chuckm76
Anyone who has said that it's better than Hostel is talking complete crap, believe me I'm not a massive fan of Hostel but this is just ridiculous.Just another shot on camcorder, straight to DVD, low on ideas waste of your time, I can't believe how many of these films there are and I'm yet to see a decent one. In the 80's video nasties, gore and horror movies were made with no budget but a great story and a load of new ideas and most importantly the heart and soul of the director who had something to say. Now they just seem to be pumped out in an attempt to trick people browsing in Blockbuster to rent a copy, until people stop doing this then I guess these films will keep appearing. This film is so low on ideas it's just amazing how it ever got made, the acting is also terrible, the location completely unconvincing and the soundtrack is so annoying it beggars belief. This waste of time has absolutely nothing going for it, unless you're on a quest to compile a list of the worst movies of all time. My best/worst part of the film is when a female character is pointing a gun at someone and threatening to shoot them if they don't back off, you can see that she isn't even covering the trigger with her finger just holding the grip. An absolute joke.
Paul Andrews
Live Feed is set in some unnamed Chinese/Japanese Asian district somewhere as five American friends, Sarah (Ashley Schappert), Emily (Taayla Markell), Linda (Caroline Chojnacki), Mike (Lee Tichon) & Darren (Rob Scattergood) are enjoying a night on the town & taking in the sights. After a scuffle in a bar with a Japanese Triad boss (Stephen Chang) they decide to check out a porno theatre, as you would. Inside they are separated & quickly find out that the place belongs to the Triad boss who uses it to torture & kill people for reasons which aren't made clear. Can local boy Miles (Kevan Ohtsji) save them?This Canadian production was co-written, produced & directed by Ryan Nicholson who also gets a prosthetic effects designer credit as well, one has to say that Live Feed is another pretty poor low budget shot on a camcorder type horror film that seems to exist only to cash in on the notoriety & success of Hostel (2005) & the mini craze for 'torture porn' as it's become known. According the IMDb's 'Trivia' section for Live Feed writer & director Nicholson wrote it after hearing about certain activities taking place in live sex theatres, for my money I reckon he wrote it after watching Hostel! The script is pretty poor, there is no basic reason given as to why this porno theatre has a big fat ugly freak dressed in bondage gear lurking around torturing & killing people, none. Was it for the Triads? Was it for his pleasure? Was it to make snuff films to sell? Some sort of explanation would have been nice. Also why did he turn on the Triad boss at the end? If your looking for a film with a coherent story then forget about Live Feed. It seemed to me to be some sort of uneasy misjudged mix of sex, S&M, horror, torture, gore & action films which doesn't come off. I mean just setting a horror film in a porn theatre isn't automatically going to make your film any good, there still needs to be a decent script & story, right? The character's were fairly poor clichés & some of their actions & motivations were more than a little bit questionable. It moves along at a reasonable pace, it's fairly sleazy mixing gore, sex & nudity but it does look cheap which lessens the effect.Director Nicholson doesn't do anything special here, the editing is choppy & annoying, he seems to think lighting almost every scene with neon lights is a good idea & the film has a cheap look about it. Available in both 'R' & 'Unrated' versions I saw the shorter cut 'R' version which really isn't that gory but I am prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to the 'Unrated' version & say that it might be much, much gorier but I can't say for sure. There's a fair amount of nudity too if that's your thing. I wouldn't say there's much of an atmosphere or many scares here because there isn't & aren't respectively although it does have a sleazy tone in general which is something it has going for it I suppose.Technically Live Feed isn't terribly impressive, the blood looks a little too watery for my liking & entire scenes bathed in annoying neon lights sometimes makes it hard to tell whats happening, it to often looks like it was shot on a hand-held camcorder & the choppy editing at least on the 'R' rated version is at times an annoying mess. Shot on location in an actual porn theatre somewhere in Vancouver in Canada. The acting is poor, sometimes I couldn't tell if the actresses in this were supposed to be crying or laughing...Live Feed is not a film I would recommend anyone to rush out & buy or rent, I didn't think much of it with it's very weak predictable storyline lacking exposition & which goes nowhere, poor acting & less than impressive gore (at least in the 'R' rated cut anyway). Watch either Hostel films again or instead as they are superior.
tonymurphylee
You gotta see this! There's a group of some idiots who anger a triad leader in China and then they go to some porno movie theater. All of a sudden, everybody starts getting tortured and murdered, while the triad dude watches on a video screen! I was laughed at the horrible acting and the cheesy look. I couldn't get enough of the old guy with the missing teeth and the triad leader. When it was all over, I was still laughing. I especially found the scene in which the guy gets burned in the kitchen to be hilarious. The plot doesn't make too much sense, but whatever. I was quite astonished with the imagination of the creators of this. There was some demented stuff going on here. It had everything from forced cannibalism to sticking a pipe in somebody's throat and putting a snake in it. It was brutal. It was a fun little B movie, but it was so gross that I can really only recommend it to gore-hounds. Anyway, check it out if you like gory movies or if you want a good laugh. The directors of this are creative and I could totally see them making a good scary film with the sick imagination that they have been "blessed" with. Also, if you have it on the unrated DVD, watch the porno extra feature. It is as funny as the film itself!
deadman71
I watched the Unrated version of this film and realised about 30 minutes into it that I was never getting my time back. I persevered to the end hoping that the dialogue would improve, the martial arts would look realistic eventually, the special FX would actually look special. I was so wrong. I love Horror, I am a complete gore hound. I number some of the eighties splatter flicks amongst the greats of the film world. This however was not made in the eighties, if this film had come out in the early eighties the FX could be forgiven for looking so bad. It wasn't so it hasn't got that defence. The dialogue is terrible with so many bad lines I was wincing at the writing rather than squirming at torture. I don't like Hostel, never have, I thought it was over rated, over hyped and I felt nothing for the protagonists, however it shines as a beacon to greatness next to this garbage. The back of the cover for Live Feed promised a twist you would never see coming, I'm still waiting for the twist that was promised.