Feed (2005)

I like movies that push limits. I especially like when movies push the limits without lots of violence onscreen plus they make us consider broader social implications. Movies that gross us out, yet challenge perceptions. Such is Feed.

You may have heard of the real-life fetish of feeders and gainers – men who adore large women and feed them more and more to increase their size. In this movie a normal looking chap named Michael delights in helping his favorite girl, Deirdre, reach her target weight of 600 pounds (weighed with what looks like a livestock scale). Deirdre sits in bed all day, in her own filth, waiting for what morsels Michael will bring her to consume – and he pleasures himself while she eats.

Hunky Aussie, Patrick Thompson, plays Phil, a cop who we first see busting a cannibal case similar to the one in Germany a few years ago (consensual victim videotaped, assists in consuming his own genitalia). And that’s the first sign this flick is going to take a crazy turn. Phil works cybersex crimes for Interpol and eventually becomes obsessed with Michael’s website featuring his over-bodacious beauties (while at the same time Phil is a bit scared of his own tendencies towards violence during sex with his bisexual polyamorous girlfriend Abbey).

Don’t watch the trailer for this if you are able to – there’s a few details that they give away that I thought made great plot twists.

The movie also explores the nature of love, sex, Fetish, violence, consumption, evolution, dominance, submission, survival, adoration… a disgusting witches brew of issues and perversions wrapped in a greasy burger wrapper.

Don’t watch this after you’ve eaten fast food. The scene with the forced tube feeding and boiled lard will put you over.

Kudos to the director and writer for showing cybercrime investigation as being as boring as it really can be – lots of all-text screens and trace-running instead of Michael Crichton virtual reality crap.