Thursday, March 19, 2009

Film Review: FEAST III: THE HAPPY FINISH (2009, John Gulager)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 79 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Clu Gulager, Tom Gulager, Diane Goldner.
Tag-lines: "They're Not Leaving Till They Get Dessert!"
Best one-liners: Anything involving Clu Gulager and "dipshit."

I am a Gulager family apologist. A Clu Gulager disciple. Just see my review of FEAST II. But I can't really in good conscience give this more than three stars. For me, the FEAST movies function as the perfect vehicle for Clu Gulager to wander around while clutching a throat wound, waxing poetic on his days as a marine, and crabbily mumbling that everyone is a dipshit. And as long as they're doing that, they're golden.

Clu and son Tom.

With each ensuing film, however, most of the other elements continue to lose their luster (i.e., ridiculous amounts of bodily fluids, scatological humor, and the abrupt killing off of characters that are traditionally permitted by the genre to survive). How many new "action hero"-type characters can we introduce and kill off in unexpectedly humiliating ways? How many times do we need to see one of the beasts hump something? In my opinion, its the writers that get weaker and weaker. They're fresh out of ideas, and are barely running on the fumes and scraps of SCREAM 2 and FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. However, director John Gulager tackles the material with such unrestrained glee that it's difficult to fault him. (Though I could have done without the lengthy strobe light scene, among other things.) And the actors run the gamut from merely amusing to legendary. But still, I marveled at the fact that I was watching a 2009 new release that had a scene after the end credits... featuring Clu Gulager! It was difficult to wrap my head around that one. I count myself lucky to live in a world where Clu is still making movies. Now somebody give Clu the money to finally make HIS (twenty-five years in development) terror flick, FUCKING TULSA: AN EXCURSION INTO CRUELTY. If ever made, it's going to be so damned seminal, that it will probably induct an entirely new era of how we even look at film. It's gonna be a lot better than FEAST III, I can pretty much guarantee you that.

-Sean Gill

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