Cover Art

Credits

Director: Richard Griffin Starring: Billy Garberina, Rachel Morris, Patrick Cohen, Michael Propster Screenplay: Trent Haaga Country: USA

Feeding the Masses has an interesting idea. As usual with walking dead flicks, a virus has zombified people, but the main focus is how the media and government try to keep the public calm. Our 'heroes' are a news crew, including a cameraman (played by someone who must've graduated from the Jack Black school of life) who is against the deception. Even with his conscience bothering him, he goes out and films stuff for the news. The crew are on site for a major announcement that the downtown area is safe for people to visit again for the first time since the plague struck. Unfortunately, during the announcement, zombies assault the area. Despite this slight setback, the media still says everything is fine downtown. The cameraman is troubled that the misinformation will cost lives, but isn't sure what to do.

Feeding the Masses' performances vary, but can be very bad. Most of the leads are thankfully decent, and one thespian to watch out for is the guy who seems to have tried to play his part as a fusion of Adam West as Batman and an impression of JFK. Sadly, the lesser performances by supporting players hurt the overall story. This is regrettable because the script has some wit and skill. The film is written by Trent Haaga, one of the few people to come off as having enough brain cells to operate a spoon in Troma's Apocalypse Soon documentary, and his script suffers from the lesser acting. Not that all the dialogue is superb, but the story and writing are much better than general for this level of filmmaking. There are a few oddities in the script, most notably a sniper out of left field…well, actually out of a window, but in other areas the story strays from the norm very nicely and keeps the film engaging. Aside from a pace killing, soul-searching monologue, I can't fault the script for much.

Along with a good script, Feeding the Masses sports prominent Paul Verhoeven influences via satirical ads and inserts. While these don't always succeed, one filmmaker that just isn't emulated enough is Paul Verhoeven, so I was very happy to see this style being utilized. Some of the best inserts include a funny re-death ad (perhaps also inspired by Stacy) and a TV station 'lovingly' remembering one of their own.

As for the production values, here the budget becomes apparent. While some impressive stuff is pulled off, there's also quite a bit that just looks silly. The CG gunfire just looks terrible, as do the CG explosions and fire. The gore is sparse in the film, and the zombie makeup is unimpressive. Companies in the Feeding the Masses world also seem to have done away with having logos printed on their vehicles, and have all sent away for A3 banners to put over a rear passenger window. I could forgive all that, but then there're the picket signs. The picket signs look shoddy and cheap. How expensive is it to make picket signs?! Would it have required an extra texter to make the lettering bold? What was the problem here?