Sunday, March 15, 2009

Lambs To The Slaughter: Feast III: The Happy Finish(2009)

I recently got around to watching Feast III: The Happy Finish(2009) on DVD. The third installment in the "Feast" films, directed by John Gulager, son of veteran actor Clu Gulager(who also stars in each of these movies), picks up right where Feast II: Sloppy Seconds leaves off: the motley group of survivors, fighting to stay alive from the raids of the marauding, bloodthirsty humanoid monsters that have invaded their town, continue the struggle. There's not much new in this third "Feast" film: a couple of new characters appear, neither of which ultimately can change the fate of any of the survivors. The dialogue between the human cast remains mostly confined to profanity and other bits of verbatim presumably meant to remind the viewer of this film how much these survivors dislike each other.

The film itself is a bloodbath, even more so than Feast II Sloppy Seconds. Perhaps director John Gulager wanted to try and sicken even the most die hard gory horror movie fans. I doubt he succeeded but, judging by the absolute butchery of humans in this movie, I think it's safe to say it wasn't for lack of effort.

I wouldn't have considered it possible that director John Gulager could outdo himself regarding the gore and carnage in the second "Feast" movie but he did it in Feast III: the movie's gratuitous and over the top gore is steady and unrelenting, the various deaths of the human cast violent, sometimes sudden and always bloody: there are gruesome impalings, dismemberments of limbs, the periodic claw hammer strikes used on the monsters by one of the biker girls, and an abundant amount of sequences in which both victims and monsters are disemboweled, their intestines and other internal organs falling out into plain view. There's also a scene that might bring bile to the viewer's throat: one of the monsters manages to have anal sex with a surviving male cast member, a truly vile scene with an even more repulsive consequence a moment later.

Personally, I like the first "Feast" film the best. The second and third films in this trilogy ramp up the bizarre, campiness and occasional injection of black humor into the story lines, something I can do without. Still, "gorehounds" and other fans of gory horror movies should like Feast III: The Happy Finish just fine.

I've heard that a fourth "Feast" film is in the works. All things considered, and after watching Feast III, I hope it doesn't happen.

Here's the third "Feast" film on R1 DVD for sale at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Feast-III-Finish-Jenny-Wade/dp/B001KKU9CS
(you can also see this film for sale on DVD by clicking the title of this blog)