Film Review: FEAST II: SLOPPY SECONDS (2008, John Gulager)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 97 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Clu Gulager, Tom Gulager, Martin Klebba, Diane Goldner, Jenny Wade
Tag-line: "Feast on this...sloppy seconds."
Best one-liner(s): "Wait a minute...let me tell you somethin', momma, I was a fucking marine in the Second World War, okay? And I got over the goddamn Krauts, and I got over the goddamn Japs, so get that stick out of your ass, drop this fucking vendetta bullshit of yours, and let's get the hell out of here." (with a droll line-reading enhanced by the inimitable Clu Gulager)

That whacky Gulager family has done it again. FEAST II: SLOPPY SECONDS has a couple of different vibes swirling around within its meaty shell, some of which are far more successful than others. We've got a kind of TREMORS meets DEVIL'S REJECTS one which I'm not too wild about, a Hustonian 'futility of human endeavor' one which lends it most of its humor, and that good old Gulager family vibe which I shall expand upon right here. This film is swimming with Gulagers: John directed it, Daddy Clu is the foul-mouthed Bartender, brother Tom is the sniveling, baby-tossing Greg, wife Diane Goldner returns as Harley Mom's twin sister, Biker Queen, and, if I'm not mistaken, it looks like nephew Clu (Tom's son) playing the notorious baby who gets tossed. Clu Gulager and his family are national treasures.

Those whacky Gulagers promote Fucking Tulsa in the mid-90's.

Clu is notorious for playing guest roles on every damn TV show from THE UNTOUCHABLES to KNIGHT RIDER to WALKER, TEXAS RANGER, and has played psychos, showboats, and nice guys in everything from THE KILLERS to THE LAST PICTURE SHOW to RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. He's a filmmaker, too, collaborating with his amazing wife Miriam Byrd-Nethery (R.I.P.) and kids on the never-completed exercise in cruelty FUCKING TULSA, the bizarre avant-garde short A DAY WITH THE BOYS (available as an extra on the Criterion DVD of GEORGE WASHINGTON), and an Oklahoma monster makeup and acting class. This film is the logical culmination of being a son of Clu Gulager, who over the course of his life was an abused child, a Marine, a Hollywood player, an underground artist, a backwoods pariah, and an all-around awesome guy. And John lets his Dad Clu, now at the tender age of 80, do some ridiculous stuff.



He swears like a sailor throughout, clutches his ridiculous neck wound, gets revenge on Honey Pie (who left he and the other survivors for dead at the end of FEAST) by ramming her head into a toilet and biting off her ear, and he remains an overall beacon of cinematic magnificence for the duration. Whatever shortcomings this film might have, the gleeful, demented exuberance of the Gulagers shines through.

John, Clu, and Diane at he 2006 premiere of the first FEAST.

Here's hoping we get to see Clu bite off some more body parts in FEAST III: THE HAPPY FINISH.

And here is a wonderful article on the Gulagers written for LA Weekly some years ago.

-Sean Gill

Update: I've now reviewed FEAST III: THE HAPPY FINISH, as well.

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

R.I.P., Clu Gulager

This one hurts. Clu first came to my attention as "Lee" in Don Siegel's THE KILLERS, where his vicious calm and truly inspired acting choices made such an impression that I was compelled to seek out as many of his films as I could get my hands on. 

First, it was the easiest ones to find––like THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE, WINNING, or MCQ; and then it was the rarities––staying up late to catch IRONSIDE, WALKER, TEXAS RANGER, and MURDER, SHE WROTE reruns, or buying old dog-eared videocassettes of WONDERLAND COVE/a.k.a. STICKIN' TOGETHER and THE WILLIES and HUNTER'S BLOOD and THE INITIATION. Recently, I'd been overjoyed to see him reaching new audiences with bit parts in Sean Baker's TANGERINE and Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

His work is magnificent, no matter the context; in turns it can be morbid, melancholy, rugged, or hilarious. I saw him sow deep, satisfying empathy across a rogues' gallery of murderers, abusers (THE GAMBLER, among others!), and perverts (TAPEHEADS, among others!). There's his wonderfully macabre work with his departed wife Miriam Byrd-Nethery in FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM, creating a very human monster who bleeds pathos and induces in the viewer something approaching a somber state of agony. In each role he is intensely connected achieves a shocking level of intimacy; in each role he captures something that is true. Even in the films where he given nearly nothing to work with, like COMPANY OF KILLERS.

Then, I discovered Clu as a filmmaker. I saw the haunting and poetic A DAY WITH THE BOYS (available on the Criterion edition of GEORGE WASHINGTON and nominated for the short film Palm d'Or at Cannes), a film that wrests the viewer from reality and into a dream-space, one that's frightening and powerful. I saw several of the shorts he collaborated on with his family for their legendary acting workshops, read about the struggles of FUCKING TULSA (an incomplete film I dearly hope to have the opportunity to see one day), and got many kick from his son John Gulager's lovably demented horror features from the past decade (which are truly Gulager family affairs––films like the FEAST trilogy and PIRANHA 3DD). The entire family's work is infused with a fearless Grand Guignol sensibility and an infectiously gleeful streak of sadism, but it grapples with something larger and darker and more mysterious. In their incredible story, I see the anguish of life's stumbling blocks and I see the joy of what compels human beings to create. Clu and his family are soldiers of cinema, in the Herzogian sense.

PS–– For more context, I also highly recommend this piece about the Gulager clan (Clu, his wife Miram Byrd-Nethery (R.I.P.), his sons Tom and John, and daughter-in-law Diane Ayala) which first appeared in L.A. Weekly in 1997.