Having just watched Feed for the second time I have to ask myself: seriously, did anyone but my partner David and I actually make it past the first 15 minutes?

During these first fifteen minutes of my second viewing I lean forward, mouth agape, starting to get a bit nauseous and thinking, "Wow, did I actually recommend this movie to anyone? Are they all going to shoot me, fire me, or whatever it is people do to people who recommend that they spend two hours of their precious little free time watching a movie that… sucks?"

Of course I must continue watching to find out why the hell I would have thought this was an appropriate film for this site, so I force myself to keep going…and a few hours later I find myself sitting in the same position (EOS, Edge of Seat Factor, is off the charts) mouth still agape and thinking "Yeah, yeah, I can see it… I can see the insanity, I am drawn into it. I am mesmerized by the charisma, beauty and power of Michael (the Feeder), I can see how Deidre (the Gainer) was played, how she got hooked, how Phillip (the Cop) would embody the outrage and need to purify the poison gasses (which ultimately reveal themselves to be as embedded in him as they are in the world he is trying to take down) and how this weird space could actually exist, how it could lie pulsing on the floor of the underground, deep in the black mud of our psyches, where nightmares and daymares meet and greet, the place where fetishes, compulsions and mind games seed, germinate, bloom, become full fledged flower beds, massive colored rows of fragrant, potent decadent desires, explorations and exploitations, controlling, submitting, yielding sanity…yeah, I can see it."

But I still think you are going to shoot me.

So, if anybody is still out there, if you did or didn't make it through, let's talk. Tell me why. Why you did. Or why you didn't. Help me figure out what it is that made me attach in some way to this piece. This dark, ugly and compelling aberrant trip. Is it because I am relieved that I don’t have to go there? That somehow, in spite of the many horrors of my life, the pain that sometimes feels beyond bearing, still the lowest rung of my ladder seems ten thousand steps up from what these people have chosen? (Or has it all been chosen for them? How does one come upon this fate or that, is it as arbitrary as it looks?) Or is it some devil sitting on my shoulder whispering "There you see? You humans can do ANYTHING. The world is not just your oyster, it is your canvas and your palette, and on it you are free to splash ANY paint. Stretch your mind to its farthest reaches, and still there is always further to go, miles and miles beyond even that."

Is that Freedom? Does that release me? Does knowing that our lusts and our choice of degradations are so infinite actually make them the points of ABSOLUTE CONTROL? Is this the lure of the 'sub/dom' phenom? Is that what this film is saying? Is it saying anything at all? Or is it just one more hunk of crap in the junkyard?

Guest review by Lee Paris of Films off the Beaten Path. "Films, Photographs, Food, Fishes & Friends; five must haves on my desert island."

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