Evil Feed (2014)
Foywonder
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Starring Terry Chen, Alyson Bath, Lacy J. Mailey, Alain Chanoine, Carrie Genzel
Directed by Kimani Ray Smith
“Motel Hell for the UFC generation by way of Troma” is probably the best way to describe whatever the hell Evil Feed is. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this comedy, action, horror hodgepodge. Its unbalanced tone, cartoonish performances, intentionally terrible one-liners, and spectacularly gore-soaked death scenes give it a twinge of lunatic fringe appeal, like a more atmospheric and stylish Troma movie. Yet, while it practically heralds itself an instant cult classic, the film never quite achieves the status it seems so self-assured of.
Welcome to The Long Pig, an underground Chinese restaurant that caters in cannibal cuisine for an exclusive clientele. The house specialty is “the dicky roll.” I don’t think you need the Chairman from “Iron Chef” to tell you what the secret ingredient in that dish is.
The Long Pig’s elder owner is put out to pasture and his head put on display in psycho son Steven’s office cabinet. Steven has bigger plans for the family business than just serving up people parts on a platter. He gives himself A Clockwork Orange makeover and adds all sorts of extra entertainment incentives to make his establishment the finest cannibal eatery out there.
You want strippers wearing pig masks? Come to The Long Pig.
You want drugged women delivered to your private dining room for you to use as a sort of sexual after dinner mint? The Long Pig has got you covered.
How about a closed circuit program of sadistic surgical procedures being performed on unwilling captives for you to view while you await your meal? The Long Pig is your diner of choice.
But thanks to Steven the real entertainment is now the food itself. Mixed martial artists are being abducted and forced to fight to the death against a series of in-house gladiators that all look like escapees from a Mad Max movie. Not only do clients get to gamble on the outcome of the fights; the loser gets cut up and served to the customers. You’re literally getting to see your meat tenderized before chowing down.
The butt-kicking daughter of a martial arts instructor (our heroine, despite having the least amount of character development or personality of anyone in the film) who has become the meal of the day goes in search of the whereabouts of her missing father. Actually, she doesn’t do much searching. Hey, just because your daddy has gone missing and you suspect the worst doesn’t mean you still can’t find time to have a quickie with your boyfriend.
When she and the boyfriend get abducted, it’s now up to a trio of bumbling MMA fighters with more guts than brains to try to rescue their sensei and kidnapped daughter. Unfortunately, their guts and brains would also make a fine meal for patrons of The Long Pig.
Also complicating Steven’s life is the arrival that evening of Madame Dragonfly, the seductive owner of a rival establishment in London where the specialty of the house is Nipple Tartare. If only she can find a way to steal the ancient Chinese recipe for dicky roll, then she’ll be the finest cannibal cookery in all the world.
Further frustrating Steven is his lover/business partner Yuki, played with crazy sexy zeal by movie standout Alyson Bath. Imagine Harley Quinn if she got a job as a hostess at an Asian restaurant. All Yuki wants is for Steven to give her some hot dicky roll action, only to keep getting blown off, then pissed off when he gets blown off by someone other than her.
You know how Edge of Tomorrow was recently released on DVD in a way to make you think the title had been changed to “Live, Die, Repeat”? Evil Feed could easily be retitled “Fight, Fuck, Overact.” Those three words pretty much sum it up. A lot of adequately orchestrated but never all that exciting martial arts action. No shortage of T&A on display. Nearly every performer is swinging for the fences with their campy line delivery; Bath shines by being about the only one who doesn’t sound forced doing so.
Feeling too forced is probably the biggest thing preventing Evil Feed from achieving the modern grindhouse tone it strives for. Well, that and how by the mid-point it felt like any pretense of telling a story had been jettisoned and they were just making it all up scene-by-scene until the climax.
How else to explain a double agent on Madame Dragonfly’s payroll suddenly abandoning his attempts to commit corporate espionage in favor of attempting to rape the film’s seemingly helpless captive? Just a completely out of the blue change of motivation for this character with no logical reasoning behind why other than it had been about five minutes so it was time for someone to get punched in the face and their lips bitten off.
Needless to say, there’s more than a hint of misogyny to Evil Feed that might prove off-putting to some viewers.
Then again, the bad taste is clearly an intentional part of the movie’s menu. Besides, who needs a coherent plot when you have this much attitude, right? We’re talking about a movie where a gigantic severed penis is used as billy club, where someone gets drowned to death by having their face shoved into a corpse’s massive bloody wound, and an African-American martial artist is insulted by being called “Jean-Claude Black Damme”.
If this sounds appetizing to you, then you’ll find Evil Feed a tasty treat with no nutritional value. But as with a lot of Asian cuisine, don’t be surprised if you’re already hungry again an hour later.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
