'The Feast' is a modern horror fantasy that takes place over the course of a day as a family in the Welsh mountains prepares for a dinner, hosting a business developer and a local farmer in hopes of facilitating a business deal. Soon a mysterious young woman arrives to help prepare and host the evening and things take a turn for the worst.
The family, consisting of two sons - Guto and Gweirydd, mother Glenda and father Gwyn are shown getting ready for the evening, and over the course of the day the film provides a voyeuristic insight into each of the individuals lives and alludes to their dubious characteristics and past misdeeds. As Cadi arrives at the house to help cater for the dinner, she meets all of the family members individually, observing them, and without providing any positive or negative opinions on any of them, she gets to uncover each person's past. Guto, the youngest son is shown to have struggled with drug addiction and over the course of the film it is uncovered that Gweirydd had raped his patients whilst practising as a medical student. At the same time, during the dinner as Glenda and Cadi prepare for the evening, it is revealed that Glenda and Gwyn have essentially sold out, by allowing the developer, Euros, to mine their farm land and have benefited well from extracting the minerals from the surrounding area.
The purpose of the feast that is being put on is to push the neighboring farm land owner, Mair to let the developer mine and explore the land to see if there are valuable minerals there as well. Over the course of the dinner the family members and the developer succumb to gruesome deaths with Guto suffering from a wound that turns gangrenous and later has his leg amputated; with Gweirydd succumbing to blood loss due to severely injuring his genitalia whilst having sex with Cadi; with Gwyn ending his own life by trying to alleviate pain in his ear by inserting a metal spike through his ear canal and with Glenda slicing her own throat after reflecting on her past and having mined her land.
'The Feast' is a tense and subtle modern horror that invites the viewer to follow closely its mysterious principal character - Cadi. As soon as she arrives at the house, it is apparent that she is different, and over the course of the film we learn of her intricacies, - her observant nature and muted personality until uncovering that she is a spiritual reincarnate of a fabled witch that is said to have resided in the nearby Rise. As Glenda and Mair serve to exposit the mysterious woman's past and identity, the film reveals her to be one of magical abilities and one to care a great deal for her surroundings and nature. Here, the movie hammers home the underlying moral message of nature conservation, as Cadi, the embodiment of a kind of Mother Earth, is shown as having an absence of spouting out subjective statements towards the individuals around her, yet is clear in her set goal of preserving wildlife and nature. The film has a turning point at which Cadi expresses a more severe response regarding the damage that has been done to the land, and as a form of retributive justice takes out the wrongdoers for their past crimes.
'The Feast' triumphs in melding the modern world with a folk-tale backdrop, presenting the situation almost as a revenge story, where the personification of Mother Nature comes to seek atonement for the misconduct the inhabitants of the Welsh mountain farmland have done to the earth. Even thought the message is no a subtle one, it is effective in driving the idea home by illustrating the path of retribution that Cadi is on as payment for the harm that humans are doing to the earth.
The stand-out performance in the film is delivered by Annes Elwy as Cadi, the incarnation of nature. Elwy's performance delivers on impersonating nature as somewhat uncaring at times, being present yet not expressing any strong feelings towards the people around her. Over time however, Elwy opens up in terms of expressing her intentions of seeking atonement for the damage that has been done, and without taking undue glee in the human's suffering, Cadi manages to take them out one by one, with Elwy encapsulating the immense power that Cadi wields and is able to exert over others.
'The Feast' is a well executed film that combines a mysterious story with elements of tension and gruesome horror, with an air of suspense throughout its runtime, representing the worst of humanity through the characters of the dysfunctional family and the greedy and literally gluttonous representation of the business developer. By setting Cadi as the main character, the film provides the perspective of the harmed and hurt representation of nature exacting revenge on the wrongdoers, allowing the audience to appreciate the violent ends that greed may lead to. The moral of the story is driven home by the closing of the film as Cadi stands in awe of the Welsh countryside, eventually turning to the camera and staring down the viewer as if to plead for a more reasonable and humane approach to the way we treat nature. Effective in delivering its message, 'The Feast' is intriguing, educational and satisfies the more gory tastes that horror viewers may have.
Score: 3/4
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