Horror Movie Review: Feed the Devil (2014)

Don’t be surprised that, come the end of Feed the Devil, you’re feeling very confused by what you saw. You’re not alone. This film isn’t sure what it wants to be and most will be left scratching their heads by the lack of coherency in the story.

Directed by Max Perrier, who co-wrote it with Matthew Altman, Feed the Devil begins in solid fashion. A group of hunters in the wilderness are taken out in violent and gory fashion by an unknown figure. It’s a horror movie start as old as time. A seemingly unrelated scene that will eventually link into the main story.

The start is not the problem with Feed the Devil.

We’re then introduced to Marcus (Jared Cohn) who is such a lowlife, he is stealing from his mother. She kicks him out and he meets up with his girlfriend Stella (Victoria Curtain). Needing money, a friend of the family just happens to come along and tells Marcus how he can make $25,000. All he has to do is go to a remote location (a crude map on a bible page) to find a secret stash of marijuana. Steal the weed, sell it and make a ton of money.

Of course, it’s a terrible idea as those willing to grow weed out in such remote locations are likely to be very protective of it but Marcus doesn’t care. So, off he goes with Stella and her stowaway sister Lydia (Ardis Barrow).

Things go wrong quickly when they breakdown, get lost in the woods, get caught up in traps and get attacked by… wolves? The movie doesn’t do a great job of making this part clear. Stella goes to get help and hitches a ride but promptly disappears.

Marcus and Lydia try to find her but run into a drunk at a motel who tells them that an ancient cult in the woods is probably responsible. The same woods that Marcus’ weed is supposed to be in. So, that becomes the plan. Go deep in to the woods, find Stella and the weed, leave and get rich.

Of course, that doesn’t quite play out as they run into serious trouble at the hands of the inhabitants.

This is us trying to explain the story as best we understood it but we’re leaving out that these details are told over a huge amount of time and in a really haphazard fashion. Who or what are these woodland inhabitants? How do they survive out there? Why do they display the bodies of their victims on trees? Why do they sneak around sometimes and at others just go on a frenzy? Don’t even get us started on the odd ghostly apparitions that appear too.

Why was Marcus sent to find weed that doesn’t exist? So many whys and not enough coming from the characters who take far too much of this in their stride. It doesn’t help you care about their plight but they’re bare-bones characters anyway. Decent performances, bad characters.

The movie’s pacing is perhaps the worst thing about it though. If you can live with the random story threads that go nowhere, the pacing will probably kill you off. This is a movie that races a mile for 2 minutes than slows down to crawl for the next 20. Back and forth, back and forth. It’s not a lot of fun to watch at all.

Which also means we don’t get a lot of violence, blood and gore. When we do, it can be quite gritty and intense but you’ll be crying out for so much more.

What was the intent with this film?