The intriguing supernatural horror mystery “It Feeds” begins with a galvanizing 15 minutes that almost spoils the rest of the movie. But only almost.
In its opening scenes, “It Feeds” lays out most of what you need to know about reluctant psychic Cynthia Winstone (Ashley Greene), her curious teenage daughter Jordan (Ellie O’Brien), and their demonically possessed client Riley Harris (Shayelin Martin). At least, it seems to be a demon. A wraith-like monster has attached itself to Riley, and it’s such an overwhelming presence that Cynthia, a humane and highly sensitive medium, refuses to treat Riley. Jordan disagrees with her mother’s decision and thoughtlessly adds insult to injury by claiming that her dead father, also a psychic, would have helped Riley since he cared about people. All of that’s in the first 15 minutes.
We also get a sense of what’s eating Riley from the marks on her arm, as well as from a brief run-in with her short-tempered and squirrelly father Randall (Shawn Ashmore), and oh yeah, a quick glance at the monster itself (Brooklyn Marshall). The rest of the movie trails after Riley as she works up the nerve to do what the audience (and, eventually, its surrogate) knows she must do.
As you might have guessed from the movie’s title, the monster at the heart of “It Feeds” is a voracious curse that passes from one unfortunate victim to the next. Riley’s the ideal subject for Cynthia’s attention, in that sense, since her patients often seem to be in the throes of adolescence. Cynthia and Jordan’s investigation of Riley’s “creature” inevitably becomes personal, even though, again, the characters and their contextualizing personalities are already neatly laid out in the movie’s prefatory scenes. The rest of the movie is a high-toned and often atmospheric horror-mystery that’s not overwhelmingly horrifying or mysterious.
Writer/director Chad Archibald still shows some promise here, especially whenever he lets his actors, cinematographer, makeup, creature, and production designer sell what is, at heart, a generic possession story. He thankfully does this often enough to keep the plot’s familiar and slowly dispensed beats from feeling too rote. So the main reasons to watch “It Feeds” don’t really change after the first 15 minutes. You’re not here to better understand whatever’s gnawing at Riley and soon Jordan. Or maybe you are. You should watch “It Feeds” to hang out with its harried characters as they work through their emotions and also wind you up for one more self-serious B-movie about traumatized kids and monstruous parents.
Most adults are plot devices in “It Feeds”, though they’re also sometimes sympathetic characters with flashes of emotional depth and psychological complexity. Archibald and cinematographer Jeff Maher do a fine job of suggesting Cynthia’s hyper-compartmentalized point-of-view by showing us her world as a series of rooms to be explored, mostly by narrowing any individual space to its individual quadrants. That’s where you’ll find supporting characters and monsters and other parents, too.
The main distinction between “It Feeds” and other movies like it is a matter of dramatic focus. In less sure hands, this movie could’ve been the worst kind of giallo-style thriller—lots of dead air and not enough bad-taste sensationalism. Thankfully, Riley’s “Creature,” designed by Daniella Pluchino, looks good enough to withstand long, hard close-ups. Greene and O’Brien are also appropriately treated like the stars of their own movie and are given plenty o’ room to impress viewers with their powers of suggestion (i.e., they get to act).
“It Feeds” would otherwise just be a lot of slow-rising action as thinly drawn characters perpetually discover a new stack of breadcrumbs, then recoil, and then gather their wits, all over the course of a scene or three. What they discover is usually a variation on the same thing, too: schmutz-covered victims of an unwashed supernatural entity. So yes, “It Feeds” ultimately looks like a handsome genre exercise that was confidently realized with clarity and exactitude. I wish the filmmakers were more ambitious. I was also diverted throughout their movie.
At one point, veteran character actor Julian Richings shows up to deliver a few more breadcrumbs to Cynthia. He delivers a warning to the curious and then disappears, leaving Cynthia’s investigation to unfold at its own deliberate pace. I wasn’t surprised to see him or that he excels in his postage-stamp-sized role. I was delighted. Genre-heads know that casting Richings is a great sign unto itself. Everyone else can watch him work.
