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.)

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.)