LIVE FEED
Starring Taayla Markell, Kevan Ohtsji, Rob Scattergood
Directed by Ryan Nicholson
MTI Video
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“Commence with the procedure!”

I will say this for FX creator-turned-director Ryan Nicholson: he really knows how to cut up people on screen. One might have to turn to the old Guinea Pig series from Japan, or the August Underground crew here in the States to find another filmmaker who relishes the slow torture and dismemberment of his cast like Nicholson does in his sophomore feature, Live Feed. Not only are viewers treated to the site of a man’s head locked into a vise and literally twisted off his shoulders, but there’s also a binding and impalement by sword, countless lopped off appendages, butchered puppies, a face scalded by boiling oil, a surprisingly large number of cannibalized penises, and for a coup de grace, a young woman has a plastic tube rammed down her throat, and a snake forced down said tube, which is then set free when the girl is disemboweled (oh, she also has her mouth stapled shut after the snake is dropped in). If that’s not loving what you do for a living, I’m not sure what is.

I’ll also say that Nicholson and his dad Roy, who also co-produced and co-wrote Live Feed, are ambitious fellas when it comes to delivering low-budget horror. The jist of the film has five American tourists in an unnamed Asian country who visit a local porn theater and run afoul of a sadistic Chinese gangster (Stephen M.D. Chang) who operates a sort of live torture/snuff show. But Nicholson Sr. and Jr. also tack on a subplot involving a Japanese cop (Ohtsji) who wants to avenge a brother killed by the gangster, which sets up all sorts of Hong Kong-style gunplay and martial arts set pieces. That’s a lot to cram into one picture, and if the Nicholsons don’t exactly give John Woo a run for his money, you have to commend them for thinking outside the slaughter box.

Unfortunately, the splatter and the action element is all that Live Feed really has to offer. Acting and dialogue are painfully amateurish, with Chang taking top honors for most scenery chewed in a single frame. And since the Nicholsons’ script portrays the tourists as ugly and obnoxious Americans, it’s hard to find any sympathy for them once they become trapped in the gangster’s slaughter house, and the film essentially turns into a special effects reel. That may work for some of you. Me, I’ve seen it before, and had a hard time keeping my finger off the fast-forward button.

 
MTI is offering Live Feed in R-rated and unrated formats; I had the latter, which probably means more lopped-off dicks than the R cut. Reportedly, the DVDs include commentary and deleted scenes, but my screener didn’t include those, so I cannot comment with any authority on whether or not Nicholson said how much he had to pay an actress to say, “No white dicky rolls?” or if the actor playing The Butcher mentioned how uncomfortable his bug-eyed bondage mask was to wear. You’ll just have to find out for yourself.
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