A few years back, a couple of nobodies by the names Matt Damon and Ben Affleck made headlines by winning an Academy Award for the screenplay of "Good Will Hunting." Since that time, both have gone in different directions as far as movie careers and experienced their fair share of ups and downs. But it is Affleck whom I feel the most sorry for. After all, he actually ended up spending way too much time with the multi-UNtalented and ever-annoying Jennifer Lopez. How anyone could stand 'Jenny from the Block' for more than 2 seconds is beyond me. What I have come to appreciate about Damon and Affleck is that they have a sense of humor about their careers, they don’t take themselves too seriously and they have offered opportunities to budding filmmakers to work their way into the Hollywood machine. Through the "Project Greenlight" series, newcomers were allowed to offer up their work and if chosen, see if they had what it took to direct a feature film.

The first season gave us Pete Jones' "Stolen Summer", while season 2's winners were Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle's who directed "The Battle of Shaker Heights." Both seasons of the series were pretty highly rated, and though the films were only moderately successful, were given a lot of attention because of the series.

The third season introduced us to John Gulager (son of the great Clu Gulager) who directed what was to become the best of the films to come out of the project. Sadly, it also became the least noticed. Moving into a whole new genre, Gulager's "Feast" was touted to be horror film. Not just any horror film mind you, but bit of a horror film spoof. I kind of rolled my eyes at the thought originally, because there had been a lot of horror film spoofs lately and none of them really worked for me.

Still, I waited for "Feast" to hit theatres in the hopes that Gulager just might be he guy to get it right. Unfortunately, the film never got a theatrical release beyond a few special screenings across the country. It even screened here in Dallas, but by the time I caught the new it was too late for me to catch it. A few friends that saw it told me it was excellent so I set about waiting for the eventual DVD release.

My wait didn’t last too long as the DVD release from the Weinstein Company found its way into my hands about a week ago and my wife and I set aside some time to give it a watch. Within the first few minutes of "Feast" I felt that we had a winner. Once the rollercoaster ride started with freeze frame introductions of our 'characters', which included 'fun facts' and their life expectancies, the entertainment level never dropped. Each character was a carefully contrived stereotype of the horror genre, yet they were able to step outside of the stereotype with shocking ease.

As a matter of fact, the entire movie was set up the same way. You've seen the story a million times what with a bunch of characters trapped somewhere (in this case, a bar…) while being hunted down and killed one at a time by some horrible monster. But I guarantee you've never seen the story done like this. Every formula of the genre is used, and then skewed just enough to be constantly jarring to the audience. Every time you think you know what's going to happen… you’re wrong. The characters in the movie as well as the audience are kept off-balance by a never ending barrage of totally unexpected twists. As a good friend of mine pointed out, "Feast" is the best kind of horror film because anyone can die at anytime. You never know who and you never know when.

I honestly cannot think of a single thing I didn’t like about the film. Though I can see why it might have had such a problem getting a theatrical release. The DVD release is "Unrated", and to be honest I think that's the version that needs to be seen. There are some extremely grotesque and disgusting sequences in the film, and if any of them were to be cut out, it would diminish the movie as a whole. And a few of the totally unexpected deaths in the movie would never have gotten past the morons in the MPAA. But these deaths contributed to the development of some of the other characters in ways that were crucial to the film's momentum.

I also want to applaud the special effects team, headed up by Gary Tunnicliffe. The creatures in the film were very well designed, and I was glad to see that they went for a more traditional form of monster making instead of relying on CGI. I still hate CGI monsters, especially in lower budget movies, because no matter how well designed they always pull me right out of the film. Instead of a horror film, I feel like I'm watching a "Roger Rabbit" take-off. Tunnicliffe's group were more than willing to get their hands dirty, as well as their actors, which only added to the high 'gross factor' that "Feast" delivered.

The DVD offers up a commentary by the filmmakers, which was very enlightening, as well as a couple of featurettes. The featurettes offered up a look behind the scenes as well as a closer look at Tunnicliffe's work in the film. You'll also find a handful of deleted scenes and some outtakes.

"Feast" offers everything a horror fan ever hopes for in a horror movie (with the slight exception of T&A, which I can always do without), and even more so in a horror movie spoof. It's scary when it needs to be, gross beyond belief at times, gives us Henry Rollins in pink sweats, and when it's funny… I guarantee you'll laugh out loud.

Directed by: John Gulager
Starring: Eric Dane, Navi Rawat, Krista Allen, Balthazar Getty, Diane Goldner
Extras: Commentary by the filmmakers, "Horror Under the Spotlight: Making Feast" featurette, The Blood and Guts of Gary Tunnicliffe" featurette, Deleted scenes, Outtakes
Specifications: Widescreen (2.40:1), Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Studio: Weinstein Company
Release Date: 10/17/2006
Region 1
MPAA Rating: NR
Website

We'll give Feast an A.