FEAST II: SLOPPY SECONDS - DVD review

"I sure as shit seen everything now." – Bartender

No, I didn't start with that quote just because I thought it was funny. I also stuck it in because I can relate. When it comes to horror movies, especially slashers or low-budget creature features, I figured I've pretty much seen everything in my thirty-two years on this earth. Maybe I'm conditioned to all the blood splattering and guts spilling and carbon copy death scenes, but nothing really catches me off guard anymore. At least that's how I felt, until "Feast II: Sloppy Seconds" came along for review.

The original "Feast" (2005) was the winning selection written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton in the third season of HBO's amateur filmmaking reality TV series, "Project Greenlight." It was also the feature film debut by John Gulager and landed the rookie filmmaker "Best Director" honors at Fantastic Fest 2005.

The writer/director trio of "Feast" reunited for the 2008 follow-up, "Feast II: Sloppy Seconds," still from the Weinstein Co. but this time under their new Dimension Extreme label. Because of this, the filmmakers gain free reign to push the envelope doing whatever the hell they please, and gleefully do so in spades. If you're looking for intense action, buckets of blood, twisted comedy, and a few perverse scenes that effectively could cause you to lose your lunch, then look no further--but don't look at me if your latest meal goes MIA.

Just so you're aware, I've never actually had the opportunity to see the original "Feast" so I can't really offer much for the sake of comparison. It's possible the sequel is a huge improvement over the first film or it could be simply a rehash of the same jokes and gore. I honestly don't know. What I can tell you is that if you're like me and missed out on the first one, you won't find yourself lost with what's happening in the second. Gulager brings viewers up to speed on pertinent details through periodic montages of flashbacks, and even if you're a fan of the franchise it's still a good refresher.

"Feast II: Sloppy Seconds" picks up where the first film ended off. The morning after the vicious bar bloodbath somewhere in the desert, Biker Queen (Diane Goldner), stumbles across a German shepherd carrying something in its mouth. The leader of the all-girl motorcycle gang known as the Bleeders quickly dispatches the dog with a few blasts of her shotgun, and pries open its jaws to find a human hand. But not just any hand, mind you. A familiar tattoo identifies the body part as the property of one Harley Mom. You may remember her from the first movie, and she happens to be Biker Queen's twin sister.

Before Biker Queen even has time to mourn the loss of her leather-loving sibling, she hears moans and groans coming from underneath a trailer and pulls out the bartender (Clu Gulager). In true biker cliché-style, she brutally works him over demanding who is responsible for her sister's death. Eventually he spits out that it was Bozo in the nearby town, so she hops on her Harley dragging along the bartender in search of vengeance.

At the small, Mayberry-like town, we meet the rest of the colorful cast. Jenny Wade returns as Honey Pie, the dumb blonde who stunned viewers by not getting herself killed off in the first movie. Then there's the bizarre love triangle involving the used-car salesman Slasher (Carl Anthony Payne II), his wife Secrets (Hannah Putnam), and her lover Greg (Tom Gulager). Lastly, and certainly not least, is Thunder and Lightning (Martin Klebba and Juan Longoria Garcia), the tag-team pair of midget Mexican wrestlers. You know how sometimes someone or something "makes" a movie? Well, these two were hilarious and easily stole the show.

Biker Queen hooks up with the rest of her posse, and she quickly finds out the hard way that getting to Bozo is much easier said than done. The deadly humanoid monsters that attacked the night before have wandered into the area slaughtering anything that moves. The cast tries to hide out the best they can from being eaten alive, but the buildings in the rundown town are literally falling apart. Ironically, the securest shelter is none other than the jail, which is the place the local crackpot (Bozo) has converted into his own personal stronghold.

While "Feast II: Sloppy Seconds" doesn't offer much in the plot department, it certainly makes up for it with shock value. As mentioned previously, it takes a lot to sideswipe me lately, and there were at least two key instances that really pulled the rug right out from under me. I'm referring to the autopsy and baby scenes, although I'd rather not say anymore since I'd hate to ruin the surprise.

The sequel is a frugal production with its budget cut to roughly two thirds of the original's $3.2 million (which technically is then sliced in half again since apparently it was shot at the same time as "Feast III: The Happy Finish"). So looking at the big picture, "Feast II: Sloppy Seconds" basically cost somewhere in the range of $1 million, and that's pretty impressive for what you see on screen. Gulager cut corners even further by casting four members of his family in the film. Sucker in the relatives when times call for cheap labor.

"Feast II: Sloppy Seconds" is certainly cheesy and campy, but then again that's the whole point. It's a twisted production satirizing many of the outrageous situations commonly found in horror films and purposely plays it up it to the extreme.

Video:
It looks to me like "Feast II: Sloppy Seconds" features a 2.40:1 aspect ratio, although the packaging only states the disc is presented in widescreen "letterbox" format. Colors aren't vividly striking, but they don't really appear dull, either. In the early scenes I was very impressed that I could actually see the skin pores of cast members and this wasn't even on Blu-ray. Some of the nighttime footage had a bit more grain than the daylight scenes, and the abundance of black sometimes seeped with a hint of blue--but in general the black levels were also solid. For a film with an even chintzier budget than its predecessor, it sure looks sharp.

Audio:
The film offers a lone Dolby Digital 5.1 track with optional subtitles in English (for the hearing impaired) and Spanish. Whether it's gunfire coming at all angles or Honey Pie banging around in a convenience store's ventilation ducts, it's safe to say that there's more than enough surround activity to appease audiophiles. The heavy rumbling from explosions and Harley engines was just the icing on the cake.

Extras:
The first bonus is a "Commentary by Director John Gulager, Writers Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan, Producer Michael Leahy, and Actors Diane Ayala Goldner, Tom Gulager & Clu Gulager." Unless I'm mistaken, that has to be a record number of participants in a single session. As expected, we have an endless supply of interesting perspectives on the topic of the production. Although it did seem like John might have taken a nap, since he stopped commenting altogether about midway through.

"Scared Half to Death Twice: The Making of Feast II" (12:24) is your typical behind-the-scenes featurette on the production. It was interesting to see the setting was an actual timeless little town called Plain Dealing in Louisiana. The cast and crew also touch on where the monsters come from... just don't expect a straight answer.

Then we get to see three generations of the Gulager clan up close and personal in the short featurette, "Meet the Gulagers" (5:25). For a quick family tree: John directs his father Clu, his wife Diane, his brother Tom, and even his nephew--baby Clu Mosha.

The bonus material concludes with a string of four trailers on startup: "Hell Ride," "Mother of Tears," "The Zombie Diaries," and "George A. Romero's: Diary of the Dead."

The Final Cut:
Today's review of "Feast II: Sloppy Seconds" is brought to you by the letter "B." You'll see bikers, bimbos, blondes, beasts, boomsticks, blood, body art, barf, bile, boobs, boners, and even a bawling baby. Granted, the movie will be too over-the-top for some people, but with the Dimension Extreme brand clearly visible in the upper left corner of the DVD case, you should know exactly what you're getting yourself into ahead of time.