Barbarella Digests FEED ME with Adam Leader, Christopher Mulvin, Neal Ward and Richard Oakes

Hello, my friends. Barbara here. Horror movies cover a wide range of subjects, some more taboo than others. While you can't scroll through a list of horror movies without slasher titles dominating your screen, cannibalism movies are much rarer. Richard Oakes and Adam Leader add an option to the latter. Based on a true story, their film FEED ME stars Neal Ward, Christopher Mulvin, Hannah Al Rashid and Samantha Loxley and will be on-demand and digital October 27, 2022. While comedic elements emerge sporadically, the darker tone of the movie persists throughout, and cannibalism isn't the only underrepresented subject matter it includes; it also addresses rarely discussed eating disorders, in particular bulimia. I had the opportunity to chat with writer/director duo Richard Oakes and Adam Leader, as well as actors Neal Ward and Christopher Mulvin.

Barbara: Assuming the answer isn't human flesh, what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

Richard: We were literally just asked that question. Mine is bird shit.

Barbara: Do you want to tell us more?

Richard: It's probably funnier if I don't, so I'll leave it at that. I have another that I just remembered. When I was younger I had this fried, like a cooked breakfast. I was eating my sausage, dipping it in ketchup and thinking, "Oh, that tastes weird. What is that?" Then I realized that I hadn't put any ketchup on my plate and that I had a bloody nose.

(Everyone reacts as expected.)

Adam: Mine would be Savlon. I was at a music festival a few years ago, and I woke up in the morning still smoking drunk. I went to brush my teeth and realized that I had used Savlon, [an antiseptic cream], for toothpaste, and it was pretty gross. »

Christopher: I think with mine I was working in Kos; there was a market area there. I stayed there for a year, and there was always this little corner where we cooked insects, like fried insects. Just tried and tried cricket, cockroaches; I drank a small bowl. I think it's the weirdest thing I've ever eaten. It's really good.

Neal: I struggled with this question when we were asked it earlier, and I'm going to have to keep the same one because I still can't find one that's really interesting . Just Lego as a kid probably, [putting] pieces of Lego in your mouth and accidentally swallowing them, I guess, and passing them through. That's all I have.

Barbara: You have to up your game. Switching gears, at the beginning of the movie, it is stated that it was inspired by real events. What events, in particular, inspired this, and could you talk a bit about how you then developed the story into its final version?

Adam: He was inspired by the story of Armin Meiwes, the guy who advertised for someone to be eaten on purpose. It's something that's always fascinated us, and we were like, 'Why don't we write something about a man who willingly gives himself up to a cannibal? It just started from this little germ of an idea, and then Rich and I locked ourselves away for about a week, and we just fleshed out this whole story, all these scenes that we wanted to see in there, from start to finish end. At the end of that, I had this bible of information that I took home, and within about two weeks I locked myself in and wrote this script. That's how he was born, basically.

Barbara: How is co-directing? If you disagree on something, who decides which way you go?

Richard: Well, that's something we thought we'd tackle early on. We started doing YouTube sketches and stuff. We decided to come up with a process before we got into our first movie, and we've kept it the same ever since, just to avoid arguments and things like that. We both have our specialties in what we do. Adam is the master scriptwriter, and I deal more with the visual side of being a cinematographer by trade.

Adam: Incredible, by the way.

Richard: We decided, in terms of directing, to split it up the same way, so Adam takes care of the actors with the dialogue, because he knows how the characters have to deliver the lines because he wrote and wrote every amazing word of it. I'll take care of the visual side...