Feast sucks

Despite my enthusiasm after having been enthralled by last year's Project Greenlight series, I should have known there are sometimes valid reasons why a film doesn't get released despite that much built-in publicity and what sounded like a marketable premise. As promised I got the Feast DVD and watched it for Hallowe'en, then later watched all the extras and commentary. The film had its moments and numerous quirky touches, but in the end it just didn't work. It tries for that great combination of comedy and horror, but it wasn't funny enough or scary enough (Tremors would be a good example of what they seemed to be shooting for and not reaching). The freeze-frame intros of the characters promise something good, but that turns out to be the most fully-realized part of the film. The extras don't add much, and the commentary (with the director, two screenwriters, and two main producers) is pretty forgettable, though they do point out some of the shortcomings forced on them (a lot of comedy bits were cut to keep the film short and on budget) and remind me that parts of it really don't make sense--a complaint from the test screening was that at a crucial point the audience is confused about what was going on, which is echoed by one of the producers in the commentary, and I never understood quite what was going on with the big plan for escape at one point. I can recommend it as a rental for those who enjoyed the Greenlight TV show and for those who enjoy sitting through horror films. What I'm saying is: the TV series about making the movie was better than the film. I do look forward to seeing more from director John Gulager. One further example of how producer credits in Hollywood are totally broken: seemingly the entire Maloof family (six--count 'em!--six) are credited as executive producers just for ponying up some cash, while Dimension executive Andrew Rona, who we actually saw have some involvement with the film in the Greenlight series, gets no credit (though perhaps by choice).

Also for Hallowe'en I watched the original The Phantom of the Opera. I hadn't seen the complete movie since maybe high school, and I had never seen the full Brownlow restoration of the 1925 print that Turner Classic Movies airs. It really is one of the great films of the silent era. We think of Lon Chaney, Sr. as the Phantom and in his title role in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but he really was the Alec Guinness of his day--known for his acting as well as his wearing of makeup.

And: Freaks (1932), which I'd somehow never seen before, is pretty much as I expected, though I was not aware of the full variety of sideshow performers appearing in the film. I'm sure it will all provide fodder for nightmares eventually.

Also: Beast From Haunted Cave (1959), a pretty badly-made C-movie, with actors' dialogue sound level changing as they turn their heads, mismatched lighting, and other amateurish problems, but then comes the truly chilling finale in the cave with the victims of the spider-like monster struggling in their cocoons. Someone at IMDB thought it a clear inspiration for a bit of Alien, and I agree. Also nice to see Michael Forest starring in something other than his many TV guest appearances (like Apollo on Star Trek). I picked this up last year on an el-cheapo two-fer DVD at Target for something like 50 cents (marked down from a dollar). I got five different ones, and I've actually been surprised at the overall quality of the DVDs, though you have to lower your expectations when you know you're dealing with public-domain prints.

And I caught a bit of Doctor X (1932) on TCM--and now I really want to see this film. I don't quite know what the setup was, but seeing a Technicolor version of a lab set that outdoes Frankenstein's, with a mad doctor in appropriate lab coat performing some kind of diabolical experiment to catch a serial murderer by reenacting a murder while he and other suspects sit handcuffed to bolted-down chairs--okay, maybe it doesn't sound like much, but you have to see it.