Feast II: Sloppy Seconds (2008) poster

Feast II: Sloppy Seconds (2008)

Rating:


USA. 2008.

Crew

Director – John Gulager, Screenplay – Marcus Dunstan & Patrick Melton, Producer – Michael Leahy, Photography – Kevin Atkinson, Music – Steve Edwards, Visual Effects Supervisor – Kevin O’Neill, Visual Effects – Neo Digital, Special Effects Supervisor – Neil Stockstill, Makeup Effects – Optic Nerve (Designer – Glenn Netrick), Production Design – Ermanno Di Febo-Orsini. Production Company – Dimension Extreme/Neo Art & Logic Productions/Live Planet.

Cast

Diane Ayala Goldner (Biker Queen), Clu Gulager (Bartender), Martin Klebba (Thunder), Carl Anthony Payne (Slasher), Tom Gulager (Greg Swank), Juan Longoria Garcia (Lightning), Jenny Wade (Honey Pie), Hanna Putnam (Secrets), Chelsea Richards (Tat Girl), Melissa Red (Tit Girl), Katie Supple Callais (Tet Girl), Linda McKinnon (Abuela), William Preael (Hobo), Marc Macaulay (The Sheriff)


Plot

A biker queen turns up at the site of the bar massacre and demands to know the whereabouts of her sister biker. She drags the aging bartender along with her as he directs her to the nearby town. She and her fellow all-girl bikers arrive in the aftermath of the monsters’ attack on the town. They take refuge with several others – two dwarf wrestlers and their grandmother, and the used car salesman Slasher who has just discovered his wife with another man, as well as Honey Pie who fled from the bar massacre. Together the group try to find a way to get to the safety of the town jail – only to find a hobo from the drunk tank has locked himself in there and is refusing to let anybody else enter.


Feast (2006) was an enjoyable monster movie that came with tongue sarcastically planted in cheek. It produced as part of the Operation Greenlight series created by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to highlight new directorial talent. It was a directorial debut of John Gulager, son of well-known genre actor Glu Gulager. Sloppy Seconds was the first of two sequels with John Gulager returning to the director’s chair and was followed by Feast 3: The Happy Finish (2009).

Returning also is John’s father Clu, repeating his role as the bartender, and the first film’s screenwriters Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton. Also present is John’s brother Tom Gulager, who plays the smarmy guy having an affair with Hanna Putnam, while John’s wife in real life Diane Ayala Goldner plays the lead role of the biker queen. The sequels are produced by Dimension Extreme, a subsidiary of Dimension Pictures, which was owned by Miramax, meaning that the names of Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob are listed as executive producers.

Feast II opens in fairly much the same way that the original did. We get a crosscut of characters – most of whom are only known by a profession or character description – the sheriff, the hobo, biker queen, bartender etc – who are introduced in a freeze-frame potted bio. These certainly offer an entertainingly preposterous mix of characters – Clu Gulager, the survivor from the first film, who is grabbed by the hard-ass leader of a gang of biker chicks and dragged along tied to the back of her bike; Martin Klebba and Juan Longoria Garcia as a duo of dwarf lucha libre wrestlers, the latter of whom is introduced in the midst of having sex just as the woman is snatched by the monsters; Carl Anthony Payne as a loudmouth used car salesman who finds his wife (Hanna Putnam) in the arms of another man (Tom Gulager) just as the attack begins.

The monster in Feast II: Sloppy Seconds (2008)
The monster

On the other hand, as the film kicks in and we get most of these characters are running around the town while avoiding/being picked off by the creatures, it seems like all that we are in for is a repeat of the first film. John Gulager gives more of the same snappy sarcasm and fast-paced blurry editing during the action scenes. It leads you to wonder if the sarcastic approach and blurry action is all there to the series as none of this is doing anything new. More to the point – does the Feast series have any substance beyond repeating what was the novelty of seeing all of this conducted the first time around?

The film reaches its low point in the middle during the autopsy scene where the opening up of one of the creatures does nothing like actually explain what they are, their unique biology or anything but only serves to give us scene after scene where everyone in the near vicinity is splattered in goo and disgusting substances. This goes on for some minutes repeating what seemed like a not very funny gag the first time.

The film does perk up somewhat during the climax with a series of entertainingly preposterous deaths, including Martin Klebba being torn in half. This comes amid attempts to catapult the dwarves across to the jail building opposite with a slingshot made of clothing (necessitating that the biker chicks strip their tops), while Tom Gulager swinging down to the street to rescue a baby. The disappointment is that the film abruptly slams the brakes on leaving the story unfinished and clearly to be continued in the third film.

John Gulager next went on to direct Piranha 3DD (2012), Zombie Night (2013) and Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018). The film’s writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton were appropriated by the Saw series and wrote Saw IV (2007), Saw V (2008), Saw VI (2009) and Saw 3D (2010), plus scripts for other films like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019). Dunstan went on to direct and both wrote The Collector (2009) and its sequel The Collection (2012), followed by The Neighbor (2016) and Unhuman (2022).


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