This was a terrible year for those in the business of making movies, with an overall landscape that suggests revenue for the industry in terms of box office income may dip to as much a 75 percent when compared to previous years. Despite that, 2020 had some rare winners in film, just not the usual blockbusters one might imagine.
Cinemas in North America struggled mainly for two reasons: first, the obvious threat of a pandemic forcing theaters to close entirely, or later open up with limited seating in order to stick to safety protocols. Second, even people who don’t mind going to the movies under those conditions would find themselves starved for content given the small number of releases. Yet, there’s a type of movie that has very little to lose, even with a limited release: low-budget horror films and thrillers.
Hoping to garner the same kind of attention as The Wretched, Becky, and Relic comes The One You Feed from Gravitas Ventures, a thriller drama written and directed by Drew Hardwood with a cast of unnamed characters only referred to as “A Stranger” (Gareth Koorzen), “Man” (Harwood himself) and “Woman” (Rebecca Fraiser). Its official trailer is as eerie as that description sounds.
The trailer shows Man suffering injuries from some unfortunate fate, only to find himself taken care of by the others, establishing a complicated relationship with all while giving off vibes that there’s something wrong in the farmhouse. As Harwood himself puts it, he “wanted to make an LGBTQ film that expanded our current understanding of sexuality,” removing all labels a viewers could place on the mysterious trio.
The concept of an LGBTQ thriller is certainly an interesting idea, one that could perhaps only be realized by independent filmmakers on a tight budget. Films like The One You Feed or The Rental have nothing to lose even when faced up against 2020, because in lots of cases some of them were condemned to limited or theatrical releases, yet the pandemic opened the doors for a movie like Becky to rise in the iTunes Store streaming charts.
The One You Feed will release December 29, 2020.