the audience applauded

One of my all time favorites.

hyped garbage

Absolutely Fantastic

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.

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!

Some gorehound-friends recommended "Live Feed" to me, and basically I can't really complain as the film certainly does deliver copious amounts of gross smut and buckets full of sleaze, but it is of course not a very good film. More than obviously cashing in on the latest trend in horror cinema, the so-called Torture Porn, Ryan Nicholson tries to surpass every other film in this sub genre (and that includes the role models "Hostel" and "Saw") with its sick & twisted make-up effects and thoroughly depraved shots of naked co-eds tried up, suffering and begging for their lives. There's no actual plot to describe. Five utterly brainless twenty-something friends take a trip to Asia. One of them has Asian roots, but other than that I don't really know why they opted to travel there instead of to Cancun. They're clearly not interested in the continents culture and even cause a hectic scene when they witness a local butchering a cute puppy dog on the market. The quintet subsequently dives into the lurid night life and one of them accidentally insults the leader of a criminal clan. A simply apology clearly doesn't suffice, as the gangster follow them into an adult theater and gradually subject all of them to vicious torture. One girl has her breast impaled and another poor wench even has a poisonous snake shoved down her throat; yikes. "Live Feed" is surprisingly boring despite of all the bloodshed and the amateurish production values are quite difficult to overlook, even if you're used to watching independent fan-boy trash cinema like this. The fat bloke depicted on the cover, an oriental S&M executioner, is admittedly quite cool and he's also the most talented of the whole bunch, because he at least keeps his mouth shut the entire time. I wouldn't exactly recommend this pile of filth, but hey, if you like loud & hideous metal music, nauseating torture footage and dim-witted losers, go right ahead and watch!

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.