Movies
Have a Snack With Dark Sky’s ‘Bitter Feast’
Dark Sky Films today announced that Bitter Feast, the first movie in its new production-distribution arrangement with Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix, will have its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June. In the film James LeGros plays a New York Chef and TV cooking personality, who takes culinary revenge on the food critic (Josh Leonard), who recently savaged his restaurant in a review. Chef Mario Batali plays the owner of the restaurant. Check out new info and stills below.
BITTER FEAST, a cunning suspense tale about a vengeful TV chef, was written and directed by Joe Maggio, creator of the acclaimed indies Virgil Bliss and Paper Covers Rock. Larry Fessenden’s many works as producer or director include Wendigo and I Sell the Dead and the award-winning drama Wendy and Lucy. BITTER FEAST is the first release in a multi-film production agreement between Glass Eye Pix and Dark Sky Films, the horror subsidiary of the MPI Media Group.
James LeGros (Zodiac, The Last Winter) stars in BITTER FEAST as Peter Grey, an overzealous television chef. When notoriously snarky food blogger J.T. Franks (Joshua Leonard of Humpday and The Blair Witch Project) writes a particularly nasty review of Grey’s food, it pushes the temperamental chef over the edge. He kidnaps the writer and keeps him chained up in a basement, where he presents him with a serious of deceptively simple food challenges – from preparing a perfect egg over easy to grilling a steak precisely medium rare – then punishes him sadistically for anything less than perfection.
Larry Fessenden and renowned Chef Mario Batali also star in this tense thrill ride, which is served up with wicked wit and culinary flair.
Upcoming titles on the Dark Sky/Glass Eye slate include Stake Land, a horror film from Mulberry Street creators Jim Mickle and Nick Damici and starring Danielle Harris and Kelly McGillis; the sci-fi shocker Hypothermia, from James Felix McKenney (Automatons) and starring Michael Rooker and Blanche Baker; and The Innkeepers, Ti West’s follow up to the critically acclaimed The House of the Devil.
Click the image for the other still:
The bar wasn’t very high to clear, but Lionsgate’s The Strangers: Chapter 1 did manage to break a box office record here in 2024, achieving the highest opening weekend at the domestic box office out of any horror movie released this year… so far. This despite largely negative reviews, once again proving that the horror genre is as review-proof as it comes.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 debuted with $11.83M at the domestic box office in 2,856 locations, just barely topping Blumhouse’s Night Swim to rip the crown off the top of its head.
Here’s the full lineup of domestic opening weekends for horror this year…
- The Strangers: Chapter 1 – $11.8 million
- Night Swim – $11.7 million
- Abigail – $10.2 million
- Imaginary – $9.9 million
- The First Omen – $8.3 million
- Tarot – $6.5 million
- Immaculate – $5.3 million
- Lisa Frankenstein – $3.6 million
For further context and comparison, 2018’s The Strangers: Prey at Night opened to $10.4 million before making $31 million worldwide, a number Chapter 1 may eventually reach.
The good news for Lionsgate is that the production budget for The Strangers: Chapter 1 was a reported $8.5 million, so there’s a good chance this one will soon be profitable. But is it enough to justify theatrical releases for both Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, which will continue Chapter 1‘s storyline and have already been filmed? Or will Lionsgate pivot to a streaming release?
These are the questions we can’t help but ponder today. Stay tuned for more.
Madelaine Petsch (“Riverdale”), Froy Gutierrez (Hocus Pocus 2), Rachel Shenton (The Silent Child), Ema Horvath (“Rings of Power”) and Gabe Basso (Hillbilly Elegy) star.
Here’s the full official synopsis: “After their car breaks down in an eerie small town, a young couple are forced to spend the night in a remote cabin. Panic ensues as they are terrorized by three masked strangers who strike with no mercy and seemingly no motive.”
Renny Harlin directed The Strangers: Chapter 1.
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