Movie Review: FEED

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: August 16th, 2026 / 06:25 PM

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Grace Collender, Clinton Liberty, Daisy Jelley, Niamh Hogan, Rhys Mannion, Oskar Smith, Charlotte Bradley, Sadbh McMullin
Writer: Marco van Belle
Director: Marco van Belle
Distributor: Saban Films
Release Date: March 14, 2026

Despite most of its main characters being streaming influencers, FEED is a straightforward and serious vampire movie.

A prologue set in 1897 Ireland gives us two men wearing blindfolds carrying a bloody-faced woman, vessel of the Dearg Due (Niamh Hogan). A third blindfolded man is tapping with a stave on the side of a crypt, telling others, in Irish, to close their eyes to “its lies and fakery.”

The other men put the woman in a bag and dump her headfirst into a hole in front of the crypt. Suddenly, she starts to scream and kick her feet. One of the men, declaring he will not let it deceive him, begins to bash his head against the side of the crypt. Another man runs away. The third man tries to fill in the grave by hand.

The man who runs is impaled by a young boy. The man says, “It is done. She is trapped.” The boy frantically rubs the blood from his blade onto his teeth.

In the present, we’re still in Ireland, now in a car driven by American Austin (Rhys Mannion). He’s with his English girlfriend Nessa (Daisy Jelley), Daisy’s Irish assistant Sean (Oskar Smith), and Irish couple Lorcan (Clinton Liberty) and Orla (Grace Collender).

All of them make their livings creating online content – at least, all of them except Orla, who used to love influencing as much as the others until tragedy struck a year ago. Now she’ll barely speak, and an incident a few weeks ago suggests she is profoundly depressed.

Nessa has booked an enormous modern farmhouse for the quintet’s weekend getaway. The farmhouse’s owner, Nora (Charlotte Bradley), lives just down the road with her silent young granddaughter (Sadbh McMullin).

Psychically vulnerable Orla is drawn to the woods surrounding the farmhouse. We recognize the crypt, now overgrown with vegetation. Orla pricks her finger on a hawthorn wreath hanging from a tree.

Writer/director Marco van Belle is astute in how he intercuts between the forest, hallucinations and social interactions. His characters have humanity and, while their chosen profession may be questionable, van Belle doesn’t mock them. Instead, he displays empathy for people who are in precarious and vulnerable positions. The film gets extra points for organically planting tools that come in handy later in the proceedings.

Collender gives Orla the qualities that make her seem suited to otherworldly sensitivities – she’s intense and in pain with suggestions of inner strength. Hogan projects power and confidence, and Smith makes us feel for Sean, who just wants to belong somewhere.

FEED’s exposition is handled efficiently and logically, doled out as needed. The atmosphere is tense and ominous. The film relies less on jump scares and more on a sense of sorrow that is jostled by events but, like the vampire, can never be truly dispelled.

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