Feast is the product of the third season of Project Greenlight. In case you are unfamiliar with Project Greenlight, it is the love child of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. It is a contest for first-time writers and directors to have an opportunity to create a major motion picture.

The first season of Project Greenlight yielded, Stolen Summer, a coming-of-age drama dealing with religion and life and death from a child’s perspective. The first season required the winner, Pete Jones, to be both writer and director. Despite big names, like Aidan Quinn and Bonnie Hunt, Stolen Summer was not considered successful, at least with regard to box office success.

The second season of P. G. split the creative endeavor into two winners; one a writer, the other a director. The film from season two is another coming-of-age drama; this one dealing with the high school relationships and a blurred line between fantasy and reality. Again, despite fairly big names, including Shia LaBeouf, Amy Smart and Elden Henson, the film garnered little box office success.

Feast is definitely not a coming-of-age drama. I had little interest in the first two seasons of Greenlight, but when I heard the third season offering was a horror film, I had to check it out.

I was pleased to find Wes Craven was one of the executive producers. It was interesting to watch the events of the production unfold and see the writers go Hollywood so fast. They began getting offers for other film projects and often were too busy doing other film work to be bothered to work on rewrites of Feast.

The director had a difficult time adjusting from being the boss, as he was on his own independent film projects, to having to make decisions that producers had to approve. It seemed like it was just another job where you had to do what someone else wanted you to do. That’s not what you think of when you think of most directors. You envision a world where the director’s word is final. I’m sure if you’re Spielberg or Tarantino, that’s the case.

PG-3 was a really interesting look into the making of a film, and for that matter, the making of a director. I couldn’t wait to see the end result. Finally, Feast is in theaters, and it was well worth the wait.

This is the story of patrons of a small town bar who must defend themselves against gigantic, ultra-fast, blood-thirsty monsters. There’s plenty of gore and plenty of laughs. I like gore, but I like it to be funny. Feast delivers 110%. It is wonderfully amusing and a must-see for horror fans of all ages.

The biggest obstacle in PG-3 was Gulager’s nepotism. He wanted the entire cast to be his family and friends. It was understandable. He was comfortable with them. Gulager cast his dad as the bartender and his long-time girlfriend as Harley Mama. The producers however needed some bigger talent. PG-3 could be the last PG if Feast does not yield some box office success.

I was excited to see Henry Rollins (Black Flag, Rollins Band, spoken-word legend) and Jason Mewes (Jay of Jay and Silent Bob) and was very pleased with their performances. I was curious about Balthazar Getty. I was a pretty big fan of Balthazar back in his Young Guns days but hadn’t seen him in anything I liked since, save for his cameo in Natural Born Killers. I really liked him in Feast. He’s a cocky but likeable jerk – good comic relief.

But Judah Friedlander stole the film. He has had several small roles in various films, but he’s probably best known as ‘that guy from Best Week Ever’ and other VH1 shows where semi-known entertainers discuss pop culture. He plays Beer Guy and his abuse throughout the film shall be legendary. When other horrific turns are discussed, people will say, “Yeah, but it wasn’t as bad as what happened to Beer Guy in Feast!”

Please go see Feast. See it because you love comedic gore. See it because you love Jay and Silent Bob. See it because there’s nothing but pointless sequels coming out this Halloween. See it so we might have a Project Greenlight 4. See it so Judah Friedlander will forever be known as Beer Guy.

Grade: A

Feast is a limited engagement – at least for now. There are only two showings, both at the Main Art in Royal Oak. There are at 10pm on both Friday, September 22 and Saturday, September 23.