PLOT: Following the death of his wife a broken man spirals into an abyss of night tremors and depression and finds himself in the home of a deranged cannibal who convinces him to take his own life in the most horrific way imaginable.
STORY: Cannibal stories aren’t for everyone and Feed Me certainly has some nasty moments. But as someone who doesn’t enjoy seeing people eating, it never enters the zone of the rotting carcasses in a Texas Chainsaw film. But that’s not to say that this is for those with weak stomachs because boy does it get rough. So you may need to prepare your stomach when heading into this one.
The story of Feed Me is really interesting: Jed (Christopher Mulvin) has recently lost his wife to a tragic death. Then one night at a bar, a mysterious patron (Neal Ward) offers him the choice to join his wife in the afterlife. Only there’s a catch: Lionel wants to eat Jed. Only the process isn’t quite what Jed had in mind. What follows is an exciting dynamic as often in these types of stories, you have the victim wanting to escape. Yet here, he’s in the situation willingly. At least for a time.
I found Lionel’s motivations for cannibalism a lot more intriguing than the usual fare. He justifies it because he thinks that it makes him more human since “you are what you eat.” He clearly is lacking in companionship, so the fact that he finds a friend in his future meal makes for some interesting conundrums. Eventually, things take a turn and the comedy drains a bit, as events get even more messed up.
But it’s Ward’s performance that will have you glued to the screen. He’s so delightfully off-kilter that it makes for a damn intriguing lead. Not to say that Mulvin doesn’t impress as well, because his character and the loss of his wife really anchors the story at the beginning. Regardless, it’s Ward that completely carries the film and had me anticipating what he was doing next. There are enough twists and turns that it always had me guessing throughout.
Feed Me comes from the writing/directing duo of Adam Leader and Richard Oakes and they really impress here. This is not an easy story to tell and they handle it brilliantly. It rides the line between laughs and discomfort so well that I never knew what to expect from one moment to the next. And they’re able to maintain that momentum throughout the duration, which is even more commendable. My only real complaint is that there’s a dating subplot that doesn’t feel very believable.
Like most cannibal movies, Feed Me isn’t going to be everyone’s cup o’ tea. There are some really graphic scenes of cannibalism and it can be a bit much. I wouldn’t say they ever go overboard with it but, then again, I may just be too desensitized to this kind of stuff at this point. If you can stomach the gore, I think there’s more than meets the eye in a multitude of ways here. And Lionel is just an absolute joy to behold. Ultimately it proves that there is still new stuff to do with the cannibal genre.
Feed Me is ON DIGITAL AND ON DEMAND ON OCTOBER 27TH, 2022.
8