Feast II: Sloppy Seconds

I was laughing the whole way through this work of art.:-@ The action and the blood just never stops! The action is so quick i know i missed a few hidden extras they throw into a scene that will make me laugh some more. Its just way over the top you have to see it! If this this movie means nothing to you, then you have no sense of humor. And if its to gory for you go watch another japanese ghost story usa remake

Project Greenlight 3 winner John Gulager's campy horror flick Feast was released in a handful of midnight screenings in 2005 before heading to DVD where it picked up cult classic status, prompting the studio to throw a back-to-back deal (not to mention buckets of more money) at the team for the sequel and third installment of the trilogy. Shot in 2007 on location, Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds (released today on DVD) and Feast 3: Happy Ending (coming in 2009) boast a larger cast of even more unknowns than the first (Jenny Wade is the biggest star, returning to lead a truckload in this "war"), more blood, more gore, and more chance to see the monster-villains on-screen... unfortunately all that excess proves to just be superfluous. Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds suffers from the lack of imagination, creativity, and ingenuity with which the first of the series soared to success; Feast 2 lacks the heart of the independent story it once was, proving once again that the extra money and inflated egos of studio films can kill a franchise.

Randy (Jamie Kennedy) from Wes Craven's Scream once said that in trilogies "all bets are off." Since the series has a clear-cut end, certain characters-- even the leads-- don't have to be kept alive for countless resurrections down the road. It seems Gulager took this advice to heart with Feast 2, opening on the morning after the initial attack in a town nearby where the creatures are now invading a whole new group of people. He throws the picture he painted in Feast out the window not only by ignoring what happened to the car of survivors that took off at dawn (Balthazar Getty must have been too busy with his TV drama and his real life personal drama to return his calls, and his working relationship with Krista Allen was definitely not positive enough to warrant her return) but also by deeming some events and their subsequent title cards false by having a character or two "not be dead after all" (I love Judah Friedlander more than the next girl, but his death was awesome, and his reemergence compromises the rules Feast set forth). A cop out way just to fill the cast with your friends and family, if you ask me, and isn't that what the studio was trying to avoid the first time around? Feast's dollar success was not great enough to allow the granting of complete power to a still-green director who, judging by the auteurship of this film, will most likely have to head back to the world of wedding videos come 2010.
What was so clever and refreshing about Feast was how Gulager made the most of what he had. He wasn't given all the fanciest FX equipment or the biggest budget for CGI. He made an old-school monster movie, with puppeteers on set, steering the hand-crafted rubber beings. He sprayed plenty of blood on his actors and the camera lens, but first and foremost, he crafted well-developed characters and dialogue, using the carnage as a visual aid, but not relying on it to carry the film. Feast 2, however, speaks to the lowest common denominator, as if everything about the filmmaking process was rushed. Between visual gags, toilet humor, and cheap costumes (seeing more of the monsters just showed the dudes in their latex suits), the budget may have doubled, but the production value has been cut off at the knees. There is a lot of the S16mm handheld "home movie" footage in this sequel, but unfortunately shooting such shots at night and "on the move" just provide dark, grainy, and offensive results-- not just to the filmmaker in me but also to the fan.

Actually Gulager's brand of humor has always been borderline, but in Feast 2 he takes it a bit too far, once again probably just drunk on the power of being in control. There are a lot of slapstick jokes at Martin Klebba's expense, and there is a scene with a baby that caused my jaw to hit the floor and my finger to hit the stop button on my DVD player. This film is nothing like the original, and if you are one of the few diehard supporters of the first, like me, you definitely should not ruin your opinion of the story by viewing this mess. Gulager himself should not have ruined the integrity of the story by making this mess!

I actually didn't think there would be any sequels to Feast, even though it was an enjoyable and nasty little horror flick. Well, shows what I know. Feast II: Sloppy Seconds is pretty much what its subtitle implies, as this sequel ups the ante in terms of blood, gore, and some ultra gross-out effects that will have you doing a double take. Sadly, there isn't much else here other than what I just mentioned. What made the first Feast so enjoyable was that it was virtually unpredictable in terms of what was going to happen and who was going to die. Here, not so much. The story picks up right where the first film left off, as we learn that a neighboring town has had the same monstrous problems that the survivors of the bar massacre had dealt with as well, and things don't appear to be looking any brighter for anyone involved. While Feast II doesn't pull any punches in terms of its ridiculous violence, it does become noticeable how low a budget the film had, particularly towards the climax of the film where it is ever apparent that the roof scenes were shot with a green-screen background. Still though, Feast II delivers the goods in terms of gore and shocks, and manages to retain the attitude of the first film. With Feast III looming on the horizon, let's hope that director John Gulager and co. manage to serve up some deliciously disgusting dessert.

In a small desert town, the few survivors of a bar brawl with a few vicious monsters team up with some locals to, once again, survive the monstrous onslaught.

Project Greenlight-winner John Gulager returns to the director's chair with this straight-to-video sequel to his cult hit Feast. The first gained notoriety due to its production on Bravo's filmmaking series Project Greenlight, which gave Feast a nice run of credit names including Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Wes Craven. I very much loved the first one, and consider it a modern-day Evil Dead, due to its cult fame and part of a future trilogy. That reputation, however, now relied on Feast II also being a hit (cult or otherwise). In comparison to the first in general filmmaking, it pales. The acting, writing, and direction have all gone a bit downhill, though only some of the acting is terrible and the rest of it being at least acceptable. Another problem stood with the character introductions. They were changed up from the quickfire style in the first film, and now seemed like Monday Night Football player intros. Some of them were a bit long and really took the viewer out of the action. While the film doesn't live up to the first in general quality, it does maintain all of what the first was great at: over-the-top gore & violence, sex & nudity, foul language, rubber suited creatures, non-stop action, and hilariously one-dimensional characters. If those kind of things don't work for you, neither will this film. The gore was great and endless, and the violence was brutally gruesome (and often offensive). While it could've used another hot chick or two, the cast fit the roles well, even if some of their performances left quite a bit to be desired. Also, the ending will leave many (including me) somewhere between annoyed, frustrated, and simply wanting more. Luckily, none of the problems were enough to ruin the film and if you're a fan of the first or just looking for some mindlessly bloody entertainment chock-full of biker chicks, super-strength monsters, and wrestling midgets, I can definitely recommend Feast II: Sloppy Seconds.

Final verdict: 6.5/10. I'll be impatiently awaiting Feast 3: The Happy Finish

Note: The writing team of Melton and Dunstan have penned the script for the upcoming Hellraiser reboot, along with the upcoming Saw V.

-AP3-

It's true, this movie was far from perfect. The acting was decent, and the gore factor was real high. If you have a beer or two, mellow out, and watch the movie for entertainment purposes, you will like it. If you watch it like movie critic, who thinks you can make the perfect movie,and really can't either, you won't like it. I did enjoy the movie, but I get biased. The more gore, the more stars! Give it a try, you might really like it too.