Feeding Frenzy is a 2010 horror-comedy film directed by Jay Bauman and Mike Stoklasa of RedLetterMedia. The film is a No Budget monster movie, made as a Pastiche of the slew of low-budget Gremlins knock-offs that popped up in the late 80s/early 90s, such as Hobgoblins.
It was filmed in and around the company's native Milwaukee and stars a cast of local actors, with a cameo by Z-movie scream queen Tina Krause.
The character of Mr. Plinkett, who had previously appeared in many short films produced by Stoklasa, was given an entirely new backstory and characterization in this film as a sinister, diabolical villain with dark secrets and a scary basement. This depiction of Plinkett would be borrowed by Stoklasa for some online video reviews he was making during production.
Feeding Frenzy provides examples of:
- The Ace: Much to Jesse's annoyance, Kyle is tall, handsome, athletic, intelligent and successful as well as dating his crush.
- Ate His Gun: All three of Mr. Plinkett's sons died by eating the same shotgun. In the end, his reanimated son also kills himself this way after Plinkett dies. Jesse and Christine ask him to at least untie them first, and he asks Jesse to hold his shotgun in his mouth while he does so.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Christine is menaced by globkins in her car. When Jesse and Carl reach her, they see her motionless legs hanging out of her car door, but when they rush to see what happened, she's reclining in her car seat talking on her phone.
- After Jesse decides to go home instead of save Christine, he pauses on the sidewalk and hesitates, but instead of going back to save Christine, he picks up some litter and throws it away.
- Blatant Lies: Mr. Plinkett claims that the trail of blood running down his aisle and the bloody mess around his table saw are the results of two unrelated accidents involving tomato sauce. Jesse doesn't question it.
- Blind Without Them: Phil loses his glasses while plumbing and is blind enough that he mistakes two globkins for his glasses.
- Body of Bodies: Mr. Plinkett is rebuilding his family using cow meat and spare parts from human victims.
- Call-Back: In the opening scene, Mr. Plinkett tells the prostitute licking his cane, "Yeah, eat it with your mouth!" Later, when Martin is masturbating to Oprah, he mutters the same thing.
- Camera Abuse: After Jesse power-drills a globkin, he tosses it away and hits the camera.
- Chekhov's Gun: The defibrillator is introduced in the first act and used as a weapon in the third.
- Covers Always Lie: Played for comedy. The cover image is filled with Testosterone Poisoning, giving the male leads ridiculously muscular physiques and heroic poses that bear no relation to their actual appearance or behavior. Christine even does a Leg Cling.
- Creator Thumbprint: A DVD copy of Death List appears in the film as well as several other RLM productions.
- Creepy Basement: Mr. Plinkett has a "private area" in his store's basement where he's up to no good.
- Damsel in Distress: Christine needs saving in the final act.
- Dead Star Walking: Tina Krause is the only actor with any name recognition, and she dies in the opening scene.
- Decoy Protagonist: The film begins by following a prostitute to her appointment with Mr. Plinkett, but she does not survive the encounter.
- Dirty Old Man: Mr. Plinkett is an old man in a wheelchair who hires a prostitute and mutters creepy things to her as he makes her lick his cane.
- Disposable Sexworker: The opening scene has Mr. Plinkett kill a prostitute, and a later scene implies that Christine's down-on-her-luck friend who's resorted to sex work has also fallen victim to Plinkett.
- Distracted by the Sexy: In the middle of the crisis, Jesse and Christine wonder where Carl is. The scene cuts to Carl dancing with two sexy ladies at a bar.
- Drop Dead Gorgeous: The opening credits play over an extended sequence of Mr. Plinkett dragging the bikini-clad corpse of Tina Krause.
- Eaten Alive: What the globkins do to their victims.
- Evil Cripple: Mr. Plinkett is a murderer who is confined to a wheelchair.
- Evil Old Folks: In spite of being played by a man in his thirties, Mr. Plinkett is apparently an elderly man whose wife died in 1975, and he's also evil.
- Eye Scream: Phil Davis somehow manages to mistake two globkins for his glasses and holds them up to his eyes, causing the monsters to eat his eyes.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: Played for comedy in the final act when Christine becomes distraught and cries, "Everybody's dead! Kyle... some girl I made out with at a frat party... this guy..."
- Fanservice:
- Tina Krause does a sexy dance and then licks Mr. Plinkett's cane suggestively.
- Played for comedy when three girls have a pillow fight in their underwear for no particular reason.
- Fanservice Faux Fight: Three half-naked girls have a pillow fight for obvious Fanservice... and then are annoyed by having to clean up an unexpected mess of pillow feathers.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Jesse, Christine and Carl make up a list of all the hardware store customers who might be targeted for death, there's a VHS case on the table for Death List.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: The camera gets really close to the globkins as they gnaw on people.
- Hollywood Old: Rich Evans plays the elderly Mr. Plinkett in spite of obviously being a man in his thirties doing an "old man voice." He regularly plays the same role for Red Letter Media web videos.
- Hurricane of Puns: Mr. Plinkett shouts a long sequence of puns as he pelts Jesse with various human bones.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Mr. Plinkett empties a revolver at Jesse and Christine in a confined basement while they just stand there and cringe, but doesn't manage to hit either of them. He's got much better aim with thrown objects.
- Innocent Innuendo: Twice at the hardware store.
- When Carl recommends some caulk to his former girlfriend, she thinks he's talking about something else entirely.
- Plinkett tells a customer, "I've got your nuts!" and then clarifies that the man's order of screw nuts has come in.
- Innocently Insensitive: When Jesse reminds Christine that he, her and Kyle all went to high school together, she blithely notes how easy it is to forget about him.
- Just a Flesh Wound: A globkin spends about a minute of screen time gnawing on Jesse's leg, causing bits of gore to drop out, but once he kills it, he never shows any pain when walking.
- Kensington Gore: Jesse cleans up the bright red blood trail left behind on the hardware store floor. Blood splatters everywhere in a few more scenes.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- When Mr. Plinkett's minion is tying our heroes up, there's nothing to stop the ones not yet tied up from just running away. Carl asks Jesse, the last in line, "Hey, why aren't you running away?" Jesse says, "Oh, yeah!" but by this point the minion starts tying him up as well.
- When Christine is getting sprayed with gore, she screams, "Why don't I move?"
- Leg Cling: Christine is drawn doing this on the cover as part of its laughably Testosterone Poisoning style.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Jesse, Christine and Carl split up to warn customers of the hardware store that they may be targeted by monsters.
- The Lost Lenore: Mr. Plinkett lost his wife to cancer in 1975. He's trying to resurrect her using his science powers.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Mike Hilton is only embarrassed by having to stuff his mess of entrails back into his torso.
- Mood Whiplash: When Christine's friend starts to open up about being raped by a john while working on the street, Jesse bursts in with a boombox singing a cheesy love song in a misguided attempt to woo Christine.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The globkins are just cantaloupe-sized heads with fanged mouths.
- Noodle Implement: Carl announces he needs his tea kettle back for Tea Kettle Night at the VFW. "You can't have Tea Kettle Night without a tea kettle! Oh come on. You know what I'm talking about!" You then makes a "toot-toot" noise with the kettle, but never explains what the hell he's talking about.
- Off with His Head!: Mr. Plinkett is killed when his reanimated wife pulls his head off.
- Organ Theft: Mr. Plinkett's motivation for his murders.
- Overly Long Gag: Christine is faced with an embarrassment of riches when trying to select an Improvised Weapon from a tool rack, to the point that she's paralyzed with indecision. She spends quite a lot of time waffling and second-guessing her selections.
- Really Gets Around: Christine apparently goes wild at frat parties. She met and hooked up with Kyle at a frat party and later admits to making out with a girl at a frat party, which was then uploaded to the internet.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Christine criticizes Jesse several times over the course of the film for being a stupid loser.
- Rescue Romance: Discussed and ultimately played straight. Jesse declares his feelings for Christine (once again) in the third act and says that he'd hoped their common bond of surviving this stressful situation would result in a romance, but Christine sets him straight. In the end, however, Christine does at least consent to have sex with him for saving her.
- Running Gag: Martin's heart condition and Carl's apathy are played for laughs several times.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After receiving one too many lengthy diatribes on how much he sucks from Christine, Jesse decides that he doesn't feel like saving her from the monster and goes home.
- Serial Killer: Mr. Plinkett is initially teased as a simple depraved serial killer, but it's more complicated than that.
- Shout-Out:
- Jesse and Martin's apartment is filled with tapes and discs of bad, schlocky films, including The Stuff and Baby's Day Out, which is proudly displayed on top of the television.
- When Mike Hilton manages to stuff the globkin eating him into a knapsack, he exclaims, "Thank the Maker!" This is what C-3PO says in Star Wars: A New Hope.
- Sickening Sweethearts: Kyle and Christine gush shamelessly over each other for an excessively long time at the hardware store while Jesse rolls his eyes.
- Speak in Unison: When Mr. Plinkett's son announces his intention to eat his gun, Jesse and Christine both pipe up in unison, "Wait!" Instead of trying to convince him to keep living, they just ask him, in unison, to untie them before he kills himself.
- Stopped Caring: Carl's main characterization is that he doesn't care about anything. Even when Christine might be in trouble and he shouts that they have to find her fast, he takes a beer out of the fridge and casually drinks it instead of rushing out the door.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After a Fanservice Faux Fight with pillows, we hard cut to the three girls glumly cleaning up all the pillow feathers.
- Sword Cane: Mr. Plinkett's cane has a spring-loaded blade on the end.
- Take That!: Jesse reads a book entitled How to Trick Attractive Women Into Loving You by David Spade, with a forward by Brian Austin Green.
- Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: After utterly failing to hit Jesse or Christine with his revolver, Mr. Plinkett throws the empty gun and hits Jesse in the chest, causing him to yelp in pain.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Jesse's roommate is named Martin Van Buren.
- You Never Asked: Carl reveals that he knew all along that Mr. Plinkett had carnivorous monsters in the basement. When Jesse asks why he never said anything about it, Carl says, "It never came up. Plus, I don't care."
