Criatura Voraz

Director Chad Archibald returns with his new horror film, this time with Ir Feeds, a film that takes us into the world of the mind and demons in a clever and truly terrifying way.

To this end, he has a top-notch Ashley Greene, who leads the cast with an interesting role within the film's expectations. We also find a couple of well-performing supporting actors, helping the story function within its boundaries and its premise.

The director knows the genre very well and his specialty of psychological horror films, and in that area he transports us through a film that generates quite a few jumps and scares. He certainly does so with simple resources, but they are totally effective, which end up being a success for a film that works as great horror entertainment.

I think it's a couple of minutes too long, but the film is actually quite accomplished. It has interesting characters, an effective, if fairly common, story, and a director who knows what he's trying to deliver. It's a pleasant surprise, for one of those films that goes unheralded, but is worth taking the time to watch and enjoy.

After I read the plot synopsis of It Feeds here on IMDb, I wasn't particularly interested. It sounded very stereotypical and overall uninteresting. However, I'm the kind of person who watches almost every new horror release, so I gave it a try anyway. I saw that Chad Archibald was the writer and director, and he has been involved in many other horror productions. Most of them were average at best, with a few exceptions.

In this film, he tells the story of a mother and her daughter who are cursed by an evil entity after the daughter tries to help a previously possessed girl. The mother initially denies her help, but when her daughter's life is in danger, she must do everything she can to save her using her psychic abilities.

The premise was just as stereotypical as the synopsis suggested, but the movie had a few heartfelt moments and some decently enjoyable scenes. The acting is overall fine, though nothing out of the ordinary, and the characters weren't particularly special. That said, I still found myself rooting for the mother-daughter duo, even though their characters were flawed and not always likeable.

Sadly, the film is overloaded with cheap jump scares involving the entity, which repeat every few minutes and quickly become annoying. That's a shame because the entity itself looked pretty cool, and I would've liked to learn more about its backstory. Unfortunately, the movie handles its themes rather shallowly and never really explores anything in depth.

There are some familiar faces for fans of the genre, which might bring a smile to some viewers. The film also includes a character meant for comic relief, but it didn't work for me. The quirky, bubbly tone clashed with the movie's darker atmosphere.

Overall, It Feeds is a bit messy and heavily reliant on familiar genre tropes, but it's still somewhat entertaining. If the premise sounds particularly interesting to you, it might be worth a watch. Otherwise, you're not missing much if you skip this one.

[5.5/10]

Generic, unimaginative, formulaic. Not the worst horror movie I've seen, but it certainly wasn't very good.

The performances from the two young actresses in the film were extremely weak and over-acted, and one of them is supposed to be Ashley Greene's daughter, despite only looking about 10 years younger than her which took me out of the film quite a lot. Ashley herself did a decent job with the script she was given, though.

Every beat in this movie was predictable and clichéd, down to the creepy kid drawings and ineffective jump scares. The script was bland and offered nothing new or unique, and there was no unsettling imagery or scares to elevate the material.

Overall, I recommend skipping this one.

This isn't the first horror film starring Ashley Greene in the lead role, and compared to "The Apparition" from years earlier, "It Feeds" is an improvement.

Because of the title, "It Feeds" may have you thinking it has something to do with "It Follows" from eleven years earlier, but that isn't true. They are different films with barely anything in common. The idea of some evil creature that has no name does not yet make "It Feeds" a copy of something that came before.

The main character portrayed by Ashley Greene may remind you of either The Warrens from "The Conjuring" horror film series or Shaun San Dena, the psychic from Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell", but neither is "copied and pasted", they just have an element or two in common, which isn't a problem. Also, and one should be able to tell this from the very trailer, "It Feeds" is reminiscent of "Insidious".

A more interesting comparison, and a more accurate one, would be "Nosferatu" by Robert Eggers from just a year earlier. One may end up thinking writer and director Chad Archibald saw that film and wanted to try his own take at the villain from that film, only Archibald with "It Feeds", unlike Eggers with his "Nosferatu", isn't disgustingly cheap when it comes to physical violence, mind over matter, indeed.

Long story short, the film may lack originality, but it does work. Why? Because of the characters and the script, interestingly enough, again, it may not be all that original, but it, the script, is put together with care, is no stranger to detail and the concept of "set up and pay off", and as for the characters, they have lives, histories and motivations, they do come across as real human beings, and you care about them.

Visually, there isn't anything special, and the sound isn't outstanding either, they are both competent, nothing more, but nothing less. That is a good way to describe this film, competent, no more, no less.

I look for little things when rating horror movies. Does the acting have emotion? Facial expressions? Is it good? After all we don't really get to see anything new but we can see slightly different plots with good acting. I this point I think we are rating horror movies on acting and effects (although the latter isn't entirely necessary). Anyway with that said I love Ashley Greene. I like her in aftermath, all the twilight movies, and the apparition. She's a very talented and beautiful actress and she really does only get more beautiful with time. Fine wine. Now Ellie O'Brien??? I was absolutely blown away at how good of an actress this woman is. I think she just turned 23 and her acting is really good for her age. Absolute natural. In one of the opening scenes she's arguing with her mom (Ashley Greene) and I think I replayed that scene like 7 times because of how natural and on point her acting was. She's really good at drama. I say that to say this movie is easily a 7 because of these 2 women selling the movie. It's really a 5 but I put 6 because they did a really good job. The movie itself has been done 100 times so don't expect anything new. It didn't break the internet but it did put me to bed on a Sunday.