Feeding Frenzy

As many reviews before mine, I have to admit being a RedLetterMedia fan, too. That makes it harder to be objective, but there is a reason why most of the reviews are from fans: RedLetterMedias films and videos are not aimed at John Doe and his Everyman-brigade. Perhaps I'm the first German to write a review about this film; so I will give some additional information about purchasing it. I received my package just today. Please be prepared that the package will not be delivered to your home but to the custom office, where you have to pay an additional German sales tax of 19%. So, if you are not the type of film enthusiast who wants to have real DVD packages on the shelf, you should go with the downloadable versions, which RLM offers as well.

If you're from Germany (hell, why do I still write this in English? Well, because you should understand English anyway when watching this movie...) and you have no problem understanding the RLM discussions ("Half in the bag", "Best of the worst"), Feeding Frenzy might be a bit harder though, because unlike in a discussion where things are said several times, the plot moves quickly and nobody repeats what he's saying or asks for better understanding. Furthermore, Mr.Plinkett mumbles more than he actually talks, which is convenient for the film but hard to understand for foreigners.

The movie itself is really funny, not more, not less. It has extremely funny moments while fans of RLM might have higher expectations as Mike and Jay sometimes don't do their very best acting here - but still quite OK. Also, you might be used to much, much darker humor from RedLetterMedia, I think there could have been much more black humor...even though there already is quite a lot of it in here...

What has to be pointed out are several "bad moments", that are obviously intentionally bad as they pay homage to schlock-movies from the 80s, for example when they are tied to a table and you can see that Jesse's nose is itching and then he takes his arm out of the ropes so he can scratch it... This is not very funny but still quite amusing if you understand the tone of Feeding Frenzy.

Movies like Feeding Frenzy underline the weight of RedLetterMedias movie reviews; they show that they know what they are talking about and that they not only make theories about movies but they know how things work when making a film. In the aftermath, Feeding Frenzy is an advertisement for everything else RedLetterMedia does - simply because it's OK and can compete with other, much more expensive movie-productions.

The effects waver between awful and decent, the acting as well, but overall it's an okay no-budget movie with a few good laughs mixed in with the amateurish shoot. I've seen worse movies with 10000X the budget, so this is worth checking out if you like RLM.

So, I am bitter when it comes to indie films.But I am also a victim, of being pressured and conned into purchasing indie films that absolutely sucked.

I now equate them to snake oil, as that is exactly what it is. A lie packaged as something else, promising something good, created only for profit, as the production value alone will tell you, and if you fell for it, you are a sucker out 15 or more bucks.

This means that while I entered into the scene, wanting to support indie films and film makers and aspiring actors, I now want to kill them all, as well as their families. Because they all deserve to die.

Now, saying that, Feeding Frenzy has turned a page in my bleak outlook. I wrestled with the idea of purchasing Feeding Frenzy...I did not want to end up hating and wishing death on Mike Stoklasa and Jay Bauman.

But I finally gave in, and wound up watching it 3 times in 1 week. It helped being a fan of RedLetterMedia, and their, well...media. Their Star Wars reviews, short films, and what really got my respect and attention, their brutally honest, and articulate reviews they do on their series, "Half in the Bag".

Another thing I have come to appreciate from these guys is sort of a new brand of humor...It is like a "Dry" meets "Dead Pan", and Mike Stoklasa, who is pretty much the most popular of the duo and company, delivers this beautifully.

And in the movie, Mike Stoklasa continues to deliver this bizarre, awkward dead pan performance. My friends who had never seen anything RedLetterMedia has done commented on Mikes commanding screen presence, and remarked how charismatic he was on film. And he isn't even the main character.

Every scene Mike Stoklasa appears in heightens it, and makes it better. The same kind of awkward/dry/deadpan humor is present through Jay Baumans writing of the script as well. This duo works very well together.

Rich Evans, a friend/contributor to RLM, reprises his role as Mr. Plinkett, and he does this wonderfully. He is funny, original, and you want to love him despite his sinister character.

The two main actors, Gillian Bellinger and Ron Lipski, however, were not very good. They were outsiders to RLM, and maybe this is why. The main actress was very unattractive. I know that shouldn't be a problem, but ugliness combined with unfunniness and not very good acting is a problem.

She just came across as annoying and loud for the most part. Ron Lipski was semi-competent in his own bland way when it came to acting, but in the end, he lacked charisma, and was so stiff and not animated, he's actually forgettable despite being the main character.

The worst was his mugging. Often throughout the film, the camera would cut to his face for reaction shots. His expressions were either overly hammy, or robotic.

There is a scene in which the little mouth monsters escape and attack Ron and Gillian. This by far is the worst scene in the film. It lasts way too long, and the characters lack of talent shines at this moment.

A joke of Gillian trying to choose a weapon to get a monster off of Rons leg ensues, for over a minute, resulting in Gillian choosing a fly swatter as a weapon of choice.

Ron "mugs" again, raising an eyebrow, in a robotic, unfunny fashion, and Gillian, for no reason at all, screams obnoxiously. But the scene continues, the monster still biting away at Rons leg.

Gillian continues to search, until Ron grabs a drill and kills the monster. Gillian then screams obnoxiously again as she grabs an ax. She runs over to Ron....and screams again.

It is the worst scene in the movie, because of the horrendous acting of Ron Lipski, the over acting of Gillian Bellinger, and for some reason, Mike and Jay didn't shred this scene in the editing room, cutting a much needed minute out of it.

The soundtrack was great. Very Danny Elfman sounding music in it, which fit the goofiness of the over all story. Overall, I enjoyed this film, and am glad I bought it. I've already gotten 3 views out of it, and will probably view it more.

Certainly more than "The Disco Exorcist" which I wish I never bought, and "The Severed Inn", for which I hope everyone involved in that gets cancer and dies. Seriously.

I hope my review isn't too biased, because like I said, I was a fan already of RLM and their content online. So maybe I have been warmed up to it and their sense of humor and style. However, friends that watched it with me that had not heard of RLM before enjoyed it as well. So who knows.

This is pretty much a fan movie, to some extent. It does give a few subtle winks to "their" audience. But production-wise, it trumps all indie film company movies I have seen. It was certainly better than any movie made by the SciFy network.

Unfortunately, the two main actors do haunt it. I hope in the future, RLM makes more of an effort to get better and more talented actors.

Oh, one last nod: One actress stood out. She was GREAT. And she was in the film for literally 1 minute. Jocelyn Ridgely is her name. She has appeared in some of RLM's stuff, most famously she played Nadine in the famous Plinkett Reviews of the Star Wars films, that drew attention from Simon Pegg and Roger Ebert, due to their brilliance and entertainment value.

As a fan of Red Letter Media's Half in the Bag series and Star Wars reviews, I really wanted to like this film. Mike Stoklasa and Jay Bauman are respectable men who seem to be making movies purely for love of the art form. That is very admirable. So giving this movie a bad review is painful, but the truth is, it's not very good.

There are three main areas in which the movie is weak, and all three are crucial: Acting, dialog, and humor. First, acting: If you're not willing to make sacrifices in terms of performances, you're going to be disappointed. The directors themselves play major roles. Bauman (Martin) is definitely the more talented actor and does well, but Stoklasa (Carl) turns in a performance that's false, unbelievable, and apathetic. He comes off so flat and careless I would genuinely like to know if he was actually trying. I vaguely suspect that he was attempting a "so bad it's funny" shtick, but if so, it didn't work. Gillian Bellinger (Christine) does well enough in her role, as does Ron Lipski (Jesse), and their Mary Jane/Peter Parker dynamic is one of the most compelling things about the film, but ultimately their scenes are hampered by the movie's other problems.

The dialog, in a word, stinks. Not quite on the level of George Lucas, but it's hardly stellar. Over and over I found myself frustrated by how unnatural and stilted nearly all of it was. Real people just do not talk like the characters in Feeding Frenzy. Bauman and Stoklasa have talent, but clearly no ear for dialog. Watching it, you think that if they had just said the lines out loud to themselves once and asked if it sounded realistic, the whole movie would have been improved. But in the end, we're stuck with dialog so bad it prevents the viewer from being immersed in the story.

Lastly, the humor. In a movie where you have to forgive the acting, budget, and dialog, the humor is the only chance it has left. But it falls flat there too. Sometimes you'll even be asking yourself if what you just saw someone say was supposed to actually be a joke. The entire movie made me lightly chuckle maybe two or three times. It's just not funny. Much of the humor of Red Letter Media's Half in the Bag and Plinkett Reviews is solid and hilarious, so I found it jarring that the comedy was so flat.

There are other problems. The characters can be inconsistent. The "dumb jock" stock character goes from being dimwitted and barely able to speak in one scene, to taking the lead in a dangerous situation and giving detailed, rational explanations in another. Jesse, the protagonist, can somewhat waver back and forth between being a doofus and being an able everyman. Also, the movie tends to introduce characters that you would expect to be unimportant background players not likely to be seen again, only to have them return in a major way that leaves you wondering if you were actually supposed to care about them.

Some low-budget movies can be good enough to transcend it (look at El Mariachi or the original Night of the Living Dead), but Feeding Frenzy is not one of them. In short, it's poorly acted, hindered by its budget, and not funny. It's possible that the creators wanted to make a "so bad it's good" movie, but Bauman has said that he dislikes movies like that, so it's not likely.

Again, I'm a huge fan of their other works, so it's very hard for me to write this, but it's the truth. The movie could have been vastly improved with more believable dialog, better acting, and better humor, but as it stands, it's not worth the ten dollars. If you want to see a movie by Stoklasa and Bauman, see The Recovered. They seem to hold it in a lower regard than this one, but it's better written and more convincing.

Here's my problem with this movie: Since this is horror-comedy and done very cheaply, I keep wondering which parts were supposed to be funny and which parts were unintentionally funny. I sort of feel this is perhaps more a parody on how cheap knock-off movies come to be than those cheap knock-off movies themselves. Obviously this isn't something I should concern myself, but I do.

But hey, even though its like jazz and the "artists" are clearly enjoying themselves much more than anyone in the audience, there are good parts. Some of the jokes do actually work. Not many, but some. We know from all those Plinkett reviews and Half in the Bag that the movie makers have some unique insights on films, so perhaps if I had being more familiar with all the movies they were thinking about when making Feeding Frenzy, I would have enjoyed it more.

The real actors in the movie are pretty good, especially considering how cheaply this was probably made and the material they had to work with.

All in all, the best I can give is a very mild recommendation, but tread carefully, this is probably the kind of movie some people will enjoy immensely, perhaps in some sort of twisted "ironic" way, others will see it as a complete waste of time.