“FEED” (2005)

Starring: Alex O’Loughlin, Patrick Thompson, Rose Ashton & Gabby Millgate
Written by Kieran Galvin
Directed by Brett Leonard

Polly Staffle Rating: *

There’s no Anthony Hopkins eating Ray Liota’s brain and flirting with Jodie Foster or Julianne Moore. There’s no Morgan Spurlock stuffing his face till he pukes. There’s no Brad Pitt or Morgan Freeman dealing with biblical mumbo jumbo and a crazy guy that cuts off the tips of his fingers. There’s no William Peterson investigating the case. There’s no Anthony Perkins in drag. This doesn’t stop “Feed” from aspiring to be a cross between all four Hannibal Lecter films, “Super Size Me,” “Se7en,” “C.S.I.” and Psycho.” Sadly, it doesn’t get there and doesn’t quite realize the great potential it had.

I was pumped to see this film. Ready to be shocked. Blown away. Fangoria’s Anthony Timpone called it, “One of the sickest films I have ever seen.” John ‘Arrow in the Head’ Fallon said, “it just went too far.” Either I watched the wrong movie or these guys smoked on top of the White House with Willie Nelson before writing their reviews. Don’t get me wrong, the idea behind “Feed” is fantastic and the final product for the most part looks and sounds good. I just think the story was very poorly executed.

“Feed” features a loose cannon Australian cop tracking down a Pac-Man fever having serial killer named Michael. Now Michael, played by co-creator Alex O’Loughlin doing his best James Spader meets Alan Cumming impression, isn’t your average run of the mill psycho madman. He’s no Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacey, Jeffrey Dahmer or B.T.K. He does seem to get sexual gratification from what he does and I’ll get to why there is a loophole to that later. But what sets him apart from the rest is he videotapes himself killing his victims and broadcasts it on the internet, he does it slowly over a long period time and those he victimizes are consenting and active partners in the whole thing. That’s because he feeds them to death. His latest victim is the unsuspecting Deirdre (Gabby Millgate).

The cop hot on Michael’s tail is Phil Jackson, played by the film’s other co-creator Patrick Thompson. Evidently while he isn’t coaching an NBA team, the Zen Master investigates the dark side of the internet. Phil spends hours looking at porn, surfing for the most twisted sex sites he can find. Tough job, but somebody has to make sure you sick puppies out there in the erotic underworld aren’t getting too exploitive and taboo. After trying to bust two gay cannibals - one was serving the other his own genitals - Jackson stumbles across the cyber world of feeders and gainers. For those that don’t know and you can either do a quick internet search or take my word, feeders are mainly men that admire big girls and gainers are big girls that love attention. I don’t know a lot about the whole sexual subculture that exists, but there are and have been women with gainer sites since the invention of the internet. I never understood it myself as I have always struggled with my size. For those that aren’t good with weight and think 200 pounds is an ungodly amount to weigh, the gainer in “Feed” is in the six hundreds. Who the hell wants to keep getting fatter and fatter until Jerry Springer has to come and cut a hole in the side of your house to get you out while he exploits you on television? Nobody. But if it seems you have completely lost control, I guess exploiting yourself online for money, food and sex is better than being picked up by a crane, while a bald security guard named Steve makes sure nobody bum rushes you.

Ideally, I guess when a feeder and a gainer connect in real life a weird bond would form where the feeder is both the dominate and subordinate in the relationship. The feeder would be the provider and completely control the other person. At the same time, the feeder would be a slave because they would have to wait on the person hand and foot and this would include bathing, taking dumps and every little thing fully functioning people take for granted on a daily basis. To me that relationship has the great workings of a love story. The feeder would be motivated by love and as a result would be an enabler and while they were giving their partner what they wanted, more food, they would also be hurting them by pushing them closer and closer to death’s door as the pounds stacked up.

Though “Feed” tries a little, we really don’t get much as far as a loving relationship between the feeder and the gainer. That’s because the feeder’s intentions aren’t out of love. Now, back to what I said earlier of there being a loophole in Michael getting sexual gratification from the relationship. Early in the film, we see him feed Deirde hamburgers and masturbate. Later, we see him having sexual relations with her while dumping various foods on her body and shoveling donuts and what appears to be spaghetti sauce into her mouth. We also learn Michael’s mother was morbidly obese, bed bound and he had to feed her when he was quite young. Even later, Michael gives a speech about how he frees women from society’s restrictions on weight. He also says he believes consumption is evolution with the fattest surviving while everyone else is left with the decision of eat or be eaten. But it is obviously all lies. Michael is actually married to a skinny woman. We also learn he murdered his mother and cut off her fat. His ultimate goal with his gainers is to kill them, so in reality he wouldn’t get anything sexual out of the whole force feeding frenzy, which is what I imagine a Nevada combined buffet/brothel would look like. I think this is kind of key, when you write a script giving us a killers motivation make sure we are able to understand it and it is consistent. Does he like some cushion for the pushing or not?

Too much magical computer hacking gave the first half of “Feed” a real geek fest feel and the second half destroyed any credibility the film ever had. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many religious references for no reason in a film. Did a church pay a fee for product placement of crosses and bibles or was it just me? We also don’t get much as far as looking at society and questioning why things are the way they are. I was hoping the film would knock me out with some heavy stuff about consumerism, consumption, our digitally and surgically enhanced obsessions with looking young and skinny, fast food addictions, the evils of Wal-Mart, the greed of America, internet legalities and the propaganda and brainwashing we are transmitted from birth, but I didn’t get any of this. We get a couple of half assed speeches from Michael that are completely forced and aren’t heart felt. Director Brett Leonard (“The Lawnmower Man,” “Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box,” “Man-Thing,” “Virtuosity”) I’m sure felt he was doing all of this as was everyone who was involved. But a few scenes of our trusty anti-hero Phil Jackson violently banging a super small slut that he doesn’t even like while she looks at herself in the mirror doesn’t count for social commentary in my book. And wait till you see the ending of this film. I had already written the movie off as a bad serial killer drama in the same vein as the horrible mess “Taking Lives,” but what good ol’ mate Phil does during the climax and there after made me feel that crappy Angelia Jolie film was brilliant.

My biggest complaint about how the film was made, besides the “Eyes Wide Shut” spooky piano rip-off being pumped through the soundtrack, is who they got to play the gainer. Instead of getting an actual morbidly obese woman to play the role, they use a woman in a fat suit. Why? To be politically correct I am guessing. What am I missing? Is it politically correct to have a white man paint himself black and say things like “I love watermelons?” No. Then why is it okay to dress a woman up to be 600 pounds when she’s not and have her say “Feed me” like the “Little Shop of Horrors” plant? Besides, the fat suit looks completely fake. Her fat doesn’t even jiggle. Women don’t like it when they see celebrities, strippers and porn stars with their lips, faces, breasts and anything else imaginable reduced, increased, tightened or whatever and they really don’t like when they pick up a magazine and all the blemishes have been air brushed and the bodies have been manipulated even more. They say it creates a bad environment and makes men have too high of expectations for women to live up to. So why is this fine to screw with our heads and show us an image that has been tinkered with the other way? There are plenty of women out there that would probably happily take this role. “Oh, but it would be degrading to do that,” somebody could argue. To which I would say, “It’s a freaking sexual freak show about a serial killer and a woman bigger than Gilbert Grape’s mom eating herself to an early grave. If you want to be politically correct, go direct ‘Free Willy Part 4’ or some Ron Howard-type movie.”

So is “Feed” sick? No. If you’re one of those people that hates obese women you might not like the fact Deidre is naked most of the movie. The food fun and high-fat shakes through a funnel might get to the squeamish as well as some brief hints at cannibalism. But there’s nothing crazy like Michael having to wipe her ass or anything. In fact, all we ever see is Deirdre lying in bed. At one point Michael miraculously moves her from one location to another, but we don’t see how. Is this movie really that bad? It’s awful. Fifteen minutes in I was thinking it was a two-star movie. But then as it unfolded to treat its characters with such low disregard, it held on to dear life to that final one star. The fact it tried to be like so many other films, while bombarding us with crosses and religious crap and thinking it was so high and mighty didn’t help either. Like Marilyn Manson once said, “If you’re gonna pretend to be something then you have to at least live up to what it is.”

- CCF, July 2006