RE MOVIE: Feast (2006) (spoilers, horror)

Alright, first off: Spoiler alerts.

So if you want to watch the movie before reading my ramblings, go do that.

I’m going to describe the happenings of the movie, and I’m also going to fantasize with my brain about all the other choices they could make for a follow up.

And straight off? It was dumb.

It was a dumb horror movie. Not really one that I would eat during because they seemed to think that “gross=funny” when really it’s just gross. Like, you’ve got all this talent in one place and a few changes would make it a mainstream popular horror movie, but instead you’re going to have monster dicks for no real reason. You know, it’s for the low-quality exophiles; it’s the equivalent of the boob shot.

Not going to lie, there’s some District 9 fan stuff out there that’s beautiful. Lyrical writing, great storytelling, and enough quality and delineation that you don’t have to read the monsterfucking if you don’t want to. This movie is nowhere near that level.

And I’m not too proud to say that I thought there was going to be some kind of reveal about why the monsters keep fucking peoples’ faces. And when the beer guy was shown to have maggots already crawling out of his just ripped out eyeball hole? After he was vomited on by one of the creatures and his skin starts melting?

I thought it was going to be like giant flies or something.

But they never explain in the movie. The monsters pop in, and either murder or get murdered. And that’s it.

“Rawr!” Boom-boom-boom! “Oh shit, you blasted my toes off with your wild shotgun shooting!” “Rawr!” “Shoot it! Shoot it!” Ad nauseam.

And there’s follow up movies and it’s a trilogy???

But I’ve only seen this one, and I don’t think I’ll go out of my way to see the others as they seem like they might be worse. (It would be like trying to watch the Species movies for their edutainment value. (None at all.) And even there the first movie was the best of the series. Like, I watched the movies, but would never describe them as quality.)

Anyways, Feast is set in a crappy bar in the middle of the desert. And there’s two waitresses, one with a kid, an old lady barfly, an inspirational speaker salesman guy, Jason Mewes, an old bartender, “The Boss” who owns the place, the “Vet” in his uniform drinking and talking about going home to his wife and then leaving back for the front lines to get away from her, the beer delivery guy, a young guy in a wheelchair, “The Bozo” who seems to be a local troublemaker, and “Harley Mom” who is planning to rob the bar.

Starts with The Bozo in the bar pushing the guy in the wheelchair away from the jukebox and saying “Shut up, fag!” as he does it. And like, yeah, casual slurs of the 2006’s.

But later, when the relationship is revealed that they’re brothers???

And when The Bozo gets scared and he jumps in his brother’s lap and hugs him? Or when he pulls him out of the way and protects him? And then when the wheelchair gets ruined, he carries his brother to safety?

They have a true and loving relationship.

I enjoy their interactions. Like, The Bozo may genuinely be a piece of shit person, but maybe it’s just the persona he puts on when he goes to the bar to scam money at pool?

Like, he pretends not to know his brother, and insults him. And then later the brother purposefully bumps into Jason Mewes to distract him so The Bozo can rub grease on the cue ball.

They have a whole routine going. And it’s just to make money to live.

That’s kind of likable to me. I enjoy that their relationship was there.

The salesman guy was annoying with his jibber-jabber. He would present these ideas that would later be revealed as awful or counterproductive. (When they return the dead baby monster, and the big monster eats it, fucks its mate, and the mate births two more? They don’t say, but I feel like that was his fault.)

Jason Mewes is just there for the cameo. And it looks like he’s wearing a terrible black wig. Just awful.

The one waitress–Honey Pie–has big dreams of leaving town and being famous. Pre-monster appearance she is almost seduced by the salesman, but his wedding ring falls out of his wallet. And she’s a silly person, but she has no interest in being a homewrecker. Her later assholeness seems like a big surprise, but I’ve also gotta question why she should trust a bunch of scumbags after all the horrible shit she’s seen and being covered with a bunch of blood and seeing maggots crawl out of a guy’s face hole? Maybe she’s the most levelheaded of the whole bunch 🤷🏻‍♀️

The other waitress is Tuffy, the single mom. She’s working in an awful bar and seems worn out and miserable in her life. At the beginning she has the bartender pour her a shot that she was going to charge to someone else’s tab until The Boss walked by and she paid for it herself. She then goes to the living area upstairs, puts headphones over her young son’s ears, then goes into the room to be fucked by The Boss. Who she obviously does not like.

From the outset you realize that she’s been living a hard life. I don’t know if she lives up there above the bar and is working for and sleeping with The Boss for housing and security, but it doesn’t seem like she has a car?

Anyways, Tuffy is the main character. No lie. It follows the others, but basically she is “the hero” of the story.

And there is a literal “The Hero” character that pops in covered in blood and waving a rifle, but his introduction is more for comedic purposes than anything else. “I’m here to save you!” Whoops. His wife comes in, “Where’s my husband? Oh noes!” and she becomes “The Heroine,” there to save everyone and get back to her daughter.

But Tuffy is the main character and hero of the movie. The loss of her son early on is the motivating force behind her wanting to get The Heroine back to her daughter.

She tries to take a leadership role, but she’s not good at it.

“Savior character”-wise, The Bozo is the protagonist. He’s the able-bodied young man with enough strength and quickness to constantly be pushed into dangerous situations. There’s very much a “You’re a man!” sense to it all as other people volunteer him to risk his life.

And like, he’s got his brother to take of. His life and his bother’s life are his motivations throughout the movie.

And while everyone in town might think he’s a garbage person… in the end, he’s brave when he’s needed to be. And throughout the movie we’re shown that the “good” people are pretty shitty.

Like, I’m sure The Boss would describe himself as a “law abiding citizen,” but he’s really the worst person there.

He is sexually harassing his employee, a single mother that he knows to be desperate. He knowingly kills someone. And he probably cheats on his taxes too, likely by stealing his employees’ tips or something. Just an all around piece of shit.

The beer delivery guy is the “loser” character. By the end, I bet he was wishing he’d listened when The Boss told him to GTFO–“You’ve delivered the beer. Get out of here.”–but lingering around the bar seems to be what he does.

Like, he goes in the basement without permission. He messes around in the backroom. When they’re trying to come up with escape plans, he knows a lot of the hidey places around the bar. Just general information that a random delivery guy should not have about someone else’s business.

If he’d left after delivering the beer, he would have avoided all of that and been much better off for it.

Instead, beer delivery guy has a truly terrible experience.

Basically everyone has a bad time.

They’re locked in a crappy bar with people they can’t really depend on. Monsters keep attacking. And the monsters are able to eat, fuck, and give birth within minutes. Which means theoretically there’s potentially a never-ending tide of monsters to deal with.

And the movie is set in pre-iPhone 2006, so nobody has a cellphone (not even Jason Mewes? Didn’t anyone check his pockets???) and the monsters are intelligent enough to take out the landline and the CB radio The Bozo risks his life to reach.

And the movie ends without explaining where the monsters came from, how many there are, and whether they’re attacking everywhere or just in that small area. We don’t know. And I don’t want to watch the other movies so…

In my imaginings, maybe those things are all over the place. Breeding too fast to be killed.

And if they were like mutated giant flies that are able to use roadkill as body protection and bones as tools… that would be horrifying. Female flies lay between 75 to 150 eggs at a time and they can hatch out within 24 hours in warm weather. And they can lay multiple batches in their lifetime, resulting in up to 500 flies within a week from one female.

Which is why I thought the giant fly monster idea would be a good explanation. Like, they’re giant and they’re walking around with a bunch of larva on their bodies–which explains the roadkill they’re covered in (it’s giant fly baby carriages). And like, those weren’t really monster dicks but monster ovipositors.

So when beer delivery guy was vomited on, it was to start the digestion process. And he was thrown up on twice, once to start digestion, and the second time to cover him in larva that would then have a food source to grow out of.

And all those dead bodies that kept having their mouths humped? They were being loaded with eggs that would hatch out later.

So like, if anyone in that bar had truly been heroic, all of the creatures would have been wiped out and any found bodies would have been burned or crammed into barrels for later research. But with the way things happened, within days the entire continent would be overrun before anyone could figure out what’s going on.

Which sounds like a more horrifying ending then the lack of explanation we got.

Anyways. Dumb movie. But possible inspiration fuel for much better pieces of work. Your mileage may vary.

~Harper Kingsley

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