“Project Greenlight’s” third movie on DVD is grossly engrossing

Feast Starring Balthazar Getty, Krista Allen, Judah Friedlander, Josh Zuckerman. Directed by John Gulager Distributed by Dimension Home Entertainment Rated Unrated Stater rating (out of five): * * * *

Picture this: You are in a bar for the evening playing pool and enjoying some drinks — when suddenly, a man storms into the bar with a shotgun and the bloody, decapitated head of some large creature. He tells you a whole bunch of those creatures are on their way and they “have claws like Ginsu knives and more teeth than a chain saw.” Within seconds, the building is surrounded by the hungry flesh-eating creatures. What would you do?

This scenario opens the tension and horror in Feast, which was made for the third season of “Project Greenlight” — Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s filmmaking reality television contest.

John Gulager made his feature film directorial debut when he was chosen to bring the winning script written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton to life.

Throughout the film, stereotypical strangers, given names representative of their characters (Bozo, Harley Mom, Honey Pie and Tuffy to name a few), have to work together to fend off a group of alien-like creatures who wear the fur of other animals.

These fast-moving creatures have nothing but slaughter in their minds as they squash and skin faces, impale chests with their knife-like claws and vomit on the trapped bar visitors, among other nasty things.

It’s a simple idea and it works under Gulager’s direction. The film is smart, makes fun of itself and is unpredictable, as some of the characters viewers would expect to survive don’t make it past the first 20 minutes.

Gulager’s style is unique with odd camera placement shot through objects such as shot glasses causing an opaque glimpse at the actors in the bar. Shots on the actors are almost always tight on the faces, showing the emotions close up, giving viewers a feeling that they are in the bar themselves.

His style also creates a coffin-tight claustrophobia, so well done that it’s reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s Alien — they’re trapped and have no place to go.

Although the creatures are ones to be feared, they aren’t always taken seriously either as they do unexpected and hilarious things. The two sex-related sequences with them are ridiculous and provide a release from the tension right before the audience gets blasted with something else shocking.

However, the film starts with too many characters to identify with or get to know. This isn’t a problem for long as a number of them get killed in various ways within a few minutes of each other.

This fun splatter fest is a throwback to 70s-style horror that is fun to watch. It is grungy, relentless, and original.

Although the concept of Feast is hokey, the fast-paced, high tension, death sequences and fantastic camera work make for a bloody good time.

Contact ALL correspondent Ryan Haidet at [email protected].