Feed [Import]

It has been some time since I have seen a horror film as thoroughly dedicated to trying to make you throw up as "Feed." One clear clue as to this intent is the number of times somebody in the movie throws up or at least starts gagging and covering their mouths while their eyes bug out (the film's tagline is "Can you stomach it?"). I think it is inevitable that you will be reminded of the death of the glutton in the opening act of "Se7en," only "Feed" wants to wallow in the entire idea of death by eating and to link it with sexual fetishism and web cams. There is a world of Feeders (men who admire fat women) and Gainers (the fat women they admire), and apparently we can watch it on our home computers for a nominal membership fee.

Philip Jackson (Patrick Thompson) is an Australian detective who works for an Interpol cybercrime unit Down Under and who stumbles upon a website where voyeurs watch a 600-pound woman named Deirdre (Gabby Millgate) being fed. Jackson is repulsed by what he sees, but more importantly he is suspicious, especially when the Webmaster starts blocking his moves on the Internet and the website involves making bets for some macabre reason that is not immediately clear to him. Jackson knows that starving somebody is a crime, and even though his boss points out that hardly means the converse is true, the detective is perfectly willing to be judge and jury on this one. So Jackson heads for Toledo, Ohio, to track down Michael Carter (Alex O'Loughlin) in his lair so that they can go toe-to-toe in their battle of wills and deep seated psychoses, never realizing that he is being led into a trap.

Millgate's face and fingers are not built up to match the giant nearly naked fat suit she is forced to act beneath, but you get over the grotesque appearance of her character as you try to understand why she is letting this be done to her. Then again, the line separating Carter from Jackson does not appear to constitute a great distance on the sanity scale. This is one of those movies where the hero is running around like a lunatic, and the villain is the calm voice of reason, at least until you remember Deirdre suspended on her floating bed under the watchful eye of Carter's web cam. It takes a while for this movie to get all three of the principles in the same room at the same time, but that is when the fun begins.

In the end I did not even have to round up to get to a 4 star rating because "Feed" works out its end game in terms of its own logic (no it did not make me throw up, but it is going to claim its fair share of victims unless their finger can out race their gag reflex when it comes to finding the stop button their remote). Jackson has tracked Carter to his sick little world and been invited in, and the resolution clearly stays within those parameters. The resolution might be sick and it might be totally twisted, but it is ring true given what has happened. You can always get somebody in a movie, but the question is whether you can get them really good, with all that entrails in the darker regions of your mind where the impulse towards the sort of justice Dante envisioned being parceled out in Hell, and I think "Feed" pulls it off on that score. However, it was a close call as the alternative ending, which tacks on a totally unnecessary scene, amply indicates. That would have been a twist too many provided by director Brett Leonard ("The Lawnmower Man") and writer Kieran Galvin ("Bad Ass Mono-Winged Angel").

This film can be said to exist in the horror genre, but it is much, much more than simply a horror movie. At the time of this writing, "Feed" happens to be my favourite movie of all the flicks I have seen for past year or so. I will try to outline the strengths of the film without dropping any spoilers for the reader.

The story is about a police officer who seeks out sexual predators on the internet, hunting them down and arresting them. He begins to find extremely sick sites online dealing with morbidly obese women and their worshippers, and attempts to track down the source of one particular site. The premise is based in reality, dealing with men who have a specific attraction to large women. (There are several relationships in the film; it is up to the viewer to determine which ones are "sick" and which ones are relatively "normal." Caveat: You may be surprised to see who is the sickest and who is most "normal.") The plot opens up the question of what the nature of beauty is, and forces us to consider the manner in which we fetishize members of the opposite sex, not only wholly, but also as a sum of their body parts. The film is pornographic, but not in a XXX style - the fetishistic desires of the protagonist are pornographic in that the object of his desire is ultimately dehumanized and completely objectified, with terrifying and grotesque results. The search for even greater embodiments of the fetish leads to an appalling and horrifying climax. In what is described as "the ultimate S&M relationship," sexual and personal surrender take on an entirely new (and I would say authentic) meaning. The viewer is left to wonder who is the predator and who is the victim in each of the twisted relationships revealed onscreen.

The actors are just amazing in this movie. Alex O'Lachlan is the cop who is slowly becoming more twisted as the cases he cracks leave indelible scars on his psyche and his relationship; Patrick Thompson is the handsome fetishist living two completely separate lives simultaneously; and Gabby Millgate is the very sweet and extremely believable fat model Diedre, who is the object of beauty in this tale. The film takes the viewer on an emotional roller coaster as the most personal feelings of the main characters are revealed. The cinematography puts you so much into the scene you feel as though you can almost smell the bags of fast food, the dankness of the country house, the putrescent rot in the back bedrooms...

This film is not for the faint of heart - it is dark and sick and fascinating. Sadly, I feel that I haven't come anywhere close to explaining how powerful it is. I have watched it many times, and I enjoy it every time I watch it. It has a great deal to say, and it seems to speak to our 21st century alienation and excess in terms that at first glance seem too over-the-top. At second glance, they don't seem quite so absurd.

There are two endings to the film and both are terrific. Each ending alters dramatically the entire meaning of everything that comes before the final 10 minutes. And each ending is equally fascinating.

I really love this film. There's something very honest about it, something that cuts to the deepest part of one's darkest desires and asks, "who is to say what is sick and what is love?"

I originally heard of the movie Feed In Fangoria Magazine, I read that it was an insane movie full of gore and it was hard to watch ! so this ment that i had to see it because i am a horror fiend!! When i finally got to see the movie i was so disappointed! it wasnt gross or hard to watch at all ! I mean if you find the sight of morbidly obese females hard to stomach then by all means stay away from Feed ! But other then that it isnt all it is made out to be ! It is a decent movie and the concept is fairly original but if you are anything like me, i'm sure there arent many, and are planning to watch feed in hopes of seeing a movie that will make you sick then DONT bother!