So a little context to start things off I think: I came
across RedLetterMedia while browsing Wikipedia's List of Films Considered the
Worst and in the Critical Reception section for Adam Sandler's flop Jack &
Jill found mention of a review that raised the question of whether the inflated
budget of the film (a cheap looking comedy) when compared to the actual quality
of the finished product was something that should be investigated by the
financing studio's accountants.
It was a left-field but realistic and smart approach to
reviewing a film that, as a former finance clerk who used to spend his days
looking for anomalies in spending, I appreciated and respected. It's not how I
go about reviewing movies - which is in a more traditional fashion - but it's
one that, well, I guess took me back to my previous "life" in
accounts in a not wholly unpleasant way.
The review turned out to be written, produced and presented
by Milwaukee based video production company RedLetterMedia headed by Jay Bauman
and Mike Stoklasa, both of whom present in person their "flagship"
movie review series Half In The Bag both in and out of the guise of two lazy VCR
repair men.
It was from watching Half In The Bag and browsing their
website that I learned about their 70 minute Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom
Menace review.
It was then that part of my life took a turn for the better.
From out of the blue I was able to put something behind me
that had been plaguing my life since 1999.
The Phantom Menace review, which Stoklasa narrates in
character as Mr Plinkett - a creation of their friend and fellow RedLetterMedia
veteran Rich Evans (and regularly played on and off screen by both men) - goes
scene by scene through The Phantom Menace not simply criticising it but asking
why things don't work and attempting to provide some answers... no matter how
depressing. It made me realise that I wasn't alone in thinking that something
was broken with the Star Wars prequels and helped me move on. It was geek therapy
and I'll be eternally grateful to them for that. So now, instead of regularly
watching The Phantom Menace and trying, without success, to "get it",
RedLetterMedia have helped me accept that there was never anything there to
"get" except ulcers.
So with the added help of the subsequent release of the
Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith reviews, I no longer watch the
Star Wars prequels or "special" editions of the original trilogy at
all - just the untouched theatrical versions of parts IV, V and VI that were bizarrely
released as a bonus feature on yet another abhorrent special edition DVD
outing.
But while I've been getting up to speed with RedLetterMedia's
ever growing back catalogue of Half In The Bag and Mr Plinkett reviews, another
successful series has sprung up based on some early Half In The Bag episodes
that addressed so-bad-they're-good b-movies such as Troll 2, Zaat and Samurai
cop... Best Of The Worst.
I'd call my taste in movies eclectic and lacking any sort of
attention span whatsoever. I'm in the mood for a different genre of movie from
one hour to the next and often end up not buying movies because by the time
I've added them to my wish list and saved up enough money to buy them I've lost
interest altogether. But - fear not! - for in another week or so I'll be back
into that sort of film again and might finally get around to buying it... only
to have lost interest again by the time it arrives in the post.
You'd be forgiven for wondering how I get around to watching
any movies at all.
But I do, somehow, and since I'm not prejudiced about what I
watch I'll generally give anything a go under a vague set of guidelines that
I've never properly managed to narrow down. I'm discerning - I'm just
discerning about trash.
Which is why Best Of The Worst appeals to me so much - it
tries to find a glimmer of hope and entertainment in even the worst of movies,
because Jay & Mike and friends know that movies are generally made for
artistic reasons (Adam Sandler movies being an exception) - even though the
reasons or methods gone into producing them have been horribly, horribly flawed
and misguided - and maybe somewhere in the rubble of what results is something
to enjoy... even if it's just the sheer naive badness of it.
But bad movies are also cautionary tales. I've wanted to
make movies since I was a kid (writing screenplays and attending a media
studies course when I was a teenager) but have always suspected deep down that what
I'd produce will probably be terrible, because making movies is hard, time
consuming and expensive. Even the cheap ones. And with my crippling lack of
confidence and social skills I probably wouldn't be able to command such a
project anyway. That's why I sit here, an armchair critic, venting spleen about
stuff other people have been brave or crazy enough to at least try.
And RedLetterMedia respects the people who try. They respect
that it's hard making movies because they make movies too, which is probably
why they (especially Stoklasa) find the Star Wars prequels so offensive: George
Lucas has been very open and strangely proud in implying that, even though he
had all the money in the world and was surrounded by talented people prepared
to give their all in making a great set of prequels to a movie saga they loved
so much, he just couldn't be bothered to do it right - he just sat there in his
comfy director's chair after spending a week writing one draft of a screenplay
he hadn't thought out properly and filmed a bunch of people in front of
bluescreen quickly and waited for IT nerds to do all the hard work for him.
If you've ever had a dream that's just been a little out of
your reach it's hard NOT to find that offensive.
So after being so entertained, informed and helped by
RedLetterMedia's output I thought it was time for me to give something back.
They had derisively mentioned a few times in their videos about
one of the films they'd made before the birth of the 70 minute The Phantom
Menace review, Half In The Bag and Best Of The Worst called Feeding Frenzy and
I was curious to see whether the knowledge of film and low budget movies they'd
used to such great effect in those series had been wielded to create and not
just to criticise.
The result?
CONTINUED IN PART 2...
PART 2
Get on with it, right?
Well.
I'm not sure how to process the
concept of Feeding Frenzy originally being intended as a series of gore
sketches made as filler for a "45 minute long gratuitous erotic shower
scene" - unless the shower fore-and-afterplay (perhaps involving incredibly
slow stripping and meticulous drying) was going to be the bulk of it - so I'm
inclined to believe that what it turned out to be is what it was meant to be
from the start.
But, regardless of my own personal
conjecture, the filmmakers assert that the completed film was more an accident
born out of their caring about what they were doing - they just couldn't in
good conscience half-heartedly produce something with such a narrow vision.
And Feeding Frenzy certainly
doesn't feel like that.
With Jay Bauman and Mike Stoklasa
both being fans of the horror genre (Bauman seems to prefer
Raimi/Jackson/Gordon style comedy splatter while Stoklasa favours based-on-real-events
exorcism/haunting shlock) making a movie to pay homage to their cinematic idols
must have seemed inevitable, in fact their love of the genre has shone through visually
during some of Half In The Bag's fictionalised bookends and they've discussed their
predilections on both HITB and Best Of The Worst in detail. I think prior to
Feeding Frenzy they made a serious horror film called The Recovered which I'll
definitely be checking out as (spoiler alert!) I think I'll prefer it to
Frenzy.
After having produced a
collection of amateur short films in the 90s and early-to-mid 00s the trio
(including Rich Evans) first came together for a feature length outing with the
ill-fated but eventually "remastered" (a from-scratch post production
phase more akin to Apocalypse Now's Redux release) Gorilla, Interrupted in
which they all look like they're about 12 years old. But I'm sensing that,
because of the negative experience of making Gorilla, Interrupted in 2002, they've
wanted to play things safe ever since... and "safe" is how Feeding
Frenzy feels in places.
Perhaps to it's disadvantage.
Gorilla, Interrupted seems to have
served as its own cautionary tale to the directors, in fact the co-featuring
documentary on the Gorilla, Interrupted DVD - How Not To Make A Movie - goes
into insightful detail about what went wrong and perhaps why. But while they
all still seem rather traumatised by that experience you can't help but see the
end result as a quaint "student project" which, while clearly
teaching them a few important lessons, they probably shouldn't agonise over too
much.
After all, they actually did
create something with the energy that Feeding Frenzy lacks at first.
The creative core of the filmmaking
group was initially a foursome, much to my surprise, with Garrett Gilchrist
being "The Fifth Beatle" if you will. However, it seems that
Gilchrist turned out to be more like the Syd Barrett of the group, being perhaps
a little more eccentric in person than the other three were expecting when they
all first met online (with Stoklasa in particular having to be very diplomatic on
record about their working relationship at times).
Gilchrist's eventual fate is left
omitted from both How Not To Make A Movie and the audio commentary for Gorilla,
Interrupted it seems.
As I watched Feeding Frenzy for
the first time I had trouble getting into the swing of it, most likely because
I had expectations that viewers without any knowledge of previous RedLetterMedia
projects wouldn't have. My main concern beforehand was that Bauman and Stoklasa
were about to break the well-known rule (either consciously or unconsciously) about
not trying to purposefully make a funny-bad b-movie... and I was right. What people
advise is to be sincere and to let any comedy come unintentionally, if at all. What
breaking this rule has done is create a Feeding Frenzy that suffers from an
identity crisis - it's neither funny enough to work as a comedy (much of the
humour actually manages to make some scenes confusing and generate what Rich
Evans calls "non-medy") nor shocking or scary enough to be a truly
successful horror flick.
It's Evil Dead II Lite, I
suppose.
Ironically, the non-professional
performers seem to come off better on screen than the semi-pros. I wonder if that's
because, as the creative force behind the film, the amateurs had an advantage
over hired thesps such as Ron Lipski and Gillian Bellinger, with the former mentioning
in the behind the scenes featurette that there was little space on the
practically zero-budget production for individual rehearsal time.
But everyone's really trying, so
you can't accuse anyone of being unprofessional.
I think another problem is that
since Feeding Frenzy is trying to subvert a genre that's already been subverted
a fair number of times our two protagonists lack consistent motivation, in fact
Stoklasa even admits during the audio commentary that he kept changing his own
character from scene to scene. Saying that, he's one of the few who actually
comes across as natural on screen.
Sadly though, we just don't care
about our two leads, who lack much needed chemistry and depth for the audience
to cling onto: Jesse's pathetic and downtrodden - a perfect combination for a
protagonist you'd think - but the dialogue alone failed to capture my sympathy
and I lost interest in his "heroes journey" as the film went along. Christine
seems just too horrible for the person with whom we're suppose to sympathise to
believably be in love with. There's no reason that Jesse wants to be with
Christine other than libido and that's a pretty limp hook to peg an entire
movie on.
It's Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
all over again.
I was sad to see Jocelyn Ridgely being
underused in a scene which looks cut down to its bare bones. She turned out to be
great in the Mr Plinkett Star Wars reviews, especially the one for Attack of
the Clones and the "epilogue" to Revenge of the Sith where her character
exacts revenge on Mr Plinkett. She's got genuine talent and I wish her great success
in the future.
Elsewhere, Rich Evans as Mr
Plinkett knocks the ball out the park as usual with his sinister but comedic
performance, it's almost a shame that Bauman and Stoklasa mention in the audio
commentary that they saw the actor as a bit of a liability due to his health
issues and lack of range. He's always seemed game to me and whatever might be
going on in his personal life it certainly doesn't affect what he's doing on
screen.
Stoklasa, playing multiple roles,
has some great line delivery and an abundance of charisma that gleefully contradicts
his Half In The Bag persona of a low energy misanthrope. He unfortunately misses
the mark on a couple of comedy skits though, that probably should have been
left on the cutting room floor but, well, they weren't.
Jay Bauman has the best
character, I'd say - it's just a shame they felt the need to cut out his
backstory of being an Air Traffic Controller who's off from work with stress which,
once you learn that in the supplementary DVD material, makes him a lot more
interesting. I'd even go so far as to say that I'd like to see a return of
Martin at some point (if he hasn't already somewhere).
Other RedLetterMedia regulars pop
in and out to bolster the ensemble, with my favourite being the terrifying but
brilliant Lora Story whose RLM characters always seem preoccupied with things
emerging from their many orifices. She's wild and off the leash in a way that
the rest of the film probably should have been. The Wizard (his full name
escapes me but I think his first name is Josh) and his character's roommate
have some genuinely funny moments during a party scene; and Jack Packard
admirably immerses himself into the role of Mr Plinkett's son and makes you
feel a rare moment of genuine emotion.
But where the film lets itself
down the most is with its love story that could easily have been cut back or fertilised
with a little more on-screen chemistry. It sort of reminds me of Sam Raimi's
Spider-man films that went a little too far in trying to stuff emotion into
what should have just been fun but smart action flicks... instead they came across
as wet in places. So when Feeding Frenzy should be cinematic and full of energy
there's often just people standing and talking, or sitting and talking, or
making bad jokes and improvisation to the tune of an unengaging romance.
And that's not fun.
All of these negatives could have
been solved in editing, but while Bauman has stated on Half In The Bag that
filmmaking is a series of choices he - as the film's credited editor - has failed
to choose to tighten or leave stuff out when, in my opinion, doing so would
have improved the enjoyment of the film.
In the positive category the film
looks great for what it is and every so often has a Spaced era Edgar Wright
vitality to it, with my favourite scene being later on in the film where Jesse,
Carl and Christine are sat around formulating a plan of how to deal with
creatures terrorising the neighbourhood. It's got a stripped down, stark
simplicity to it that I very much approve of, with the addition of an important
mission being given to Martin that completes his character arc (had we known it
was a character arc, of course) in a way that's worthy of applause.
The fact that the film was
"slapped together" by a crew of just two is not something you notice
and Bauman and Stoklasa have proven that they've become talented b-movie
craftsmen.
So I've covered a lot of ground
here, including bonus features and other films/videos by RedLetterMedia, but if
you were to ask me whether I'd recommend Feeding Frenzy on it's own terms to a
stranger who knows nothing of Bauman/Evans/Stoklasa's other works I'd have to
say: no... it's technically solid but fails to bite down on either the adrenaline
gland or the funny bone and is - mainly during the first half I'd say - a
little cringe-worthy in places (if you don't turn away during the serenading
sequence in the coffee shop you're a stronger person than I). But I'll definitely
be watching it again, only from now on with the audio commentary on like I do
with James Cameron's also cringe-worthy but great looking Titanic, so it's in
impressive company there.
If you like the
Bauman/Evans/Stoklasa chemistry then you'll enjoy these DVDs for their great supplementary
material which gives you a keen insight into the men behind the shlock and
their ever-maturing working processes.
As mentioned previously I'm
curious to see The Recovered which looks like more of a straight piece that
puts all the larking about on hold, so I might download the digital edition of
that and watch it in the next few weeks as I'd really like to see them do
something truly unique and visually inspired. I'm looking forward to their
upcoming film Space Cop because their work seems to have grown in confidence
since 2010 and I can imagine it'll be a more focused piece.
We shall see
But
for now I'm still left with that one all important question: what did happened
to Garrett Gilchrist?
