FANTASTIC FEST: Harry swims in the karo & red dye # 5 of John Gulager's splatterpiece, FEAST!!!

Hey folks – Harry here with the last third of my first evening of FANTASTIC FEST. The middle was taken up with ZATHURA and the after party where Jon and I disappeared into an hour and a half of Barsoomian, thank God Quint was too busy taking people’s money at Texas Hold Em (or whatever that evil game of sin is called)

When Jon’s wife stole him away, I realized we had 30 minutes to get over to the Drafthouse South for the Festival premiere of John Gulager’s FEAST… which would be being shown digitally.

Now, I have to say – the only reason I programmed this film was due to Test Screening reviews that we’ve published on the site that seem to say it was pretty darn great. Now, I kinda hated the other two PROJECT GREENLIGHT films – but this one… FUCKING AWESOME!

I’ve never seen a single episode of PROJECT GREENLIGHT, but have many friends that were addicted to it. The film I’ve been following like this has been KING KONG. Heh… The biggest version of PROJECT GREENLIGHT ever. Anyway, I’d heard rumors that John Gulager was insane. That Chris Moore was a hothead on the show. But ya know what… all that crap doesn’t mean a damn thing. At the end of the day, it’s about what is up on screen – and folks… FEAST is hardcore fun!

This has more to do with the “bastard” days of Peter Jackson and the last half of FROM DUSK TIL DAWN than anything that Affleck, Damon or Wes Craven have been involved with.

The movie starts off with a series of freeze frames that give a little background and soothsaying about said character’s likelihood to survive the night. I was kinda getting annoyed by this as… there were just so many characters – and it just felt cute and unnecessary… until the payoff – when suddenly it was genius.

And at that point till the end, the film didn’t give you a yawn or a moment to even think about anything other than… “OH FUCK!” This is a glorious splatter film. The movie moves at a breakneck breathless speed and you just can’t deny the sheer amount of fun you’re having with the film. Be it Henry Rollins’ wild monologues or long lingering stares as a woman cleans the blood off her lovely breasts. A scene that no matter how you write it sounds pathetic – but when you see it… the timing and the pacing is just precious.

I love how when the monsters attack, the bar patron’s sheer panic at defending themselves tend to result in killing more of themselves than the monsters do. It’s classic… Holy Fuck, We’re All Gonna Die – but with Judah Friedlander as BEER GUY in the Bill Paxton role – and his character is an absolute genre classic. He’s there with Romero’s Bub or Nick Frost’s Ed from SHAUN OF THE DEAD as most endearing horrific buffoon.

I can see this film garnering a long and endearing fan base. There’s a part of me that would love to see a nationwide midnight release of this film. Only screening it at midnight for weeks, then suddenly like a week before Halloween, it begins playing all hours. Heavy duty gore and hilarity crazed red-band trailers on everything. Online print-out permission slips so teenagers can get in. Cuz man, had I seen this film from 14 through College, I’d gone fucking nuts! This thing has so much energy and fun and just… I can’t say enough times fun. The film isn’t bogged down with assloads of exposition. These are lots of characters freaking the fuck out over a freak-out-able fucking situation.

And have I talked about the monsters? Ok – they’re probably terribly fakey if you were to still frame the film – but ya know what? These monsters, like James Cameron’s take on ALIENS and his shitty rubber suits on that film – was all about light and shadow and MOVEMENT AND SOUND. Gulager and his editor took that to heart because when these monsters fuck, it’s fast. When they kill, it’s never from the expected time and place, and it is always brutal and bloody as hell.

My first day of FANTASTIC FEST was perfection… a great FANTASY in STRINGS, a perfect SCI-FI Family Adventure with ZATHURA – and lastly an incredible HORROR gore extravaganza with FEAST. What a fantastic fest!