Live Feed — Live Feed(Blu Ray)
Appearing in 2006 Live Feed was the first film from Ryan Nicholson- a Canadian writer, director & effects artist who sadly passed from brain cancer last year at the young age of 48. In all, he had eight feature-length films under his belt, sixteen writer’s credits, but most impressive one hundred & thirty-eight make-up/ effects credits which ranged from recent big-budget titles like Deadpool 2 & The Predator, onto US TV work, and more low budget fare. Cinematically Live Feed is decidedly crude & lo grade, with its mix of often messy, found footage like drifts & close-up, haphazard scoping, grainy security footage, and lo-fi gritty & effects ribbed filming- but it very much fits the film's tone & story.
The film focuses in on a group of five young American adults on a trip to China- the film begins in nicely jarring & unbalancing manner, as we get rapid intercutting between your standard tourist footage of the group and up close 'n' personal footage of pole dances. As we move into the credits we get rapid snapshots of grim & grimy pictures of torture victims- when the film properly kicks in with its story we find the group wandering through a night market, on one of the stalls is a laughing & blood strained apron-wearing older man who is (off-camera) killing & chopping up a dog, they are understandable appalled making their way to a nearby bar for a drink. Here, one of the group, a dumb lairy & muscle-bound man knocks into a triad boss, whom we’ve just seen brutally beating up a police office- with help of a local man the group just miss getting a beating from the triads. Next they make their to a rundown porn theatre- which is run by a chuckling, matted grey haired & missing teethed old man- some of the group decide to each get couples rooms, while others roam the grim & flickering neon corridors of the venue, that are covered with ripped & stuck on porn mag pictures.
At first, we get a selection of sexual simulated encounters- some in the rooms, and some in the toilets. But it soon becomes clear that the group are been filmed, so they panic trying to escape- then the real nastiness kicks-in. We get snakes forced down the throat that latter pulled out of the victim's stomachs, blood beatings & decapitation, pained rope bondage, heads twisted off, lips stapled together and victims tied down in torture chairs. The gore & torture just skates going into full out underground torture horror, but the key here is the sleazed & unpleasant air to the whole thing. Sure the acting is largely very wooden & lacklustre, and at points it shows it cheapness in a bad way- but if you let your self get pulled into the whole grim & nasty feel of Live Feed it's one of the more effectively sleazed examples of the torture porn genre.
Moving onto this new Blu Ray release- and there is either a two-disc, or one disc version of the release- we’re reviewing the latter. First, off we have two versions of the film- one standard & one adults-only- both of these have a similar runtime of around one hour twenty-minute mark- as far as I can gather nothing is glaring difference in the two versions, but I’d say go for the adults-only cut- which can be found in the Extras menu. Moving onto the extras we get a good batch of stuff- first off we get a commentary track with the films writer/ director Ryan Nicholson, and one of the actors & actresses from the film- the track is nicely chatty & buoyant affair. They move from commenting on on-screen action/ film locations- the whole thing was filmed in Vancouver, not china utilizing the areas Asian acting talent. They discuss on set stories/ memories, and the film's storyline/ and how it came about. The most interesting point in the track come when they talk about the porn Theatre location, which in reality is just that a working porn Theatre area called the Venus Theatre- all in all, a worthy/ interesting track. Next, we get Behind The Blood: The Making Of Live Feed- this is an hour & half doc, taking in interviews with the cast/ crew, behind the scenes footage, and effects set up-a most thorough doc. We have an around forty-minute revisiting to the Venus Threature, deleted & alternative scenes/ ending. There's the video feed footage complied together, Womb Service- which is the short around eighteen-minute mock 90’s porn film that plays on the screens during the film. Photo gallery, and trailers.
After the sad passing/ loss of Ryan Nicholson as a creative genre writer/ director, it’s great to see Unearthed films giving Live Feed an ultimate release- and if you’re a Nicholson, you’ll always be wanting to pick-up the labels recent-ish release of his second film Gutterballs. In conclusion, if you dig nasty/sleazed blends of horror/ grimy soft-core action you’ll be needing to check out Live Feed.