Feeding Frenzy

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.

I purchased this movie for one reason, I liked the Mr. Plinkett character and wanted to see what they could do with him in a feature film. However, he doesn't actually have a lot of screen time in the movie. The focus of the film is obviously Jesse and Christine. When Plinkett is actually on screen, he is far creepier than his movie reviewing persona. Usually I want to sympathize with the villain a little bit (that old cliché of the villain you love to hate), but you don't really get that until the end of the movie. By then, you've kinda settled on disliking Mr. Plinkett. Watching this movie without expectations, and/or while drunk or high is advisable.

If you're an aspiring filmmaker or a student of film, then this will amaze you. It's a whole movie with plenty of creativity and innovation. Corny and stupid at times, but have you seen Transformers 2? Transformers 2 had a budget of 2 trillion dollars, and all you get is Shia LaBeouf rolling around in aluminum foil for 3 hours. If Feeding Frenzy had an A-list star in the leading role, it would have made 100 million dollars the first weekend of a general release.

If you're a filmmaker, buy the DVD. If you're a film lover, buy the DVD. If you're a passive film-goer and enjoyed The Hangover, this isn't your cup of tea.

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.

Low budget schlock spoof that is smart enough to feel original while clearly aping off classic B-movies. Stops just short of breaking the fourth wall but has an irreverent tone that is fitting when you are paying homage to films that were parody in the first place.

There are some clever lines and innovative humour that keep the movie ticking over. Unfortunately the two leads are mostly just annoying so it is up to the supporting characters to carry the film for the most part.

Overall it is fun for what it is and fans of RLM will enjoy it for the schlock factor alone.