‘After you’ve taken everything, what will be left?‘
I love British folk horror. Because the British countryside is weird – it’s empty and silent and kinda desolate and just weird. The Feast takes us to an isolated farming community in Wales and introduces us to a strange deity that may or may not live in the woods. The fact that the film is in Welsh (the only Welsh language film I’ve ever seen) only makes it seem more mystical somehow, more ancient…
A married couple (played by Nia Roberts and Julian Lewis Jones) invite a local couple round ostensibly for a dinner party but with designs on signing them up for a business opportunity. On the eve of the party, Cadi (Annes Elwy), a local barmaid, is enlisted to help serve the food out. There is something a little off about Cadi, however. She doesn’t speak much. She is shy and withholding. And she also shoves some glass inside her vagina at one point which, to be fair, is probably a red flag.
It’s difficult to talk too much about The Feast without giving the whole plot away but numerous characters receive their comeuppance for their various indiscretions in a way that recalls Seven in its deranged sense of poetic justice. Most of the action takes place in one location and Welsh director Lee Haven Jones perfectly captures that odd sensation of feeling claustrophobic despite being in a wide open space that the countryside sometimes inspires. Unfortunately, The Feast takes far too long to get going, and while the third act is deliciously dastardly, the destination never really justifies the journey.
The Feast is a solid British folk horror that combines trippy imagery with some pretty gnarly body horror. It just needs to get on with it a little bit.
