‘The Feast’ Review: A Psychological Horror as Foggy as the Welsh Wilderness [SXSW 2021]
The Welsh-language thriller is part political commentary, part ghost story, and only partially successful.
Audiences fortunate enough to be a part of the SXSW film festival are probably the kind of movie goers that like to take chances. SXSW has represented some of the most exciting recent forays into fringe, genre-related filmmaking. Occasionally, audiences can find these hidden gems within those comedy, science-fiction or horror, but occasionally, audiences may find something like The Feast.
The premise of The Feast is intriguing; a wealthy family has a small dinner party with a business partner and a neighboring farmer in a remote house in rural Wales. A young woman, Cadi (Annes Elwy) is hired as extra help to prepare this intimate but extravagant event, and over the course of dinner, the evening unravels into viscera and madness.
The intrigue of The Feast lies in more than just the premise, which is slightly misleading to be honest. It’s an oversimplification of what is seemingly a typical horror premise, and in several ways, The Feast plays on those premises. Its remoteness is a strength, the seclusion of the Welsh countryside seems familiar as its American Cabin-in-the-Woods counterpart yet with the atmosphere of an old country yarn.
Yet, like so much of The Feast, the atmosphere takes too long to build, as does the horror. The story meanders for quite a bit, setting up several promises the film never keeps. There was really only one thread that felt fully developed, as writer Roger Williams examines the privilege and peculiarity of the upper class. Yet the peculiarity felt more akin to Parasite rather than a set up for a psychological horror. As we meet the unnamed family hosting the dinner party, we see how damaged and disgusting they are, but its difficult to tell who the audience is supposed to get behind. The mother, Delyth (Caroline Berry) is phoney and pretentious, the father, Gwyn (Julian Lewis Jones) is rude and angry, and both sons (Sion Allen Davies and Stefan Cennydd) are the result of a broken affluent existence, either falling into drugs, or into a masturbatory egomaniacal sense of superiority.It’s safe to assume the family are not the protagonists, but even Cadi has an air about her that doesn’t seem quite right. Strange things begin to happen when she arrives, the family all seem off their usual game, and to be honest, it isn’t quite clear what is going to happen. Even with the arrival of the guests, the plot still seems to be stuck in neutral regardless of the commentary on class structure. This film is much more psychological than thriller as it really plays with the audience’s head, but not necessarily successfully. Some audience members may relish viewing a film that keeps them guessing in terms of what is going to happen, but The Feast was more of a case of ‘when’ is something going to happen rather than ‘what’.
When the horror does come, and it eventually does, it seemed very much out of place for this slow burn pace that has been precedent up to that point. While the atmosphere got thicker and thicker as the dinner party plays out, the tone shifts way too much, and the social commentary gets further and further away. Studios like A24 have fostered a real reputation in creating atmospheric horror that gets inside your soul rather than assaults your eyes with gore. It’s selective in its nightmare imagery to full effect, yet The Feast barely captures any iota of that success.
The major problem with The Feast is when the gore starting flowing, it was so utterly unclear as to why. There was a cacophony of events happening, and it was never clear as to the motivation of the force perpetuating the events. This does happen occasionally in other horror films, but with the Feast’s eventual payoff (that shall remain unspoiled) it felt utterly unfulfilling. In fact, the ending of the film seemed safe and plebeian for a story that was trying to otherwise cause the same kind of psychological chaos as the aforementioned A24 films.
The irony being that it was intriguing to discover what a Welsh voice in horror may look (and sound) like. The subtext the filmmakers wanted to discuss was perfectly clear. How they went about that discussion, even after the completion of the film, was not. The Feast is a film that is not easily decoded, as the metaphors and visuals have a contemporary cinematic approach, but the conveyance of those ideas was that of an ancient Welsh ghost story. Perhaps the juxtaposition was the point; where new Wales full of wealth and affluence is the death of the old country, but that requires so much digging to come to that conclusion, it feels unearned.
The film ultimately lacked focus in direction (both from Williams and director Lee Haven Jones) and the food metaphor used throughout was utilized in a bizarre haphazard mix of transparency and convoluted nature rarely seen, and even more rarely pulled off with any level of success. The film felt like two or three palatable ideas blended and served as a cinematic carpaccio whose flavors had not married. The chefs should have chosen either a more straightforward taste-profile, or a different method of cooking in order to make The Feast more appetizing.