurd, but fun tale of terror and gore in "Feast". It's an old story, but,in this case, it's told very well.

A bar full of archetypal jerks, losers and heroes are startled by a would-be hero's (Eric Dane) violent, blood-soaked entry into the bar with a gun and an attitude. The hero announces that the bar is just about to be attacked by four angry monsters with razor-sharp claws and teeth. The audience is almost immediately introduced to the film's audience participation game. Here are the (unstated, but easily understood) challenges:

* Understand that what is going to happen in this film is obvious and that we've seen it all before.

* The game is to figure out who gets it next

* If you're really good - try guessing how they are going to get it too.

The casting, editing and directing make this film worth watching. The script is fine for what it is, but that isn't saying a whole lot. And the acting is uniformly good - again, for what it is. Watching Henry Rollins ironically playing a self-help con artist with obvious problems of his own, Clu Gallagher comically reprising the roll of the ancient bartender and erstwhile retired gunfighter in a very unlikely isolated desert context, Balthazar Getty as the "Town Jackass", and Navi Rawat as the tough chick mom on a mission is well... just a lot of fun.

The special effects are heavily digitized and there are a number of very noticeable 'digital moments'. I know I am supposed to say that the special effects were brilliant for the cost of the film, but I do not trust the reported budget - I suspect that a lot of very expensive people were employed on a voluntary basis for this film, and it is obvious that their time was not accounted for in the reported budget.

Highly recommended for horror comedy fans and fans of the cast members. Not recommended for those who have difficulties with extremely disgusting gore, and not recommended for those who do not recognize at least one or two of the major cast members.

In a remote bar, costumers are advised by a newcomer to seal the place since hunger monsters will attack them in a couple of minutes. The man is immediately devoured and the clients organize a strategy to defend the place under siege of deadly creatures.

"Feast" does not have story, but it is gruesome, gore, trash and funny. There are no explanations about the origin of the monsters, but disgusting and nasty special effects in the fast-paced and ridiculous attacks of the creatures that does not give time for thinking how silly the story is. The conclusion is a great joke, with a hook for a possible sequel. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Banquete no Inferno" ("Feast in Hell")

Couch critics. Movies are meant for entertainment, in whatever form. If you know this is not your type of entertainment then don't rate it. This is an unrealistic, predictable, over the top, chicks in tank tops, "why TF did you do that" kind of movie. The acting is nominal but effective for the purpose. The outrageousness is what makes it amusing. It's a really good bad movie. Enjoy with a dose of THC and a drink.

I made it to a screening of "Feast" at the International Horror Sci-Fi Film Festival in Arizona on October 23rd. I was really into the Project Greenlight show and from watching the show, I still didn't know what to expect from the film. It wasn't too long into the movie that I realized, even if you watched every episode of Project Greenlight as I did, you still don't see this coming. The movie was great! I sat back in my seat and went for a ride. It wasn't even 100% completed yet. A couple of scenes were too dark and it didn't have any credits. But it was so entertaining. They made this project for the horror genre, and they aren't going to let anyone down. There is so much blood, gore, and action in this film. The action sequences were a sight to see on the big screen. I was truly blown away with how good everything came out. John was there with his girlfriend Diane and one of the writers. They did a Q&A after the screening and were very outgoing with the audience. After the screening they joined me and a bunch of Arizona talent at a nearby bar to hang out. He answered questions and was very cool to chat with. I hope they don't have any problems with getting this movie into theaters nation wide. It's a fun story with everything you want in a horror movie. You have to check it out when you get the chance.

This is one of the movies that terrified me as a kid watching TV late night. The third movie in the trilogy was often aired so I got to see a few times. The first one is good. You'll get a laugh or two out of this. It has stereotypes, one liners, monsters, a bit of everything. It's the perfect movie for a rainy night. 7/10

Monsters attacking a bar with Henry Rollins in it. That's a feast to watch indeed!

Produced by Wes Craven, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

The good: terrific over the top gorefest, with lots of mutilated bodies, exploding monsters, eye sucking parasites and heavily vomiting big breasted blondes. The works. If you like stupid, bloody, violent, hilarious slasher movies, than this is your pick.

Any bad? Not all of the jokes are timed well. But enough jokes are spot on. Henry Rollins in pink yogapants is definitely worth a watch.

Definitely above the average slasher/monster movie. Have a beer, have a pizza and have a laugh...

If you are looking for originality in a horror movie look elsewhere, except for the opening 10 minutes which was different, when they introduced the characters. If however you're looking for comedy and gore you should try it out. I know I found it a blast.

I've never thought after From Dusk Till Dawn that someone would try to make a clone of that movie. Actually, Gulager and Project Greenlight did.

This movie is about monsters invading a pub full of miserable losers. Well, the fountain of my problems is found in the last two words. Yes, the characters! Totally indifferent people, whose fate is totally indifferent, whom we don't care about if they survive or not. Awful dialogues and a truly miserable plot describes the whole movie - every element has been seen elsewhere, mostly in Romero's NotLD and Rodriguez's From Dusk..., but they've been put together to make a totally indifferent film, that makes you think: who cares who dies? Who cares what happens? Why didn't they just all die, it wouldn't have done anything different for you.

The other problem beside the high level of indifference and the pathetic characters is the bad editing. During action scenes this makes the movie so quick we don't even know what happens, can't see a thing. The only good point is gore, which is not limited, that's why I give more than 1 star. But avoid this movie at all costs!

A send up of the old school Gory monster movie, that is absolutely amazing and an utter surprise. If you like the genre, you'll truly enjoy this flick

Feast knows that it's a dirty, trashy, low-budget monster movie and it excels at being just that.

I personally rank it up there with some of the great meta horror movies like Cabin in the Woods and Evil Dead 2.

The beginning does a great job playing with your expectations before subverting them in the most over-the top way possible and sets the perfect tone for the rest of the movie.

Fans of practical creature effects, splatter house gore, and raunchy humor will be delighted by this simple, bare-bones, straight to the point plot and dark humor.

Don't go in expecting a deep story, just enjoy the campy madness of a bunch of one-note characters struggling to avoid becoming monster chow.

I sat through the whole project Greenlight of Feast and found it entertaining. The entire process of making a film is a tedious and mind cracking task. You could see the stress dripping across John Gulagers face during the entire process so I definitely feel for him. Well, it's been a year later and FEAST finally was released on DVD and I ran out and purchased it. As I sat in my living-room watching the film excitement quickly turned to confusion. The film has a good look, but once the action scenes begin thats when the confusion set in for me. The quality of the film took on a digital look. Especially when the blood started flying. I don't know what it is, but it had a bad strobe like effect. You couldn't tell what the heck was going on. Other then this, FEAST is nothing new. Fans of the genre have seen it all before. I know it was John's first attempt and he was under a huge amount of stress. But even with these facts I'm sorry to say, I enjoyed the making of FEAST more then the final product.

You may recognize some of the people on screen here, from TV roles or from other movies. Henry Rollins a genre veteran and others that is. But what really counts, are the characters they're portraying. Of course you're not going to get 3-dimensional here, but that's something you couldn't expect from the movie. What you can expect though, is a really nice story, some cool one-liners and some pretty funny ideas. One of them being the introduction of the characters. I loved that bit and was bummed when they ditched it in part 2.

If you can restrict yourself, do not watch the trailer, there is a massive (early) spoiler in there. And one that is really on the nose. Other than that, if you like a good b-movie that is out there (no pun intended), you will love this. The follow ups were not as good, but at least tried to follow the pace this set

Like you, I became interested in this film after watching Project Greenlight 3 and following the misadventures of 49 year old underdog John Gulager. Dimension Films had selected Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton's script for Feast to produce because it was the most marketable and they wanted a Project Greenlight film to turn a profit for once. Project Greenlight absolutely loathed the script and partially out of malice they selected Gulager as the director, a filmmaker whose shorts were technically impressive and had a strange quality that seemed borne entirely from whole-cloth, but who was also incredibly shy and unassertive. The greenest of the green. After the film was completed everybody involved believed that the gamble paid off. I don't know, perhaps they were willfully deceiving themselves. Feast is a mess, the kind of mess that only a system as flawed as fundamentally flawed as Project Greenlight could have produced.

Dunstan and Melton's script should have never seen the light of day. It evinces a real hatred for the cinema, I mean they hate hate hate movies. They don't only hate movies of substance they hate movies that work. This isn't about not taking yourself seriously; Dunstan and Melton seem to think a toaster is pretentious because it toasts bread like it's supposed to. Their notion of being clever is to tell us (via freeze-frames) how long the characters are going to live and then alter the predictions through the course of the movie. Think about that. They don't expect you to automatically be familiar with these conventions; they actively underline them for you and then violate them saying that you were stupid for buying into the conventions that they just underlined for you. The characters are flat and undefined and Dunstan and Melton underline this flatness by giving them names like "Hero" or "Harley Mama" while never infusing them with any archetypal significance as doing so would be "predictable" and thus unhip. If you ask me, they're struggling to distract from the fact that they can't write believable three-dimensional human characters and even worse, that they really don't have anything that they want to say. Except I guess, that movies are stupid and so we're not going to even bother to try to write a real one.

And what about the monsters? They have sex and then the female instantly gives birth to an infant monster. Huh? I'm prepared to buy into a lot of things, but I draw the line well before split-second gestations. Who are these monsters? Where are they coming from? Why are they attacking these people, either on a literal level or a symbolic level? They are doing it for no other reason than to cover them in blood and slime and give the screenwriters a horror movie to feel superior to.

But as bad as the script is, I'm sad to say that there is still a whole lot of blood on Gulager's hands. Most shots in the film are held for no longer than four seconds and because Dunstan and Melton think themselves too cool to develop interesting characters that we care about and have filled the film with nothing but action sequences, this quickly becomes exhausting. Gulager fills the film with jump scares, one of the most effective but also one of the most cheap and primitive of audience manipulations. He uses so many that you walk away a little battered. The film is like a box of Lucky Charms with nothing but marshmallows. The ending is really good. Really really good. Purely on a film-making standard. The movie hasn't earned it. I hope that Gulager has some substance in him for his next film, because he is totally unable to rely on style alone.

Unlike most such films, in FEAST, the action starts almost immediately and continues almost unbroken, except for brief moments to catch our breath. It's a fantastic monster movie filled with sudden, ferocious attacks and grisly slaughter.

The monsters themselves are perfectly hideous, bringing the pain in massive amounts. Their human prey are no pushovers. The ensuing battle for survival is grueling and apocalyptic.

FEAST is fast, bloody, and intense. It's also got a wicked sense of humor. Grueling fun from start to finish...

My friend Jason, the most informed horror fan I know, recommended this to me after I made the bold statement that "Slither" was the horror film of 2006. He suggested "Feast" would be much better. (Technically, "Feast" is 2005 but the DVD was released October 2006.) I still like "Slither" better (and probably "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Saw 3"), but "Feast" was a great film.

We are given a group of people we barely know (real names are not used) in bar fighting off monsters outside the bar trying to break in. Maybe you're thinking I'm talking about "Shaun of the Dead", and there are some similarities, but no. These monsters are far more intelligent, vicious and cause much more gore to be spilled and tossed.

The gore was the best part of this movie, by far. Guts, eyes, blood... things getting blown off, ripped off, torn out. I think several gallons of corn syrup went to good use on this production. You can't complain about a lack of blood.

The humor was also good too, with the best part coming from the "hero", who delivers a very memorable line. If you're not hooked after his line (you'll know it when you hear it) you're watching the wrong film.

Credit to Jason Mewes for playing Jason Mewes... wish he had a bigger part. And credit to Henry Rollins for not playing Henry Rollins. No fists swinging, no throat bulging... just a big man in pink pants.

My only real concern is the timing of this film. Some parts seemed to drag. So much intense action followed by slow parts, and not even tense slow parts. Just plain slow. Even the opening, where we meet the characters, starting going on for too long and I began to lose interest.

If I can say nothing else great about this movie, I can at least say its the best thing associated with Wes Craven in a very long time.

I just saw this film at the Chicago Film Festival and I was quite impressed; not being a fan of horror movies, this one actually made me jump a few times. It exceeded my expectations of being a horror film and independent. I expected a film whereas the director simply wanted to kill some characters off, there is a pleasant blend of characters and a decently written script. I do recommend this film for a fun action/comedy/horror, but don't expect much in lieu of character development. I was unaware that it was a project greenlight film, and i've never seen the show or other PG films and was treated to an audience Q&A which, being a film major in Chicago was a fantastic experience. I was told the film is scheduled to be released early next year but the date is tentative and depends of audience feedback. If you've seen the movie leave some feedback positive or negative. nick

What the hell is wrong with Dimension. They release that crapfest Pulse with a fair amount of marketing push. And than their only good film in sometime gets a two night limited release. what were they thinking. I mean Feast isn't great but it's damn good. And deserved more exposure and more showtimes from a studio that does nothing but release one meddlesome product after another. OK I've vented now on to this cult classic in waiting. Feast has a standard set up like From Dusk til dawn with some Evil Dead 2 thrown in. It's about a group of strangers trapped at bar. as the film begins it's a bit questionable flipping from one comical intro to the next, and they get less comical as they move along. Than the monsters attack chaos ensues and gorehounds will be ecstatic. this film is all blood, vomit and guts, oh my... Some of the gore in my opinion was a bit much and felt forced. the film took a while to start but after the demise of certain people some predictably others not. Some performances worked Balthazar Getty, Krista Allen, henry Rollins and others didn't Clu Gallagher, Navi Rawatt and Judah Friedlander. The direction is jumbled at first and at most points it's hard to see whats going on. But as the film moves along and has some character growth and plot development. suspense builds, the laughs are kept to minmum thankfully and it becomes an all out action horror fest with a surprisingly great last half. The creatures are believable but low budget. With a little more money and time this film could've been great. But there is still a really good film here. it's absolute fun. a splatter fest with the balls to pull it off. In the categories of films like Dusk til Dawn and Sin City Feast ultimately pulls it off full fold but thanx to dimension most people will never know that. And as far as the directing is concerned it was definalty promising but as he makes more films, and I hope he will. he needs to work on some pacing issues, holding back some of the creativity and just taking more control of the entire film and not just half of it.

Saw this film at the International Horror & Sci-Fi Festival in Tempe, Arizona last night. This is the first film that I have seen from the "Project Greenlight" series. Since the film was made for only a million bucks, I expected "Feast" to be loaded with lots of things that would show that it was shot on a low budget. Well, there wasn't any CGI special effects and 99% of this film was shot inside the bar, but other than that, I didn't feel anything else was compromised that would affect the quality of the film. In fact, this film kicks more butt than most multi-million dollar horror and sci-fi flicks! "Feast" takes place inside a bar in the middle of the California desert. At one moment, a bloodied man shows up with a dead creature in his hand. He says there are four of them, he doesn't know what they are or where they came from, except that they devour and kill anybody they see. Within minutes, the creatures suddenly show up, the carnage begins and all hell breaks loose.

What I liked most about this film was the comical intros for all the lead characters: "hero", "loser", "expects nothing in life" etc.

Director John Gulager and one of the writers, Marcus Dunstan, chatted with the audience after the screening. According to John, the film was scheduled for a January 2006 release. Unfortunately, the turmoil at the film's distributors has put "Feast" on the shelf at least for now. Hopefully, something could be done to get this film out to the public, word of mouth is already out and "Feast" stands to make millions at the box office.

'Feast' begins in a bar introducing the viewer to characters with still frames stating their name, occupation, life expectancy and a supposedly amusing fact about them. It's a nice touch like a computer game but not a valid excuse for a lack of character development. Suddenly monsters turn up with no explanation and attack them. It's rare that a movie has zero plot but I think perhaps this is something original and give it the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately the remainder of the movie holds no originality or surprises, just an abundance of uninteresting, undeveloped characters battling uninteresting, unexplained monsters in an unscary, unfunny slapstick gross out "comedy" horror.

I totally get what the film makers were trying to achieve; a monster version of the second half of 'From Dusk Till Dawn' with 'The Evil Dead' trilogy style slapstick horror. However, 'From Dusk Till Dawn' worked because of Tarantino's clever dialogue and The Evil Dead movies worked because Sam Raimi is the master of slapstick horror: simultaneously inducing fear and laughter. There is no such genius involved in making this movie.

I'm sorry to say that 'Feast' fails on every possible level: zero plot, zero scares, lame characters, boring monsters and all attempts at humour fall flat on their face which is, at times, embarrassing to watch. This is coming from a fan of silly monster B movies, even bad ones, I've read positive reviews for this stinker but 'Feast' had absolutely nothing to offer me as a genre fan and the end couldn't have arrived quickly enough.

What makes the epic failure of 'Feast' all the more tragic is that it has a reasonable budget and some good actors. Balthazar Getty and Henry Rollins: what were you thinking!? You'd have to actually pay me to sit through the hilariously aptly titled sequels, 'Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds' and 'Feast 3: The Happy Finish'. Well I for one am happy this crappy franchise has finished.

So Hollywood continues to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into JUNK like Poseidon and Mission Impossible...meanwhile, there are interesting cats like Chris Moore, Matt Damon and, yes...admit it...Ben Affleck who put there clout behind little flicks like Feast.

Yes, I did watch Project Greenlight. At first, this flick looked like a train-wreck. Gulagher looked completely clueless. Little did we know that, deep beneath that fat, mousy exterior, beat the heart of Andrew Vachss's Burke.

What should have been a trifle turned out to be a fun, gross, laugh out loud comedic screamer that had some legitimate jolts. Give Gulagher $10 million and keep a strong producer like Chris Moore involved and you could have another Usual Suspects or Lock, Stock... The guy knows how to create mood. If a regular genre director had healmed Feast, it would have been another Sci Fi Original piece of crap. But Gulagher really showed a knack for noir. The lighting, the camera angles, what he chose to focus on at certain key points...it all rolled together for an excellent cinematic experience.

Even though I had free passes, this flick is still definitely worth the cost of A Night At The Movies. If it doesn't come to your town, PUT IT ON YOUR NETFLIX QUEUE NOW!!! A satisfying gore-fest that won't leave you disappointed.

this movie was just violence for the sake of violence! it was boring,with an un original story line! Also.. don't bother trying to eat anything while watching this movie! u would think Hollywood would be getting tired of making movies like this! being a big movie buff myself!!...i can tell you i have seen them all. this one didn't do a thing for me and i have to wonder how it would for anyone. they could have done better if they had just thrown fake blood all over an old house and filmed it! One has to wonder if Hollywood is running out of imagination or just getting lazy! the money for this film would has served better going to a charity! there was nothing impressive with the acting,storyline,or even visual effects for me. So in all this movie gets a poor rating in my book.