Written and directed by Marco van Belle, five social media influencers spend a weekend at a forest retreat but inadvertently awaken and confront the world’s first vampire. Starring: Grace Collender, Daisy Jelley, Rhys Mannion, Oskar Smith, Clinton Liberty, Molly McCann, Charlotte Bradley and Niamh Hogan.
Starting off with the unexpected yet undisputable highlight of Feed, Niamh Hogan as the resident vampire, Dearg Due. Hogan’s performance stands out so much, that you’ll probably find yourself rooting for the vampire over the humans. That’s not necessarily an issue but Feed isn’t really built for that, it didn’t recognise the power of its monster over the generic nature of its core group. In the same sense, she doesn’t get anywhere near enough screen time, Hogan feels pulled out of something like Oddity or folk-driven horror, she had so much more to add but isn’t quite given the chance.
Part of the problem is that there isn’t really anything else to invest in, other than the violence and destruction, because the characters are two-dimensional and to put it bluntly, uninteresting. It also feels somewhat of a negative stereotype to make Sean (Oskar Smith) extremely feminine and give him way too much makeup, then also make him overtly sensitive and vulnerable. Additionally, the choice of making them influencers does have a dulling impact, adding greedy, fame hungry, vain qualities that drag Feed down.
Something that’s not a fault of the performances, they all do their best, but they’re just not given a great deal to work with. Particularly Grace Collender’s Orla, there was potential there, but they make her overly quiet, to the point it’s somewhat frustrating how frequent she takes far too long to respond or says nothing at all. The tone also doesn’t quite match the nature of the story, it can’t get a firm grasp on the darkness. To really dig into such a historical monster-villain, after opening with a great bout of violence, as is the quintessential horror way, it needed to live up to that throughout, but it feels too light.
Feed chose a great monster, a solid location, a nice historical element, and the visual is decently done but the pacing, progression, violence and story don’t live up to that. The influencer trope, despite being inherently relevant is already pretty tired, so it has more to take away than to add here. The characters are quite flat, the tone isn’t dark enough, there’s some stylistic choices which fall into cliché, particularly an over-use of slow-motion. Its saving grace is Niamh Hogan’s vampire, with an excellent presence and physicality, but she can only do so much when the rest of the film doesn’t make the most of her talents.
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