Feast III: The Happy Finish (2009)

Crimson Quill’s Appraisal #227

Number of Views: One
Release Date: February 17, 2009
Sub-Genre: Splatter
Country of Origin: United States
Budget: $2,000,000
Running Time: 80 minutes
Director: John Gulager
Producers: Michael Leahy, Ron Cosmo Vecchiarelli
Screenplay: Marcus Dunstan, Patrick Melton
Special Effects: Anthony Julio, Neil Stockstill, Vance Hartwell, Erin Draney
Visual Effects: Chad Goei
Cinematography: Kevin Atkinson, Alexandre Lehmann, John Gulager
Score: Stephen Edwards
Editing: Kirk M. Morri
Studios: Dimension Extreme, LivePlanet, Neo Art & Logic
Distributor: Dimension Extreme
Stars: Jenny Wade, Clu Gulager, Diane Ayala Goldner, Martin Klebba, Carl Anthony Payne, Hanna Putnam, Juan Longoria Garcia, William Prael, John Allen Nelson, Josh Blue, Craig Henningsen

feast-3

Suggested Audio Candy

Raphael ‘Elvis’ Coca “The Ballad of Feast (Parte Uno, Parte Dos, Parte Tres)”

Back in 2006, Project Greenlight gave the go-ahead for John Gulager’s zany creature feature Feast to make its appearance. Despite Wes Craven despising the original treatment, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon endorsed the project and the Weinsteins bankrolled it. It fast become something of a cult classic and resonated enough with splatter fans to justify two sequels which were shot back-to-back to form its eventual trilogy. If puerile humor, mindless violence and broad stereotypes are your bag then you are in luck as the series has all of the above in über-abundance.

Feast III: The Happy Finish picks up right where Sloppy Seconds left off, with our battered, bruised and impaled hopefuls stranded on a rooftop while the highly sexed creatures roam below picking off any stragglers. They consist of a group of quarreling reprobates with names such as Slasher, Biker Queen and Bartender and are each as disposable as the last. Any critical commentators will have their noses out of joint by the playful life expectancy rating applied to each in turn and, considering a dead-from-the-waist-down midget is still conscious while his intestines are strewn about, it becomes clear that realism isn’t high on the priority list.

Nobody is safe in Feast. Countless heroes come and go, often directly after their rousing introductions and it is assumed that we simply won’t care for any of them. Instead they act as silage for the frisky beasts and no explanation is given for the manifestation of said monsters as it really isn’t necessary in the grand scheme of things. We are all just here to watch an ill-fitting group of square pegs get pulled kicking and screaming into their round holes.

Actually, this is where Keeper differs from many of his brethren in that I actually found a number of them rather likeable. Let’s not get it twisted, I wouldn’t be likely to entrust them with my lunch money as they consist largely of unscrupulous fucks without an ounce of dignity and/or self-respect. However they are so colorfully drawn that you can’t help but feel something for them. With a few loose ends gnawed off we are promptly introduced to a fresh set of ‘heroes’ in the form of Shitkicker, Prophet and Jean-Claude Seagal and spewed forth into the fray once more.

To give you a vague inkling of what to expect from Feast III here is the film where, upon having one of his arms wrenched from its socket, one protagonist is told to simply ‘walk it off’. Another has a metal bar lodged in his cranium for the entire duration and mumbles in discomfort with the aid of on-screen subtitles. In addition, Biker Queen’s personal entourage of tattooed betties spend the majority of their screen time devoid of upper garments and the icing on a rather icky cake is a luchador midget just to keep things diverse.

The humor is juvenile in the extreme. Dick, fart and shit gags are all present and correct although Feast III achieves the unthinkable with instances of comedy genius which almost caused my spleen to rupture. In particular, one scene where Clu Gulager’s Bartender gives medical assistance to our one-armed bandit only to reveal that he learned the technique, not from the field, but from Rambo III is priceless. His revelation comes as the one-armed bandit unwittingly becomes no-armed bandit and then, moments later at a sewer ladder and after hilarious remarking that he now resembles a Foosball player, he asks the poor lad to give him his hand to pull him to safety. I damned near shit my kidney.

The grue is, as we have come to expect from the series, utterly insane. I will leave detail for my post-appraisal rundown but let me just say that it doesn’t leave you wanting. The SFX are largely impressive and always over the top, with blood gushing in every conceivable direction and enough entrails to fashion a fleshy mammoth. Tongue is never far from cheek either and the creatures mooch about with massive swinging testicles, going some way to explaining their insatiable sexual appetites.

There is such a thing as high-brow entertainment and, by the same token, there is also low-brow. Feast III: The Happy Finish is bereft of any brows. It is pure exploitative trash, politically incorrect unerringly and increasingly preposterous right up to its way-out-of-left-wing finale. Should this sound like your bag then I would wholeheartedly recommend the entire trilogy as there are insufficient superlatives for me to explain just how much Southern-fried fun it really is.

The Gulager clan are downright unhinged if truth be known. Thank the heavens above for insanity as there really isn’t anything else even vaguely like this. It’s a far cry from perfect and an overdone strobe sequence is frustratingly disorienting, but it offers pound for pound more debauchery than nigh on any other movie out there in the multiverse and is a hoot from bloody start to bloody finish.

Crimson Quill’s Judgement: 7/10

Grue Factor: 5/5

For the Grue-Guzzlers & Pelt-Nuzzlers: I am at a loss as to where to start here but here goes. Anal monster-molestation culminating in quick-fire pregnancy and ultimate explosion, beheading complete with digestion and excretion, enough dismembered limbs to afford a Mexican Wave, stabbing, pummeling, gouging, plucking, fucking, flattening and spattering. The red sauce is in full gush and, for anyone craving a little naked flesh, a large quantity lands squarely on bare breasts.