Reviewed by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars Jenny Wade, Diane Goldner, Hanna Putnam, Clu Gulager | Written by Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 93 minutes | Directed by John Gulager
Where do I begin? I pride myself on having a vast library of films with completely bizarre content; so much so that I can pretty much put these weird flicks into their own sub-genres of strange. I can only guess that the filmmakers would be delighted to hear that I will gladly make Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds an addition to said collection.
Having never gotten round to seeing the original Feast, the film produced from the script of which won the 2005 series of the Project Greenlight screenplay contest, I went into the second part of the trilogy hoping that I would actually understand what was going on. All I know of the story after viewing is that these disgusting mutant humanoid things are running rampant in the USA. I have no idea why, but I'm sure there's a novel reason explained in the original. Novel being the key word, as this film is nothing but a novelty, as you may have guessed from the title. Sloppy Seconds centres around a ragtag, and I mean ragtag group of survivors, armed to the teeth in an effort to protect themselves from becoming a messy lunch during mutant apocalypse. You've got a used car salesman, a luchador tag team of midgets, the rock 'n' roll, hard as nails “Biker Queen”, some pretty strange faces to say the least. I am led to believe that the character of “Honey Pie” is from the first film.
What ensues when this screwed up ensemble team up, or rather clash, certainly pushes some boundaries. I'm not going to lie, I've never seen a cat being raped by a drooling creature before, have you? My guess is no. What I had imagined of the original Feast is a straight up Tremors-esque creature feature, but there's truly nothing “straight up” about Sloppy Seconds. There's certainly a lot of slop, that's for sure. It's gory and darkly funny. Pretty much every bodily fluid imaginable is spilled in the film, including the innards of a baby, which I can imagine many people would find offensive, and it is quite shocking, but riotously funny in the context of the film's humour.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the creatures in Feast 2 weren't computer-generated, and instead suits and puppets were used. The pleasantness of that surprise though was quickly diminished when I saw frequent usage of CG blood, which really is the height of laziness in a horror film. Not only that, but the practical blood in the movie is pink. It looks ridiculous, and there's so much of it that you can't escape just how shoddy it looks. Not to mention it clashes with the CG blood, which is red.
Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds is a car crash of a film. Quite simply everything about the film is weird, even the editing, but not once does it take itself seriously, and that's what I like about it. Beyond its complete messed upness is some kind of deformed charm that provides plenty of giggles and gag moments.
EXTRAS ** Just a making-of featurette, called Scared Half To Death Twice: The Making Of Feast 2