Surprisingly incoherent and boring

An absolute waste of money

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Riding the coattails of the popular "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises is Ryan Nicholsons' "Live Feed", which may not be that good as a film but does its job as an intense, atmospheric, onslaught of gore. A quintet of not terribly sympathetic attractive young folk are travelling in Asia, taking in the sights, when they make the fateful decision to enter a movie theatre. What they don't know is that the local crime boss delights in voyeurism, watching as the unlucky schmucks who enter the V.I.P. rooms of this theatre get filmed as they get systematically tortured. It remains to be seen whether any of these people are going to survive the night, as things get progressively more demented and depraved. It can't be said that Nicholson doesn't know how to go for showmanship as the blood flows and flows and flows. It's true enough that viewers may find themselves having a hard time caring about what happens to the characters, but if you can go into this not really expecting to give a hoot about that sort of thing, you might be amused by the spectacle. At the very least, this is the only film that this viewer has seen that has a scene of a snake forced down the throat of one victim and then emerging from a gash made in their belly. The filmmakers create an appropriately seedy look for the whole thing, and the transitions from camera footage to live action aren't badly done. As for the acting, well, as has been said in numerous other reviews, it's not the kind to generate any Oscar buzz, but it basically gets the job done. Stephen Chang looks to be having a high old time as the crazed, creepy mob boss, Kevan Ohtsji is remarkably sincere as the young police detective wanting revenge, and lovely Taayla Markell is quite easy to watch as Emily. Overall, while "Live Feed" doesn't size up as anything special, it's not as terrible as its reputation would suggest and might satisfy the more undemanding of genre fans who just want to have a gory good time. Six out of 10.

Okay, I'm at the store and got to pick a horror movie real quick. I discover "Live Feed" and thinks that it can be fun. But I was dead wrong.First of all, the introduction is promising with great atmosphere and it sets the mood right. That's the first 7 minutes, because suddenly it's a laughable excuse for a horror movie. The actors are by far the worst I have ever seen on film, their expressions did not at all match what was going on and they were so awkward to watch that THAT'S what the real horror was!The plot is sickeningly standard, you already know what it is. It's about stupid teens travelling and getting locked in a hotel.SFX weren't anything to write home about, considering this is extremely low budge, BUT in the beginning this actually works. What happened? In the beginning it actually felt like a horror movie, but when those treasured minutes were gone it just became hilariously bad, so bad that this is number 1 on my crap-list. Never come anywhere near this movie, you'll just waste you and your friends time.0/10

I've no idea what movie the '10 Star' reviewers on here have seen but it stretches credulity to think that it was the same one that I've just suffered through.I really struggle to find anything to recommend about this movie, I really do. The best I can come up with is that, in a time when the movie industry is moving towards CGI blood as the standard, it is good to see that somebody still seems to keeping practical effects alive... Even if they aren't exactly convincing here.Oh, and Taayla Markell is very easy on the eyes.There, that's two good things. As for the bad... Where the heck to start? Well, you might have noticed this review gives no indication of what the story is... That's because it's barely there and only really serves to string together bland and unconvincing murder scenes.Unconvincing is really a word that sums this movie up. Set 'somewhere' in China, the fact that it's clearly a Chinatown somewhere with English street signs and all means that 'suspension of disbelief' has been kicked to the curb and we're not even 3 minutes in. It only gets worse from there.The acting is uniformly terrible, not even up to the standards of daytime TV soaps, though given the dialogue they have work with not even Alec Guinness could do anything with it. The characters are also poor with absolutely none of them being remotely likable. By the movie's end you really won't care who lives but you will hope every one of them dies. This won't be out of the desire to watch another boring torture scene, but for the reason that there all vague stereotypes. Speaking of, this movie also contains a veritable rogues gallery of offensive Asian stereotypes. A dog's getting its head chopped off inside of 5 minutes and by the end the gangster's molls are delivering the type of dialogue that would shame an 80's 'Nam movie.With lot's of Asians in the movie you just know that some of them are into their martial arts and, yes, there's a lot of 'Crap Fu' on display. The director really doesn't know how to frame action, or anything for that matter, but definitely not action.I could go on but I'm too depressed. To sum up there's no story, it's technically incompetent (outside of the effects), the acting is atrocious, the script dire, the characters loathsome (and that's just our 'heroes'), the setting unconvincing, the stereotypes offensive, the violence boring and the supposed dark comedy non-existent.I saw it for free (on TV) and I've paid too heavy a price. Don't make the same mistake, watch something else!

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.