It Feeds (2025)

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What If Your Therapist Could Enter Your Mind?

Would you want a therapist who could read your thoughts and peer into your memories? It would make the therapeutic process more efficient, certainly, but it would also be one hell of an invasion of privacy.

Cynthia Winstone (Ashley Greene), is a shrink with telepathic psychic powers. She has a teenage daughter, Jordan (Ellie O’ Brien), who helps her vet potential patients.

Jordan has yet to tap in to her own latent abilities. Her father, who died under tragic circumstances that are explained late in the film, also was a therapist with psychic powers. This is a mom and pop family therapy business with Cynthia delving deep into her clients’ memories and inner worlds in a quest to alleviate what ails them.

Cynthia and Jordan’s lives are changed forever when a mysterious teen girl appears at their house. Riley (Shayelin Martin) begs for help. A demonic entity has attached itself to her, and she insists that Cynthia is the only person who can help her. Riley’s dad Randall (Shawn Ashmore) shows up and abruptly takes her away.

The normally empathetic Cynthia is terrified by the entity. Fearing that her family will be destroyed, she refuses to help, much to Jordan’s dismay. After a heated argument, Jordan secretly journeys to Riley’s house, where she is confronted by both human and supernatural evil.

After Cynthia discovers what happened, she embarks on a desperate search for her daughter. Her eccentric friend Agatha (Juno Rinaldi) joins her.

That’s the setup for the twisty second half of It Feeds, which takes us on numerous interesting detours as its winds its way toward its conclusion. It was harder to guess where the story was going compared to most of the horror films I watch, and I appreciated that.

If you’re familiar with my reviews, you’ve probably noticed my emphasis on characters. To me, the characters are by far the most important factor in any story. If I care about them, I’m virtually guaranteed to enjoy the movie (or book, show, etc.). If I don’t, you can have all the fancy special effects, smart dialogue, and great plotting you want, and it won’t make a damn bit of difference.

Strong Natural Chemistry

Ultimately, It Feeds worked for me because I cared about Cynthia and Jordan. I didn’t want the monster (which is never given a name, but is listed as “creature” in the credits) to harm them. I was rooting for them the whole way, and that kept me involved in the story.

The film is helped enormously by the natural chemistry between Ashley Greene and Ellie O’ Brien. They are totally believable as mother and daughter. The actresses even have a strong physical similarity – so much so that late in the film, when they are in a very dark place (both literally and figuratively), I was having trouble distinguishing which was which.

Maybe I’ve picked on this poor, failed movie too much, but I can’t help but contrast this with Wolf Man (2025), which also features a mother and daughter fighting a monster. That movie’s mother/daughter relationship was shallow and empty, nothing more than a cynical attempt to manipulate the audience. In It Feeds, it feels real and authentic.

The creature in It Feeds is a pretty obvious metaphor for grief. Cynthia and Jordan are mourning the death of their husband/father. If they can defeat the creature, they may be able to move past their own grief as well.

The creature spreads from person to person (kind of like the entity in It Follows). Some characters believe that isolating the victim possessed by the entity is the only way to defeat it, while others think it can be overcome through working together with others who have also suffered loss.

Obviously, there have been a ton of horror movies about grief. This is one of the most overused themes in horror. Again, It Feeds is uplifted by its protagonists. Cynthia and Jordan make the theme resonant.

Okay, I know what you’re wondering. Is this movie actually scary? Sometimes I think that’s an unfair question for me to answer. I’ve seen so many horror movies that it’s almost impossible for a film to frighten me.

I did not find It Feeds scary in a “jumping out of my seat” sense. None of the scenes gave me a jolt. The movie telegraphs its jump scares too much. That said, I think the average moviegoer will find it plenty scary.

Although I was never truly frightened, I was disturbed and creeped out by the traumatic experiences that Cynthia and Jordan – especially Jordan – had to endure. That’s the magic of having quality characters.