Feed

    I have finally found a movie where the underground and mainstream collide, a movie so gritty and putrid you’ll be nauseous by the first ten minutes ,a maniac- thriller masterpiece that will bend your mind and twist your guts, BEHOLD!!!, and feast your eyes on Brett Leonard’s Feed.

    Here’s the story, 2 cyber-detectives stumble upon a fat-fetish website that doesn’t seem too kosher, ha, get it, KOSHER, ya know hot-dogs…oh fuck it.  The detectives end up playing a cat and mouse game with the webmaster who really does run a website, however, he’s not just showcasing the “fatty of the month”, he is a actually a religious fanatic named Feeder X who is force-feeding the women to death, (kind of like how your grandmother would feed the family at Christmas dinner), not only that but the site’s members place bets on when and at what weight the “gainers” will kick the bucket.  After a fall-out with his police chief and his department, Detective Jackson leaves Australia and heads to the States to get Michael/Feeder X. During the chase the detective learns more about Michael’s motives but the darker parts of himself as well.

    Feed is fantastically disgusting and has remnants of movies ranging from Silence of the Lambs, Seven, and Hamburger: The Movie. It is a smorgasbord of fried penises, giant hamburgers, food- fucking, bed-pan wrestling, and asthmatic Asian trophy-wives. Feed does a perfect job of combining the grit and shock of the underground with the slick looks of a big- budget crime-drama. Feed spares no expense making you sick to your stomach and you’ll be too enthralled to notice until it is too late, not once was I bored, I was too busy being nauseated to my heart’s content.  I was hooked from the first 10 minutes, and chilled to the bone in the last. All of you know that chill I’m referring to, the one you got at the end of Tales from the Dark-Side every week,  take that, multiply it by ten and that’s not even close to Feed’s climax.

   Now, for all of you jaded crime/horror buffs that could really give a shit about gore and are shocked by nothing, there is a lot for you too. Feed has…dare I say it, YES, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!! Not only that but it has intelligent social commentary that is delicately wound throughout a suspenseful and engaging story.  We slowly learn as the movie progresses that our hero cop Phil Jackson, played by Patrick Thompson (Man-Thing) is not really the stuff that hero’s are made of, he’s a fragile man with flaws and fears and his own hang-ups. Michael/Feeder X is brilliantly played by Alex O’Loughlin who is also the co-producer. Feeder has his hands in all the vices, voyeurism, gambling, religious fanaticism, fetishism and vanity. We see how he got to be the man he is through flashbacks of his relationship with his grotesquely obese mother; the flashbacks come fast and are just as disturbing as what is happening in the present day, very well done . Now, my biggest shout has to go to Jabba the Hutt, who after a sex change, a stint with crack, and the death of his long-time life partner Salacious Crumb, has come back to movies to play Deidre the Feeder. I’m just kidding, Deidre is played by Gabby Millgate (Muriel’s Wedding, Babe: Pig in the City). I never felt disgust and pity for a character the way I did for her, she was the real stand-out performance and without her this movie would go nowhere, I heard after the movie Deidre got a job posing for birthday cards that you see at Spencer’s. Feed’s theme is not only about eating and devouring in the physical sense, it’s also about overindulgence  and finding solace in vices like sex or gambling or parasitic relationships  to make up for painful memories or unfulfilled lives (man I need a girlfriend).

   In Conclusion, Feed compels us to look at our inner parasite and shows us that we relate to all of these characters in some way. Feed is not only a must-see but a must-have for the collectors of horror, suspense, and crime, and to anyone who could appreciate a movie that will make you fucking puke. Oh, by the way, Feed has also one of the coolest soundtracks available for sale from 456 Records. There are links to the movie as well as the music by hitting the website which is really fun to navigate through. The box is pretty awesome, the menu reads like a nutrition label on a food box, (ha-ha, nice!!!). The deleted scenes are ok but the filmmakers knew what they were doing by leaving out the alternate ending, trust me, any other ending would be just WRONG. Can YOU stomach it??