There’s something evil lurking deep within the bedrock, just waiting to be unleashed. This “cursed earth” theme is a central idea in numerous creepy movies, but one that has gained traction with the rise of folk horror: it’s central to the wigged-out witchery of Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth, and to the pastoral menace of a host of new Irish horror pictures. But with his bracingly gory Welsh-language feature debut, Lee Haven Jones presents another angle. Sure, there is something uncommonly unpleasant that rests beneath “the Rise”, the wild land that the superstitious local farmers refuse to cultivate. But the real monsters, arguably, are the affluent family whose opulent modernist new-build is the film’s location, and the smirking, ferret-faced business adviser who has helped them pillage the land for short-term gain.
The Feast requires a degree of commitment; it avoids jump scares in favour of a long, slow build of tension – so slow that at times the characters appear to be in the grip of a kind of paralysis – that pays off with an explosively grisly final act. Glenda (Nia Roberts) and her local MP husband, Gwyn (Julian Lewis Jones), are hosting a dinner party. The guests include the couple’s two dysfunctional sons and a neighbouring farmer’s wife. First to arrive, however, is the hired help. Cadi (Annes Elwy) is wild-eyed and traumatised, with sodden hair and a tendency to tread mud across the pristine poured concrete floor. The family might be too self-absorbed to spot the writing on the wall, but the emphatic plotting and pointed shots of axes leave few surprises for the audience.
