Feed (2005)

Director: Brett Leonard

Starring: Patrick Thompson, Alex O'Loughlin

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Can you stomach it?

Plot: After uncovering a sexually charged Web site that features morbidly obese women being held captive and taunted with fattening food, Australian cop Phillip (Thompson) travels to Ohio to investigate. Viewing the Aussie's appearance as an opportunity for a fun game rather than a reason for him to go offline, the site's sadistic webmaster ( O'Loughlin) lures Phillip into a dangerous game that's unappetizing, to say the least.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Once was fine.

Not a bad movie. The story works (mostly) and the performances work (mostly). There's some dodgy bits of acting but the two leads are quite good. I dug the plot. It's interesting albeit rather simple, but that's OK because it's compelling enough to keep you involved. The big issues, though, are the 101 minute runtime. It's far too long. There are scenes (like when the two adversaries meet for the first time, when they meet again in the hotel room and when they face off for the big climax) that just go on and on and on. And it's the dialogue from the the killer that doesn't stop. If you were to trim a couple of minutes (or more) of all of his monologues you'd probably cut 10-15 minutes all together - they just need to be tightened up a bit. A rambling killer loses his/her effectiveness to frighten.

The music and color/look of the film is pretty constant and that's to a fault. It's a bit too much mood. When you combine that with the babbling killer, it's a deadly combination. It doesn't kill the picture but it does add to the "Come on, will you move this thing along, already?" factor. Still, though, having said all of that, I really dug it. It's a pretty good low budget horror flick that, if tweaked a bit more, could be a solid win.