Directed by Lee Haven Jones
Written by Roger Williams
Starring Annes Elwy, Nia Roberts, Julian Lewis Jones, Steffan Cennydd, Sion Alun Davies
Runtime: 1 hour 33 minutes
Unrated
Language: Welsh
Available to watch video on demand

by Audrey Callerstrom, Associate Editor

The Feast is an effective slow burn, the kind of true horror that comes not with violence, but with the growing feeling of dread. It spends its first hour sharing facts that are revealed organically through conversation. A wealthy family of four lives in an isolated house in the countryside. The mother, Glenda (Nia Roberts), inherited the property from her mother. Glenda grew up on a farm. She can skin and prepare a rabbit. But she finds her old life primitive, and has since done away with the livestock but kept the land. Her husband, Gwyn (Julian Lewis Jones), an elite employee of the government, spends most of his time on the sidelines as Glenda gets ready for a small dinner party. Their sons are odd and isolated. When we first see the immaculate and vain Gweirydd (Sion Alun Davies) he’s preparing for a marathon on a stationary bike on a low cut leotard. Guto (Steffan Cennydd), an addict, wants desperately to return to London. He hates the countryside, but his parents believe his addiction is made worse by being in the city.

Things feel off even without the presence of the stoic and nearly silent Cadi (Annes Elwy), who works for a restaurant in town and has been asked to come help them serve their meal. Cadi can’t really cook, but she can take coats and clear plates between courses. She doesn’t converse. She often stays silent when posed with a question. Her dark hair brown hair doesn’t quite fit with her icy blue eyes and soft freckles. It even looks like her hair was recently dyed as it tends to leave a brown stain on her shirt. No matter – Glenda is occupied with the tasks at hand, which include trying to persuade an adjacent landowner, Mair (Lisa Palfrey) to sell her land. Why even continue to live on the land, Glenda asks, when money can be made mining it for minerals, or turning it into a turbine farm?

The setting, a rich modern home where everyone acts like strangers toward each other, reminded me of Parasite. There’s also a lot of close camerawork here of the food that is being prepared, and eaten. Good food, after all, is another symbol of social status. Glenda prepares an ornate tropical fruit salad with papaya; Cadi carefully assembles kebobs. Gweirydd, on a specific diet to prepare himself for his marathon, consumes raw meat from a plastic container. Things slowly turn violent and surreal. But what is happening? The Feast is best viewed while disregarding the need for explanation. You don’t really know if any gruesome scene actually occurs, since it seems to be unacknowledged in the next scene. No one even reacts in shock when party guest Euros (Rhodri Meilir) chokes on a clump of hair. Or when the sons go missing. Or when someone appears to lick maggots from an infected leg. Do any of these things happen? Are some of them hallucinated? Is the whole family and their guests under some sort of trance?

Certain things are revealed in the film’s final act, important things, that makes the trajectory of the story a little rushed. Something referred to as “The Rise,” a patch of land that may hold some sort of mystical power (and maybe a body or two) is referred to and brushed aside. It can be a little hard to follow what the significance and recurrence is of things like, for example, why only Gwyn can hear a high pitched ringing sound, or where Cadi actually comes from. But there’s a certain power in that mystery, once you abandon the need to have a story laid out before you like a clear set of instructions and tools for you to assemble the final product.