FEAST II:
SLOPPY SECONDS
(Review)

So if you’ve read my review of John Gulager’s Feast (in the Archive), you’ll know that I absolutely loved it, and was really looking forward to the DVD sequel, Sloppy Seconds.
And now that I’ve seen it… well… urm…


This one is initially propelled by the vendetta Biker Queen (Diane Ayala Goldner, a.k.a. Gulager’s missus) goes on upon finding the remains of her twin sister Harley Mama at the Bear Tavern.
She finds out from Bartender (Clu Gulager, a.k.a. Gulager Senior) that the guilty party responsible for Harley Mama’s unsightly condition is one Bozo, who lives in a nearby small town.
And when Biker Queen and her gals get to Smalltown (yes, it actually is called “Smalltown”), itching to blow Bozo’s a$$ wide open, they soon hook up with a group of its survivors, then must do all they can to stay alive, while the savage, horny beasties roam the streets.
And, oh yeah, Honey Pie (Jenny Wade) also happens to be in Smalltown as well…


If you’ve seen Feast, you’ll know that when I say Sloppy Seconds is even more improper and rude, you may doubt my word.
Well, it is. This one’s got dogs, and cats, and babies, and grandmas, and just when you think, Oh no, they wouldn’t… they do.
And it isn’t that heightened level of un-PC humour that rankles; I mean, I loved the original, so I knew what to expect.
No, it’s more the fact that Sloppy Seconds just isn’t as funny, nor as thrilling, as Feast was.


We get a bunch of new characters, among them, used car salesman Slasher (Carl Anthony Payne), his The Secret-fixated, cheating wife Secrets (Hanna Putnam), and midget… errr, little people wrestling brothers Thunder (Martin Klebba, whom you may remember from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and Hancock) and Lightning (real-life luchador Juan Longoria Garcia).
Sure, they’re all quirky, but somehow, we don’t get the spark that was so evident in Feast; though we do get a number of moments in Sloppy Seconds, none of these fresh characters pop they way those in Feast did.
And yes, they brought back Honey Pie, but it just seemed to be for the sole reason of putting her through a hellish wringer for her desertion in the original.


There are certain elements in Sloppy Seconds that just seem hobbled and don’t quite work the way they should.
There’s a dissection that starts out well enough, but then devolves into a protracted scatological SNL skit on crack. There’re the rooftop sequences that are shot against green screen, making them terribly distracting. There’s even some gratuitous topless/stripping action that just seems tired and self-conscious.
Even the introductory bits for each character aren’t as wildly hilarious as Feast’s.


I’m honestly not sure what went wrong here.
Did the work scriptwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan do on the Saw franchise affect their work here? Did they spread themselves out too thinly?
Is the cast here just not as solid as Feast’s?
Did all concerned go just a tad overboard with pushing the PC envelope?
Maybe it was a little bit of all of the above.


All I know is that Sloppy Seconds wasn’t as wildly satisfying a ride as Feast was, which makes me a bit dubious now about the third chapter, The Happy Finish.
Presumably that one will pick up right at the cliffhanger where this one leaves off, but will it be more of the same?
Hopefully, it’ll get back the sense of humour and crackerjack pacing of the original. After all, it wasn’t the rudeness and the impropriety of Feast that made it such a winner, but rather, the cheeky inventiveness of it.
Just like the gorno schtick of the Saw franchise, there’s only so much horny monster grand guignol I can take before things get stale and boring.
Here’s hoping The Happy Finish slips back into the fluid-lubricated groove Feast had so much fun in, and turns out to be exactly that.


Parting shot: In keeping with the nepotism of the original, director Gulager’s brother Tom is here as Greg Swank, and the aforementioned Baby is played by yet another Gulager, Clu Mosha (John’s nephew).

Parting shot 2: Just so you know, one of the best (and most gonzo) bits of Sloppy Seconds sees the welcome return of Judah Friedlander as Beer Guy…

(Feast II: Sloppy Seconds DVD cover art and images courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com, fangoria.com, and shocktillyoudrop.com.)

SAW IV
(Review)

Before we dive into this, I think it’s interesting to note that Saw is by far the most successful and popular horror franchise of the 21st century (or any century, for that matter). Truth is, there really isn’t any competition. All told, the four installments thus far have raked in nearly $300 million, with Saw V already scheduled for an October 2008 release.
Of course, if the 80’s taught us horror geeks anything, it’s that there are a lot of ups and downs in even the best franchise, and Saw is no exception.
I loved the original, but felt that the second had too many unrelatable, hastily sketched characters running around just waiting to get iced by the next gruesome trap. And while the third did attempt to trace its way back towards the dark territories mapped out so splendidly in Saw, it still fell far short of the heights scaled by the original.
Which brings us to Saw IV.

So, to get this out of the way: yes, Jigsaw is dead. He died in Saw III and he’s still dead.
Long live Jigsaw.

As I’ve mentioned ‘round these parts before, I was worked up about this fourth installment since the screenplay was written by the delightfully twisted wretches behind Feast, Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan.
So was my excitement justified? Yes, and no.
To begin with, and perhaps most importantly, after the original, this is the second best Saw installment to date. It manages to do a number of things in its 95-minute running time: delve into the pre-Jigsaw history of John Kramer; elaborate further on Jigsaw’s methodology; explain how all the heavy-lifting and legwork in previous chapters were done by a terminally-ill man and a mentally unstable girl; and tie in rather well to the events depicted in Saw III.
It’s clear that Melton and Dunstan understand what makes the franchise tick, and they serve up all that the fans have come to expect from a Saw movie, from the gore (and oh, so much of it) to the climactic twist (the same sort used in Saw II, though pulled off far more effectively here).

Opening with Jigsaw’s autopsy—quite possibly the most audacious on-screen post-mortem I’ve ever come across, something that should make even the most jaded CSI procedural hound squirm—Saw IV is also the bloodiest of the lot.
Which, of course, is one of the points of a Saw movie. But I’m just wondering where all this is going. How far can this franchise go? What celluloid atrocities will we witness in Saw IX?
And as wickedly clever as the script gets, it does have an annoying tic of pumping the audience with retroactive history in that by-now familiar Saw quick-cut editing style courtesy of Kevin Greutert. This method works for me when it’s used with a modicum of restraint, or when it’s used to fill us in on characters we’re already semi-familiar with.
In Saw IV, it just feels like this was done a tad too much, to the point where it becomes a lazy narrative cheat: why bother taking the time to establish a character when we can just stutter-strobe through their life history in nine seconds before we turn them into gobbets of mangled flesh?
And while Saw IV also—and perhaps belatedly—turns its attention to the other law enforcement types caught in the bloody wash of Jigsaw’s wake (notably Costas Mandylor’s Hoffman, introduced in the third installment, and Lyriq Bent’s Rigg, who’s been around since Saw II), it also sadly continues in the grand, bone-headed tradition of the franchise, to depict those same law enforcement types barreling headlong into dark rooms and abandoned warehouses without back-up, protective gear, or so much as a little Post-It to tell their other cop friends where they ran off to. Idiots.

As a microcosm of the franchise itself though, I suppose it’s only apt that Saw IV displays a range of ups (the traps are baroquely wicked and the bloodshed and mayhem suitably graphic, while the decidedly non-linear narrative pays attention to what came before, even giving us a cameo from one of Saw II’s cast of ne’er-do-wells; seeing Gilmore Girls’ Scott Patterson as FBI Agent Strahm is also a kick and a half) and downs (the most significant of which I’ve mentioned above).
Looking back, I guess this is probably the best case scenario, since I honestly don’t think I expected this installment to be better than Saw. I’m happy it’s continued to lift the franchise from the offal-filled pit it found itself in following Saw II. But the twisted point of Jigsaw, his hellish Hallmark life lessons, have been both hammered in, and hammered to death, over the course of four films.
While Saw IV not only reinforces that mindset, it also strives to lay out—in its own effed-up, helter-skelter way—Jigsaw’s idealistic past and his blood-drenched present, as well as offer up a tantalizing suggestion of the dark future. Given that achievement, this latest installment has certainly justified its reason for existence. (It’s also gone a long way in explaining why Saw III always felt like a story that had only been half-told.)
But as I pointed out earlier, where are we going with this? We already know what Jigsaw wanted to say, and we’ve seen a whole lotta blood shed to make that point.
So what will Saw V have to say that will necessarily be new and worth our attention (and money)?
Time will tell, I imagine.
Till then, I’m almost tempted to revisit Saw III for a neat (and bloody) double feature.
Almost.

Parting shot: Reviews of Saw and Feast can be found in the Archive.

(Saw IV OS and images courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

reVIEW (28)
FEAST

Three reasons for this look back at John Gulager’s Feast.
One: There’s a pair of direct-to-DVD sequels on the way.
Two: Feast was written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, who also wrote the screenplay for Saw IV, which is just about to open.
Three: This is the sort of fracking wild trip that’s always worth another look.

The end result of Project Greenlight’s third season, Feast is a monster mash that’s both bloody and funny, that defies expectations and pulls no punches. Out in the middle of nowhere, in The Bear Tavern (“Home of the Grill Kill Museum”), a bunch of strangers are about to face the meanest, smartest, and horniest beasties this side of Alien’s xenomorph and Species' Sil.
Setting the mood from the get-go, with instant (though perhaps unreliable) Monster Movie Victim Stats popping up on-screen as each character is introduced—“Name: Hot Wheels; Occupation: Selling Fireworks to 7th Graders; Life Expectancy: They Wouldn’t Kill a Cripple, Would They?”—Feast quickly establishes the smart-a$$ attitude that will carry us through a 95-minute ride of madcap mayhem that deftly delivers the thrills, scares, and laughs in a smart, sharp, and wickedly humourous package.

What’s pleasantly surprising about Feast is that this is not only a monster movie with a decidedly freaky-a$$ monster (courtesy of Gary J. Tunnicliffe, who’s done effects for Pulse and its sequel, as well as a couple of Heroes episodes), it’s also a film that’s well-shot (by Thomas L. Callaway), well-edited (by Pulse editor Kirk Morri), and well-acted (with people like Alias/Brothers & Sisters’ Balthazar Getty and Numb3rs/The O.C.’s Navi Rawat in the ensemble).
It’s also got buckets of blood and gore and torn appendages (human and otherwise) zinging about on-screen.
And have I mentioned? It’s really funny too.

In Feast, Gulager, Melton, and Dunstan take some post-modern swipes at the conventions of the monster movie, primary among them, not even giving their main characters proper names (Getty and Rawat play “Bozo” and “Heroine” respectively), acknowledging what we in the audience already know: most, perhaps even all, of these people are dead meat walking. Why bother with names when they’re just going to end up a bloody mess of body parts on the tavern floor?
But even with that approach, Gulager and company actually give us individuals with personalities, which makes the fact that there’s actually some good acting here, a massive plus. There’re some great moments in Feast from Baywatch/What About Brian’s Krista Allen (“Tuffy”) and 30 Rock’s Judah Friedlander (“Beer Guy”). And it’s a kick and a half to see Henry Rollins (as motivational speaker “Coach”) and Jason Mewes (as himself, though he is credited as the “Edgy Cat”) among the Bear Tavern’s patrons.

Of course, given that this is a monster movie, what some horror geeks could argue is Feast’s crowning glory, is the creature itself. Believe you me, this one’s a corker. You’re lucky if all it does to you is eat you.
So if you haven’t partaken of Feast, then do yourself a great big favour and watch it, before the sequels come barreling our way. And if you’ve already seen it, I’m sure you won’t deny that watching it again sounds like a plan.
Watch it back-to-back with Planet Terror. Now that’s a double-header.

“This is just some leaky barrel radiation toxic dump waste enviro-crap freak-beast accident that crawled out of the sewer, man. That’s all this is. We’re gonna be all right.”
-- Beer Guy, before something awful happens to him

Parting shot: Though I loved the first Saw, I’ve been less than thrilled by the sequels. If Melton and Dunstan can bring to Saw IV the scares and the smarts that are readily apparent in Feast’s script, then there’s hope for Jigsaw yet.
Melton and Dunstan are also involved in the upcoming thriller The Midnight Man, Dunstan’s directorial debut.

Parting shot 2: Some quick bits on some of Feast’s ensemble:
Veteran actor Clu Gulager (who plays “Bartender”) is director John Gulager’s father, and Diane Goldner (“Harley Mama”) is John Gulager’s wife. Go nepotism!
The life of the party, Judah Friedlander is appearing in the upcoming Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, directed by Ti West.
Jason Mewes and Balthazar Getty also worked together on David Arquette’s The Tripper. (Review in Archive.)

Parting shot 3: As naughty and nasty as Feast is, the sequels promise to assault sensibilities even further. The first sequel’s title says it all: Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds.
On talking about the sequels, Dunstan says: "Neo Art & Logic is producing again, and if they let us get away with the vulgarities we've currently scripted, and if we don’t get deported, we just may have the NC-17-rated monsterfest that was only hinted at in the first film."
Boo-yah!

(Feast OS courtesy of impawards.com; image courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; behind the scenes images from Project Greenlight courtesy of bravotv.com.)

BLACK SHEEP
(Review)

Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister) returns to the sheep farm he half-owns fifteen years after the misfortunate confluence of a tasteless practical joke and a family tragedy caused him to develop ovinophobia, the irrational fear of sheep. What Henry doesn’t know is that his brother Angus (Peter Feeney) has been conducting genetic experiments on the livestock.
Soon, there’s a massive flock of killer sheep, and Henry receives some hard therapy to get over his phobia.

Black Sheep, written and directed by Jonathan King, is B-movie horror/comedy by way of New Zealand. Think of it as the spiritual successor to Peter Jackson’s early low budget efforts like Dead Alive.
Appropriately enough, Jackson’s Weta Workshop executes the creature and make up effects for Black Sheep, which involves lots of old school, practical effects that make the film a fun, little bloody romp through the rolling hills and woods of New Zealand farm country.

Though the film does get some laughs at the expense of new age thinking and environmentalists, the narrative does address filial legacies and sibling rivalries; in its own B-movie way, of course. It also affords Henry a neat little character arc as he must come to terms with his ovinophobia, and all the underlying issues that the fear is a symptom of.

Granted, Black Sheep does lack a little something that keeps it from the wildly entertaining heights of recent B-movie horror/comedies like Slither and Feast, it is nonetheless a solid entry in the genre, fun, and funny—and naughty—when it needs to be.
It also plays a lot better than the mad cows of Ireland’s Dead Meat, so if B-movies are your thing, you should seriously check out Black Sheep.

(Black Sheep OS courtesy of postergeek.com.)