"Only at Red Lobster!"
Waiter: What sounds good to you folks tonight?
Customer: Thirty shrimp, please!
Waiter: Great choice!
Customer: Thirty shrimp, please!
Waiter: Great choice!
Great Choice is a 2017 Horror Comedy short film written and directed by Robin Comisar. This 7-minute short follows a cheesy, thirty-second commercial for Red Lobster that gets played on a loop... with one of the women in it (played by Carrie Coon) becoming increasingly aware that she's in a looping commercial. When she starts to realize the gravity of her situation and begins to act out, things go off the rails fast.
The short film made its debut in the festival circuit in 2017, becoming nominated for and winning several awards. As of 2022, the film continues to make appearances in various live film festivals, and according to Comisar, it's unlikely for the film to see a widespread release, though bootleg recordings have made their way across the internet from time to time. Comisar claimed in several interviews since 2017 that he was adapting Great Choice into a feature-length film, though no news of its progress has appeared as of 2023.
Great Choice contains examples of:
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer: The "drug dealer" connotations aren't obvious at first glance, but the "Charming Waiter" steadily deteriorates into this kind of behavior. He first begins the film appearing perfectly nice and unassuming in offering Jen a great deal (at a Red Lobster), but once Jen begins to question what the heck's happening to her, he becomes visibly impatient, devolving into punching her to the ground and pouring boiling water on her face until she agrees to the "great choice". Jen eventually retaliates by brutally stabbing him in the throat and slashing out his tongue, but even as she escapes the loop and makes her way into the "real" support group, he's still outside the window banging on the glass for attention, demanding she continue with her addiction.
- All There in the Script: The end credits at the film don't list character names, but other sources (including IMDb) lists the main character's name as Jen.
- Bloody Horror: Jen's violent retaliation against the loop by stabbing the waiter and slicing his tongue out is very bloody, to the point that Jen herself is freaking out by what she finds herself forced to do.
- Broken Record: The waiter seems only capable of asking Jen "What sounds good to you folks tonight?" and responding to her with "Great choice". His tone becomes increasingly hostile the more Jen realizes something is wrong and stops saying her line, and by the end of the short, he's left screaming "GREAT CHOICE!" in pure rage.
- Deliberate VHS Quality: The film is presented mostly like an old, grainy VHS recording of a commercial from the 90s, including system screens with blocky fonts, overly-saturated colors, and visible tracking lines. These effects fluctuate in and out the more Jen begins to go against the script, falling apart almost entirely once she escapes.
- The Ending Changes Everything: It's not immediately obvious on a first watch, but the twist ending recontextualizes the increasingly horrifying "Groundhog Day" Loop as being a metaphor for addiction: Jen starts off in what looks like a pleasant, perfectly innocuous scenario until it starts to repeat, and the more she questions her script, the more aggressive the waiter becomes in getting her to say her lines and the more the loop begins to deteriorate and fall apart. The process in which she's able to escape is a violent, horrifying experience, and even when she manages to find herself in the security and comfort of a support group, the waiter is still out there begging for her to play her part, evidently not willing to go down without a fight.
- Facial Horror: Jen's first attempt at retaliation after getting attacked by the waiter is splashing scalding hot water on his face, the same water he previously used on her. Unlike with Jen, we see how badly his face is messed up as he begs her "What sounds good to you folks tonight?!", only for it to suddenly revert back to normal once he gets up and the loop really starts going off the rails.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: As the commercial stops and the VHS recording rewinds several times, there tends to be very prominent and out-of-place faces in between the garbled distortions, some of which are actually of the support group that doesn't appear until the very end.
- Funny Background Event: During the climax where everyone in the restaurant begins roaring out of nowhere, a close-up focusing on one man also has another man visibly dancing on the counter for no real reason.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The primary core of the film is of a looping thirty-second Red Lobster commercial, with a woman realizing she's stuck in one of these and reacting with increasing confusion and horror toward the situation. The more she does act out, the more details around her start to distort, from an increasingly hostile waiter to the narration devolving into word salad.
- Lemony Narrator: The Red Lobster commercial's narrator is an unseen character that begins off reading standard copy, but gradually deteriorates into a combination of Word-Salad Humor and Word-Salad Horror, a combination of which is brought on by the sudden swerves into disturbing yet also surprisingly helpful advice without breaking his upbeat tone.Narrator: At Red Lobster, at this point in time, die forever unless you stop him from saying his line!
- Or Was It a Dream?: The Reveal of Jen stumbling in tears into a modern support group meeting suggests that the whole looping commercial she was stuck in was some terrible nightmare (or at least some metaphorical representation of whatever addiction she's trying to recover from). However, while her mentor and fellow members are there to congratulate her for her 30 days of sobriety, Jen still spots the (inexplicably still-alive) waiter banging on the window, breaking the glass as he screams at her. The final shot of the film — right after we see Jen being individually hugged by several group members and a close-up of the furious waiter — shows Jen standing in a completely empty gym, making it even less clear as to what just happened.
- Retreaux: Before any of the horror elements kick in, the initial Red Lobster commercial is a pitch-perfect recreation of a typical ad from the 90s you'd find for any big family restaurant, including the overly-chipper acting and cheesy taglines. It's very specifically a recreation of a real Red Lobster commercial from 1994
. - Surreal Horror: The entire scenario of the film involves finding yourself trapped in a looping Red Lobster commercial, not knowing how you got there, and not knowing how to escape. In the climax, once Jen slices the waiter's face apart, everything goes to hell with everyone other patron in the restaurant suddenly becoming pale and roaring like ghosts, signalling to Jen that it's time to run.
- Tongue Trauma: After several loops of increasing horror and abuse at the hands of the waiter, Jen shoves a knife into his throat, and (much to her own horror) takes the extra time to slash out his tongue in order to shut him up from pursuing the script.
- Tropaholics Anonymous: Upon Jen escaping the commercial, she suddenly finds herself in a dingy gymnasium with a support group for recovering addicts. As she stumbles into the room in tears, the host comes up to comfort her and asks her if she made her "30 days". She silently nods, to which he proudly hands her a sobriety token. The end credits lists the group as being of an "NA Meeting", i.e. Narcotics Anonymous.
- Violence Is Disturbing: The usual Red Lobster commercial is kitschy and perfectly wholesome, making the fact that any violence is happening even more disturbing. When Jen points out to the waiter that she doesn't remember how she got there or who he is, he punches her to the floor and pours scalding water on her face, leaving her screaming in pain as he screams to her "What sounds good to you folks tonight?!". Eventually, Jen finds herself forced to retaliate by shoving a knife into the waiter's throat and slicing his tongue off — throughout the whole process, she's screaming in horror from the sheer blood and barbarism of what she's doing.
- Word-Salad Humor: As the commercial begins to deteriorate with each loop, so does the commercial's narrator, straying from the simple lighthearted advertising copy to mangling a few of the words to swerving into disturbing comments related to Jen's plight to nonsensical babbling. Unlike the waiter or other "actors" in the short, the narrator almost never breaks his chipper, upbeat tone of voice.Narrator: At Fred Lobster, for a limited time, enjoy thirmy shrimp for just tenny-ten-ten!
