Feed (2005)

Dir: Brett Leonard

This relentlessly extreme Australian thriller is a tough one to grade. It opens with a castrated man, sat in a bathtub and being fed his own penis. It then proceeds to get worse! A Sydney cop assigned to surfing internet porn sites in search of illegal activity flies to Ohio in search of a webmaster he believes to be responsible for some rather unusual serial killings. I won't give any more away as it would ruin the many grotesque, shocking twists that fly thick and fast at the viewer throughout the film, but I will give this film the accolade of being the only one I've ever seen that has actually put me off my dinner! On one hand, the movie plays like a fresh-out-of-film-school debut with its bad Digital Video photography, over-flashy editing and empassioned polemic, so it was a surprise to find that director Brett Leonard is something of a genre veteran (previous efforts include "The Lawnmower Man" and "The Dead Pit"). Still, on the other hand, it's actually a bit smarter than it looks. The pervading unpleasantry of the film aside, it's a well-paced, gripping, original storyline and has an ingeniously sick final twist. Plus, the chap who plays the villain is really good at it. Very creepy indeed. I'm not sure I'd quite 'recommend' it as such but if you reckon your stomach can handle it, there's ample merit to be found beneath the grue. ***