Film Review: Feed (2005)

I tend to be drawn to weird horror films like a fly to a bug zapper. Sometimes, I get away safely with an interesting film to recommend. Other times, I get torched. And on some rare occasions I'm left scratching my head and wondering why a film was made at all.

While a year ago, I was willing to write of Feed as exploitative garbage, a recent rewatch of the film leaves me scratching my head as to why the film couldn't have been better.

Feed is based off of a fetish/sexual preference (like Donkey Punch), features a cast of unknown actors/not actors (like Donkey Punch), and tries to use the shock value of a sexual preference to compensate for a lack of a real screenplay or concept (like Donkey Punch, only less plot driven). Specifically, Feed is about gainers and feeders, sexual practices involving the consumption of food for the explicit purpose of gaining weight. The film even has a shocking, based-on-a-true-story placard claiming the exact events in the film are happening every day. This warning is exaggerated more than the fake-slasher/recovered footage claims in that as far as my research has led me, there are no pay websites that show the merciless torture of obese women by sadistic Norman Bates-types on live web feed 24/7 with spoilerific intentions. In the end, Feed's "shocking" taken from the headlines approach rings false even without research because of an unending series of impossible computer hacking and Jack Bauer-like heroics.

The plot starts simple, then gets needlessly confusing/non-existent. A special task force in Australia patrols the Internet for abusive fetish sites connected to murders. The opening of the film shows the lead and his sidekick breaking in on a cannibal, whose victim insists that he can do what he wants with his body and really does want to be eaten. The lead is constantly searching for the most extreme cases, even if the target audience is miniscule in comparison to, say, child trafficking rings. He stumbles upon an American website showing women being fattened up to immobility and immediately jumps to the conclusion these poor women are victims of a sadistic madman. If you can't guess by the description of the opening scene, he's only half right. The man doing it is insane, but the women aren't the shirking victims held against their will he makes them out to be.

Please do not be misled. I have intentionally described the plot in a more interesting way than the film ever approaches it. In reality, it's a series of investigation sequences broken up by the "shocking" site of an actual morbidly obese actress being fed, ridden, bathed, and played with by a stacked muscle man. The creative team seemed to believe that the site of uncovered fat flesh was enough to categorize this as a horror film. It's not. It's no different than sub-B-Movies of buxom girls jumping around in the woods running from a killer as their clothes are torn off piece by piece. In theory, there's a horror story in there (a slasher), but in practice, it's a flat gag that grows old quickly. So, if the site of an obese person lying in bed can give you nightmares, you might find this film scary and shocking. Otherwise, it's a bore.

This is a shame. The film is incredibly stylish despite it's lack of plot. The editing is some of the best I've seen in a low budget horror film, effectively creating the illusion of suspense when there, in fact, is none. Particularly engaging are the montages of the feeding sequences with the lead sleeping with his girlfriend. The parallels between the presumed lines of normal sexual preferences and fetishes is established by showing the differences; the complication comes from seeing the two very different couples almost mimicking each others sexual experience in two completely different ways.

Had Feed been focused on the nature of sexuality, rather than the shock value of a few fetishes, it might have been a good film. The concept of exploring what could draw people to more unusual lifestyle choices is the most interesting aspect of the film. Too bad it is pushed aside to focus on a by the numbers procedural and the assumption of what is shocking to a film going audience.