I'm Baaaaaaaack

We made it! We conquered Dollywood and survived a round of Kentucky bourbon, West Virginian spaghetti bread, and Tennesseean karaoke. Most importantly, we weren't killed by anything from the following two establishments clearly built and filled to terrify outsiders with nightmarish possibilities of what can be done with a bowl of wax or little girl's toy chest.


I'll get back to my normal review schedule in a few days, as my horror film watching was put on hold to experience some true life terrors and fried green tomatoes. Until then, I included a few images from my road trip to demonstrate some of the wackiness buried inside this beautiful lil country I call home.


Some samples from the Lexington Virginia Wax Museum:





























And possibly more frightening, inside the Lexington Toy Museum:
















Not kid friendly at all. We'll close with an image that needs no words, but produced one of the greatest speeches in American history:





Yes, a little known fact of the 19th century is that a vegetarian velociraptor helped old Abe get through a few first drafts of the Gettysburg Address. I can't imagine why this tidbit never made it into the textbooks.

Trash of the Titans

Okay, one last review before I hit the road for a week. I dedicate this post to my broken iPod, whose inability to work led me to busy my 70 minute train ride with another activity.


Onward we go:


Sometimes, there’s truly nothing like big dumb action movie drunk on excess violence to get you through a busy day. Knowing that stress was slowly building up on me last week, I bumped the recent remake of Death Race 2000 (minus the 2000 and set in 2012) up on my queue hoping for a mindless helping of carsplosions and Statham scowling.


I should preface this writeup with two confessions:


1. I have yet to see the original (as it currently isn’t available through Netflix)
2. This was my first experience seeing the much loved by genre fans Statham actually act, as opposed to glaring sexily from movie theater posters


Quick Plot:
In the near future, America is wallowing in some economic lows (imagine that!) and hard-working Statham is trying his bloodiest to provide for his sweet and filmically understanding wife and newborn daughter. Like all movies involving Sweet & Understanding Wives with husbands that insist themselves to be unworthy of such Sweet & Understanding love, Sweet & Understanding Wife is soon murdered in the middle of a stir fry.


Statham is framed and sent to prison, where TV exec/warden Joan Allen (yes, three time Oscar nominee Joan Allen) runs a successful reality competition pitting lifers against one another in a Nascar-esque race watched by millions via pay-per-Internet. Having seen our share of this plot in everything from Series 7: The Contenders to The Condemned, it’s not that Anderson & Co. bring anything new but it seems that even they are aware of that. Little time is wasted on explaining what went wrong in society or just who it is that watches the Death Race. Frankenstein, the Hulk Hogan of the series has perished, but rather than lose a few viewers and admit defeat, Allen recruits her newest inmate to don the previous Frankenstein’s mask and drive his car to freedom...providing he wins the upcoming race.

There’s not a whole lot to say about Death Race. It’s loud, slick, and peppered with some fine moments (usually provided by the fire crackling voice of Ian McShane or the simply unbelievable carving of Statham’s torso) but ultimately, Death Race is a video game for people with arthritis or bad eye-finger coordination. There are some decent deaths and a few explosions. Characters die and others live, but none drudge up any real interest or sympathy between the blaring score and hasty plotting. Anderson takes a few stylizing chances at making Death Race a tad meta and aware, but he never crosses that line to real innovation. The film is what you would expect, for better and worse.


High Points
Considering this is made by Paul W. Anderson, the minimal use of annoying jump cutted editing during the races was far less severe than I was expecting


Ian McShane. Nothing to really say about him; just Fucking Ian McShane


Statham, it would seem, has indeed inherited the title of Best Action Hero currently working. His physicality is quite believable, but more importantly, his acting is good enough to make us root for his character, whether we really care about the film or not

Low Points
While Allen’s icy villainess is entertaining in the ridiculous way only an A-list actress can pull off, a film like this needs a few more colorful baddies with Running Manish personalities. Most of the prisoners here feel like extras on Oz answering a casting call with little flavor to make a real impression


Granted I’m not the target audience here, but do we really need blaring “She’s So Sexy” rap scoring during the extremely slow-motioned scenes introducing female characters to inform us that the these women are hot? Their hair is blowing, midriffs are exposed, and short shorts are worn: we get it

The final plot twist is a decision made by our characters offscreen in a secret conversation. Nothing irks me more than a film that simply cheats its viewers by taking them on one character’s journey, only to then hide key details for an “exciting” surprise. Such a plot can occasionally work if the film never actually lies (think of the hints in Inside Man or The Sixth Sense), but merely holding back information that breaks the flow of the film for the surprise factor is a cheap, dishonest trick.


Good thing I didn’t really care about the movie that much. I may have been angry.

Lessons Learned
In the near future, salaries will crash, but a blue collar worker can still afford a lovely two-level house


All mugshots should involve a topless reel, particularly if the subject is Jason Statham

Declaring “You can’t kill me!” will instantly get you, indeed, quite killed


If you fuck with Joan Allen, you will finally answer the age-old question of just who it is that shits on the sidewalk

Addendum: What the hell does that actually mean?


Rent/Bury/Buy
Eh. You won’t get much out of Death Race that you couldn’t find in other R-Rated action fare. My lack of enthusiasm is probably in some part due to my low interest in car chase films (give me Point Break to any Fast &Furious incarnation), so if you what horsepower rating a '67 Mustang has or leave Ronin on TiVo for months solely to catch a few speed scenes whenever a commercial comes on (as my own Pacer owning father is prone to do), then this may be worthy of a rental with a few beers. Otherwise, tune in when it airs on cable or just stare at this for two hours:

Or for a week, as I head to Dollywood and try to survive car sickness, country music, and not watching movies without turning into a Redneck Zombie. Although, the possibilities of that could make for some reaaaaaaal horror commentary.

Are We Dead Yet?

In a few days, I’ll be hopping in a car and driving down south with a few friends for a mobile summer vacation. I know what you’re thinking: how could someone so well-versed in horror films possibly risk such a journey unless she’s itching to be chased, violated, and eaten by prehistoric cave people or rabidly maladjusted children. Thankfully, it’s because of those countless hours spent in front of straight-to-VHS rentals that I’m confident I have what it takes to survive. To be sure, I’ve compiled a few key points to remember when traveling through unchartered (at least by urbanite) terrain in an automobile.

1. Focus on the road

I have an odd, yet justified hatred of any film--particularly horror--that spends too much time in the front seat of a moving vehicle. More often than not, such a scene will feature the driver irresponsibly turning his or her head towards the passenger to carry out a conversation only to then cut to the shocked partner screaming “Watch out!” as the car veers off the road to avoid hitting a stray animal, child, or ghostly presence. (See The Descent, Children of the Corn, and about a thousand other films featuring more than one character on a highway.) A variation on this lesson can be seen in one of the most popular recent entries in the road trip gone awry genre, Wrong Turn. Leave it to seemingly intelligent med student Desmond Harrington to make the fatal error of shifting his focus from the windshield to the radio. The result? A broken leg, busted Mustang, and deadly chase with cannibalistic inbred West Virginian mutants. Take heed, young viewers: as humans, most of us only have two eyes. Glue ‘em to the windshield and let no spatula pry them off.

2. No skinny dipping

Partially because most natural waters are littered with some very unnatural waste. Also, if my 9th grade biology teacher was telling the truth, August is the time for clams and other sea creatures to deposit their sperm in aquatic environments for the reproduction season. Personally, I’m not quite at the right time in my life to cross into Cronenbergian body territory as the woman impregnated by a mollusk. (I get the feeling such a process is far less fun than it sounds.) The most important reason to stay clothed in the water, however, is that skinny dipping is, by all rules of the horror canon, a sin punishable by death. Take the nice young ladies of Tourist Trap, none of whom partake in any visible sexual activity, all of whom experienced terrifying abuse at the waxy hands of a backwoods artist who got a fleeting glance of their young bodies when they made the fatal error of diving bare into a private lake. Sometimes, that's all it takes to then be strangled, stabbed, and molded into a loose-jawed mannequin.

3. No hitchhikers

What, you mean I shouldn’t pull over and open my car door to that dusty bearded hobo with suspiciously red fluid leaking from his sack? But what of my karma, you ask, with good samaritan glitter in your wide eyes. Keep a running tab and call Sally Struthers when you get a fews bars on your cell phone. Picking up hitchhikers is the surest ticket to a bloody chase at the wrong end of a chainsaw or pesky stalking courtesy of one of the truest psychopaths cinema has ever given us in the pristinely blond body of Rutger Hauer. Remember Leatherface’s skinny big brother? Or how about the gutty mess those unlucky pretty young people never got the chance to clean up in the 2003 remake? Not to mention the finger fries and torso tearing of The Hitcher . Sure, that obnoxious Franklin deserved a little stabbage, but then you (and by default, us) had to deal with his whinings all night. And yes, driving solo cross country can be a lonely, but that’s what obnoxious radio commercials and unfunny DJs were made for. Just remember to see Rule #1 and tuned into one station until the next red light. 

4. No sassing the locals

Sure, rural townsfolk are different, what with their soder pop and mustard on hamburgers (in New York, that offense will send you straight to Ryker’s Island Maximum Security Prison). Always remember, however, that those same bumpkins whose blackened teeth gave you a chuckle can lead you straight into disaster, such as the wrong end of a black market organ donation ring a la Turistas. Eli Roth’s comedic horror homage Cabin Fever is ripe with lessons on how to behave south of the Mason Dixon Line. A few I picked up:

a) Never force a friendship on shy children. Some are socially awkward, but more importantly, some are well-versed in kung fu

b) No thieving the mom-and-pop shops. Particularly when pop wields a shotgun.

c) Avoid peeping on married women. This is an especially bad idea when your friends are dying, you’ve blown up your car, and you may be infected with a flesh eating bacteria like silly little Ryder Strong, who loses his last chance of getting some help when he lingers a tad too long at a local’s window. 

5. No taking advice about off-the-beaten track attractions from locals

It’s not on a map. GPS has nothing to say about it. But that scabby clown dripping in fried chicken grease swears it’s the greatest place since Dollywood. That’s right folks, do not, I repeat, do NOT take traveling directions from suspicious locals, particularly when they survived Spider Baby to grow into older, rounder, and more vicious backwoods peddlers of local town lore like Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses. This is a man who, along with his not-quite-fit-for-society family, is so evil he'd actually lure Rainn Wilson into death. You have to be pretty badass to take down Dwight Schrute, and/or really heartless to want Rainn Wilson exterminated. So. If you hit a rest stop littered with mutated skeletons and busting with whispers of a true roadside attraction detailing the life of one of the country's most brutal serial killers...

Oh who am I kidding. There’s no way in hell would I NOT take that advice. The only real question is at whose hands do I ultimately perish. Considering my lifelong complications with Barnum & Bailey's most ubiquitous entertainers, my corpse will probably be shipped home stained with white pancake makeup. But hopefully, I’ll experience enough adventure in those fleeting moments before my untimely death to crank out a few more blogs from beyond the grave. 

God Told Me To Tell You To See This Movie

Few things are more frightening than everyday people committing heinous acts of violence. It's part of why I recently found myself explaining how haunting Gus Van Sant's Elephant is. For 90 minutes, you meander through high school walls and eavesdrop on its 'real life' teenaged conversations. Then, right between the afternoon sun and the lunch bell, a pair of 16 year olds march inside and open fire on everyone from the head cheerleader to the shy library aide. Yes, it's disturbing for being so close to the actual Columbine massacre, but it's also the non-Hollywood look and sound of amateur actors role playing a situation that hardly seems forced.


The great Larry Cohen's God Told Me To begins with a scene of almost documentary-esque violence, setting viewers up in a recognizable universe where general rules of safety and conduct are no longer guaranteed. For the first half or so, this is the terrifying environment we find ourselves in. Once plot points are revealed, Cohen takes us in an equally interesting, if slightly less primal place. The end result is memorable and will make you think; the opening is unsettling and will give you nightmares.


Quick Plot: A typical workday in NYC comes to a bloody halt when a rifleman perched on a water tower starts gunning down passing strangers. Detective Peter Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco) attempts to talk the shooter down face to face. Not surprisingly, he’s unsuccessful, but this strict Catholic cop does get an answer when he inquires about the motive: “God told me to.”

Later that week, Manhattan preps itself for the annual beerfest--I mean, St. Patrick’s Day Parade. A phoned warning hints that one of NY’s own Finest will open fire on 5th Avenue, but being as “The Irish have waited all year for this!”, the march continues and none other than a fresh-faced Andy Kaufman in uniform goes postal before the world knew what city employees were capable of. Dying words? See title.

To continue with a plot description leads me into dangerously spoiler filled terrain I dare not enter. There’s a lot of directions you’d expect this film to take, but I’m fairly certain most viewers will be surprised by where God Told Me To goes and how it gets there. Cohen wisely grounds his story in Lo Bianco’s Catholic detective, a Catholic struggling with his own decisions who ends up on a journey far more terrifying and weird than one would expect.


God Told Me To is not an explicit horror film along the lines of It’s Alive, nor is it a fluffier piece of satirical insanity like the Dolls House favorite The Stuff. This early Cohen piece has, not surprisingly, its own unique mood aided by the gritty beauty of NYC in its glorious gritty 70sness. The action, however, is hardly limited to 42nd St sleaze. I'm biting my tongue to not give away the force behind the lordly commands, but let's just say it's transcends the Tri-State area in ways only a restrained Larry Cohen could conjure.

High Points
An early scene wherein a murderous father calmly explains how and why he slaughtered his family is one of the most quietly disturbing monolgues I’ve heard on film

Likewise, Sylvia Sydney turns in a strong one-scene performance that succeeds in revealing a surprising, potentially laughable plot point and making it into something sad and scary


The relationship between Pete's two loves plays out in an intriguing and honest way, avoiding the cliches we'd expect from a mistress/ex-wife meetup. Their discussion is well-acted and reveals a few more chilling details


Low Points
Perhaps there’s a better DVD out there (more about that later), but much of the dialogue was muffled. This was especially frustrating since my Netflix’d copy lacked any subtitles


I imagine the low budget had some say here, but it would have been nice to get a liitle more of how the rash of killings were affecting the city of New York


Just as it’s hard to watch any John Carpenter movie and not wish for a dose of Kurt Russell, any Cohen flick without the weirdly charismatic presence of Michael Moriarity also feels a tad incomplete

Lessons Learned
Never let your son hang out with a dirty long-haired hippie...particularly if said bad influence possesses an angelic glow and oddly placed vaginal opening


It’s easy to sweet talk a nun


Speaking to God will make you rapidly age ten years before your 22nd birthday; other side effects include going on a killing spree

When a man calls in a serious terrorism threat and begins his warning with “Don’t ask who I am,” the first thing you should not do is ask who’s speaking


Never date a married Catholic. Soooooo much guilt there


Rent/Bury/Buy
Like most of Larry Cohen’s work, God Told Me To is rich in ideas and a little less wealthy in execution. Still, the central themes about faith and free will combined with fairly wacky (yet somehow very grounded) story twists overcome some of the awkward plotting and low budget restraints. The performances are top notch all around and most of the early scenes are truly frightening in how they depict random violence hitting everyday urbanites.


A note on the DVD: It seems as though there are a few versions of this film floating about on those fragile little discs, and should you purchase this film (which you should), be sure to get the right release. My Netflix edition was disappointingly bare bones and the transfer was messy and muddled. Look for the Blue Underground edition which features a Cohen/Bill Lustig commentary (yes, that is the team that gave us the sadly inferior, yet gleefully patriotic Uncle Sam). Be sure to tell ‘em God sent ya.

The Good Daughter

I love the taste of liquid butter when accompanied with a fresh theatrical horror release and for that reason and several others, I heart Jaume Collet-Serra’s Orphan.


You’ve seen the posters. Maybe read some wildly mixed reviews, which range from a glowing 3.5 Ebert enhanced stars to The New York Times’ raging dismissal. Now just see the movie


...after reading this:


Quick Plot: Well-off Connecticut couple Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) are trying to recover from a few more-than-unpleasant recent events: the stillborn birth of their third child, the near drowning of young daughter Max, and the unsteady acknowledgment of Kate’s alcoholism (“I didn’t go to AA. I just stopped drinking.”). Naturally, they’re in the perfect position to adopt a child.

The lucky orphaness is none other than Esther, a well-spoken and well-dressed (for the Victorian era) Russian lass who survived a mysterious house fire that not suspiciously took the rest of her family. A talented little artist, Esther charms her new dad with paintings that would totally kick the skinny hipster ass of Ethan Hawke’s tortured Great Expectations hack while quickly bonding with Max by learning the complete sign language dictionary in the time it takes eat a fun-sized Milky Way.


Life would be fine and fairy tale happy if, you know, this wasn’t a horror film. Thankfully, Orphan has plenty of tension to build thanks a good deal in part to Farmiga’s Kate. You might recognize her as the token what-do-I-do-with-her female in Scorcesse’s overrated The Departed (a good film, but more a cheap attempt to apologize for snubbing Goodfellas than a Best Picture and Director earner). Here, Farmiga creates a completely believable and complicated woman. Sarsgaard is somewhat burdened with the doofier role, but in their shared scenes, these two create a realistic married couple who love one another, but must at times deal with personal distrust and the fact that they both simply love their children more.

It’s not that Orphan is revolutionary in its approach to the bad seed formula. If anything, there are certain set pieces that just scream to be used in the final act and leave you little surprised at their execution. At the same time, Orphan is richer than Esther’s velvety choker when it comes to tossing in some shockingly bizarre oh-no-they-didn’t moments. Most importantly, the entire cast equips itself with full dedication in bringing to life a nice enough family and the incredibly evil presence about to invade it.

I wasn’t entirely sold on the film’s resolution, but for two hours, I was amused, a little disturbed, a moment or two frightened, and entirely entertained.


High Points
Young Aryanna Engineer is both angelic and sympathetically real as Max, the sweet but far too trusting little sister-to-be

Orphan’s opening sequence is unsettling in more ways than one; yes, there’s the whole scary childbirthing blood, but it’s the Freudian role play that makes it work on a deeper level. I’ve never given birth, but I imagine that during such an experience, I too would cast the father of my outcoming fetus in a rather villainous role


Farmiga gives Kate her all throughout the film, but my personal favorite moment of her performance comes the morning after Esther causes a slight coitus interruptus. The hopeful look on Farmiga’s face after her clearly rehearsed explanation of what sex means to adults is pitch perfect

Low Points
There’s a whole lot of predictability throughout Orphan, which definitely whittles down its scare factor by a bit


I get that the film is trying to hold onto bloodthirsty viewers during its non-violent middle chunk, but quick cut jump scares involving bathroom mirrors feel far too forced


Lessons Learned
Fantastical treehouses that could only exist in cinema and television (just how did Bart or Homer build such a sturdy little cabin anyway?) are as flammable as they are impressive

Snorphan jokes are funny, but a tad tasteless when said on the way to adopting a child


Setting a film in winter will automatically earn it bonus points because peacoats, precariously iced over ponds, and clumsy gloves are naturally good scare factors

Connecticut cops are not prompt


See/Skip/Sneak Into
Skip two days of iced cappuccinos and see this movie. Not only does it deliver $10 worth of entertainment ($12.50 if you reside in that darned NYC) but enough fans paying for original horror sends a positive message to creativity-challenged studios about what we really want.


My motives for seeing Orphan were in no small part due to one Mr. Matt-suzaka, whose thoroughly splendiforous new blog featured a truly inspiring horror call to arms, which is not to go unread or unheeded. His post actually forced my Merrill sneakers to hit the subway and see what indeed was wrong with Esther, and for that I’m quite thankful.

Hot Child In the Cinema

Sure, we know that Angela Baker and Jason Voorhees are eternally guarding the sleepaway camp gates, but what about all the other joys of summer? Here’s a roundup of other treats to be enjoyed between June and September, which the Farmer’s Almanac constantly rates as the peak time of year to slaughter young people in cinematic ways. 

Tanning

I’m the kind of pasty white woman who spends an extra $1.50 to raise my SPF to 50, so the very idea of laying encased in an electrified tomb simply to get a little brown is horrifying in itself. Hence, I'll always appreciate the most ingenious death scene of Final Destination 3, in which two sweetly bubblegum airheads meet their end via a poorly designed tanning salon. Plus, it incorporates another staple of July, Slurpee-ish drinks! Double death, double points. 

Carnivals

There’s something incredibly joyful about riding a temporary feris wheel operated by a toothless nomad trying desperately to flirt with underage locals.  Of course, it’s even more fun when such an evening involves homicide. Tobe Hooper’s 1981 The Funhouse is an excellent little slasher that utilizes its carnival setting to kill a few disrespectful teens. That’s right kids: no matter how tempting it may be, spending a night inside a temporary amusement park will run you the risk of being hanged, raped, or mocked by an animatronic fat lady. 

Lazy Days

In between camp and softball practice, my childhood summer was generally spent in a pool, in front of a VCR, or on a bike pretending to sniff out an exciting adventure that often involved Ewoks. Maybe that’s because I grew up in a kinder, simpler time where kids could be kids...as opposed to the sadistic era of poodle skirts, jukeboxes, and Jack Ketchum’s novel turned film, The Girl Next Door. Instead of playing stickball or hiking across town to view a corpse like normal kids, these young Americans of prefer kinky tag, drinking cheap beer with mom, and sexually violating the new girl in town. Sure, they occasionally celebrate hot weather with an ice pop or betting on red vs. black ant wars, but this is one neighborhood that needs to hall its delinquents to the teenage wasteland of  Sleepaway Camp III.

School’s Out

As Tiny Tim once said, the true meaning of summer is not having to go to school. Sadly this thrill wears away when you join the typical workforce, but thankfully, we’ll always have horror films that cast well-past-graduation aged actors as horny teenagers without a care in the world come June. The soon-to-finally-be-released-and-seen-by-every-American-horror-fan-complaining-about-the-lack-of-good-original-movies All the Boys Love Mandy Lane captures this hedonistic innocence by driving a group of pretty high school juniors to a sprawling ranch for a start-of-summer party. Once there, the boys plot to woo the titular beauty while the girls judge each others’ appearances and ...well, I’ll say no more for fear of spoilage. But lots of stuff happens, none of which involves friendship circles or marshmallows.

Ring Ring

What’s that sound? A mobile merry-go-round? A really loud music box? \nGoodness no! It’s the Good Humor Man! Or the creepy, inexplicably living creature with a head that somehow stays solid under the summer sun, Mr. Softee! Or--wait. This guy looks different. A little short. A tad ratty. Familiar in a character actor sort of way. \n\nBecause, of course, it’s none other than Clint Howard playing the world’s most evil purveyor of dairy delights. Sure, Masters of Horror’s We All Scream For Ice Cream gave this summer staple a nice follow up, but it’s the lesser Howard Brother’s star turn that truly made ice cream trucks vehicles to fear. Or find mildly revolting and extremely hilarious. Either way, this is the film that clinched Howard’s MTV Lifetime Achievement Award, so you know it has to be brilliant. And it is.

I’m skipping the beach because a) I burn easily and b) I simply refuse to mention the most mentioned summer horror classic in this column. Oh fine: Jaws IV: The Revenge is by far the best film to ever unit sand, sharks, and Mario Von Peebles. Happy now?

More To Love

A few weeks back, I devoted some Pop Syndicate time to lamenting the lack of obesity themed horror films floating out there in the slim, space conscious world of DVDs. Thankfully, I received the perfect recommendation and promptly added Brett Leonard's 2005 Feed to my queue.


Feed is a frustating and daring film that raises far more questions than it has the patience or attention span to answer. That being said, it's ambitious, original, and as rich in black humor as it is in plot messiness and Red Bull spiked with Pixie Stix-fueled editing choices.


Quick Plot: Aussie detective Philip Jackson (Patrick Thompson) specializes in catching sexual predators lurking about that back alley otherwise known as the Internet. Coming off a successful ripped-from-the-headlines self-cannibalism case in Germany, his next endeavor is to delve into the sugar-coated, high carb world of feeders and gainers. A few Google searches and heavily edited closeups of alternative porn and keyboard dancing later, Philip is narrowing his eyes at a tattooed and trim American fattening up a 600+ pound woman who gleefully smiles for the camera with crumbs on her third chin.

International police tactics are abused as Philip battles jet lag, fast cuts, and an obnoxiously horny girlfriend to hunt down renown feeder Michael Carter (Alex O'Loughlin, also the man behind the original story idea) in the heftily populated (not really; that should be 'populated by hefty people' but that doesn't roll off the fingers quite as well) Ohio. What, exactly, Philip is planning on doing to or with Michael is unclear. Sure, continuously feeding obese women donuts and um, protein shakes is rather unhealthy, but there are much more odious and evil crimes being committed in the world we live in.


Feed's biggest problem--and it has many--is the confusing construction of its "hero." Philip's motives seem pure enough, but what kind of qualified police officer expects to carry out any form of justice when he’s breaking every single elementary regulation in an investigation he has no actual power to pursue? A few deleted scenes reveal a little more exposition regarding Philip's big cannibalism case, but we still don't understand his weirdly violent and/or kinky relationship with his girlfriend. Perhaps I blinked during the first sex montage and missed exactly what it was that broke them up.


On the other hand, Michael's role is fascinating...and incomplete. Just when we think we've figured out what he gets from dancing to the oldies on 200 pound thighs, a new character arrives to point him in a different direction. And like many plot points in Feed, said surprise character has no real grounding and ends up ill-defined and self-contradictory.

And yet despite these complaints, Feed held my absolute attention. I wanted it to be better, but I can't say it's not interesting.


High Points
I’m amazed at how quickly movies that heavily rely on Internet technology age and date themselves, but Feed feels appropriate to the current time and particularly relevant in the age of Craig's List Lechery


O'Loughlin gives an effectively creepy and surprisingly understated performance as Michael; we expect a Norman Bates-esque loner but end up with something much smoother and almost more disturbing


While I couldn't really find myself liking the character, I like the fact that the main 'gainer' isn't portrayed as a sweet (and sweet-loving) victim; she's whiny and unpleasant, yet you really do believe her joy at having this Ken dollish specimen at her service and how hard she tries in her own way to please him


Low Points
No film should include three fast-paced montages in its first 30 minutes. While the stylized music covers are sometimes clever, the mix of aggressive pop, sliding reels, and orangey coloring is enough to give you a headache well before the gluttonous gore tries to turn your stomach


An example of how hard the editing tries to impress: when Philip lands in the U.S., an overlay of the American flag is cut into the shot as Hendrix version of the Star Spangled Banner plays for a verse. We get it. It's not Australia.

The gimmicky ending makes me think that the filmmakers got to a certain point and decided to see just how bizarre and inane the final shots could be; an alternate ending on the extras shows that amazingly enough, they could have gone one step further (and dumber)


Lessons Learned
Sydney is kind of near Japan


Do I need to say it? Never, under any circumstances, eat or drink something from the hands of a sociopathic stranger


In Ohio, an Australian accent and hoodie are the next best thing to having a police badge


The only way to pull off sexiness when covered in baked beans is to be Ann Margaret

Rent/Bury/Buy
If the concept interests you, then I can’t recommend Feed highly enough. Despite widespread obesity rates, there really aren’t many films that even try to explore the subject, much less its sexual association. You have to get past obnoxious film tricks, some extremely uncomfortable visuals, and the lack of a truly likable character, but Feed is ultimately one of those films to watch and think about, rather than enjoy. The DVD is nicely packed with a few interviews and deleted scenes but I'd recommend a rent before putting down full price. This is not a film I expect to turn on for a good time or as background filler. I would rewatch it, however, to spend a little more time considering its themes on sexuality and more importantly, because it just may be the best appetizer suppressant I've seen since watching David Hasselhoff dangle a cheeseburger over his bare chest.