Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust

Wow!--A MUST SEE! Make way for the new cult film of the millennium. This little fan-film is a hilarious outrage for anyone who has ever seen a Charles Band production.

I saw the Full Moon screening and was blown away.

Up there on the screen was a painfully accurate parody of Charles Band himself! A low budget film about a low budget film producer who makes bad puppet movies!!! The dialog and effects are over the top and unforgettable.

The casting was dead on and perfect.

And the Cameos were amazing! The producers of the film got a bunch of horror film directors to play, horror film directors, --Dave DeCotau, played himself, John Beuchler, played himself, Adam Green, played a bum... Okay so Adam Green ain't a bum, but he's funny as hell! -- Michelle Bauer played an aging eighties scream queen, and Kenneth J. Hall played a really bad self obsessed actor...

The movie will have you whooping with laughter as you are introduced to a new batch of bad puppet creations called the "Tiny Terrors" including Sh*t For Brains, Haunted Dildo, Treasure Chest, Knob Goblin..

And the old Ginger Dead guy is hysterical as the killer cookie on a rampage.

See this film!

No pun intended - this sequel may be the best in the ... well trilogy of this series that exists (I am not counting the crossover movie where the Gingerdead man meets the Evil bong ... especially because I have not watched it yet) ... this even has a flashback and a "what happened so far" intro to the movie.

So we are all up to date, when the movie begins. It is all wink wink - fully aware of what it is and way more on the fun side than the first movie, that tried to be quite serious. It even has a few cameos that work really nice. People that you may know if you are a horror movie fan. Nicotero, Buchler to name just two.

So while this isn't amazing or anything of that sort ... it still is quite fun to watch - no pun intended here either ... plus better effects (bit more budget I assume).

The first Gingerdead man film from 2005 wasn't a good movie. With elements that were barely passable, it was hard to like anything about it. The acting wasn't believable, the special effects were cheap and the villain was wasted. Plus, the only main attraction for watching the movie was to see Gary Busey act as himself and voice the chunky funny gingerdead cookie man. But apparently, either there was a small fan base that demanded a sequel or the release of the 60-minute film gained enough money to render a sequel. Not sure which is the case but here we are the next installment - and it doesn't improve much at all.

This next chapter of the wisecracking serial killer cookie brings us to a troubled film studio that can't cut a break in problems. Its whole crew is a bunch of misfits that don't cooperate and could care less who they're working with. Leading this poor operation is director Kelvin Cheatum (Kevan Moezzi), who smiles like he's never heard of bankruptcy being a bad thing. However, it's not until a package of baked goods come on set and inside lies the dangerous gingerdead man. So my question is, how did he come back to life? How did he get all the way to this set? It was clear to why the gingerdead man needed victims, but why was it necessary to get his victims from this specific studio set? Viewers won't understand.

As for acting goes, Moezzi isn't a good actor at all and perhaps that's how his character was supposed to be written, but I found the first movie better because at least the actors tried to make their characters seem real. And they knew fear when problems arose, but here Kelvin is just a grinning emotionless shell of a character. The new voice actor behind the gingerdead man is okay but Gary Busey at least would've still been more appreciated. However, viewers may enjoy Joseph Porter's performance as Tommy. He gives his character a unique spin that even I was not expecting. That is one plus.

And the last two pluses are the special effects and violence. Considering the first film had bad special effects and a very small amount of violence, the improvement is noticed and it looks better to be honest. Sadly this doesn't help improve its overall score. The overall writing isn't good either. In fact, the title to the film only ties into the story at the very end. It's cheap, lazy and insulting to think that's how a story is told. There has to be a lead up to this kind of result, but instead it's just inserted last minute to stay true to the title. Not even the music helped this time around. Just another cash in is all it is.

This sequel has extremely loose continuity and bad acting. Even with improved special and practical effects, the character development is feeble and its plot is hardly even there.

Ever since this title was announced way back, I had been waiting patiently for a chance to watch it, granted the first one was one big pile of drivel, I had always maintained a certain level of hope for an improvement with the follow up.

Sadly to say, and not for the first time, 'Gingerdead Man 2' - The Passion Of The Crust, although at it's festering heart contained a serious good idea, I found my patience beginning to wear very thin as I was treated to a ten minute recap from the original.

Having spent the vast majority of my teenage years viewing every movie that Charles Band had produced, jumping on board with Empire Pictures, and then holding on for dear life with Full Moon Pictures, I have pretty much witnessed the good, the bad and the downright ugly! No matter how bad the proceedings, I will always give over my time for a movie produced by the man himself, but dear oh dear, the last couple of outings have left a lot to be desired, 'Doll Graveyard', 'Dangerous Worry Dolls'.

Now the notion of a movie within a movie has always been an intriguing idea, one such movie that comes to mind was Fred Olen Ray's 'Bad Girls From Mars' starring Edy Williams.

Granted that film was any great shakes, the only thing that kept it afloat was the odd flash of nudity to keep the movie trucking along! with 'Gingerdead Man 2' it was good to see such legends from the low budget film world strut their stuff in front of the camera, make-up maestro John Carl Buechler showed his acting chops as the beleaguered director Orson Biggs! It was also pretty cool to see scream queen icon Michelle Bauer steal some screen time as one time scream starlet Polly Bunderhoof, even twenty something years on, Miss Bauer still looks pretty stunning! At the film's core, was the idea that this low budget film company, Cheatum Studios, you have to love that name have been struggling for some time to make any sort of entertaining movie, and of course through William Butler's screen story, this idea in itself is a thinly veiled mickey take on the financial ups and downs of Charles Band himself.

I guess therein lay the problem for myself, I wanted to enjoy the movie, but it just kept on dragging on and on, getting involved with a myriad of ideas that mainly led the movie nowhere, such is the case with the Full Moon ideas being produced.

A quirky movie at best, and although I know Part Three will fast approach at some point, depending on the budget of course, I really do wish Charles Band would think outside the box and give the Full Moon fans something decent to watch.

My rating is 1 because the Cookie Has Crumbled!

I basically love any and all movies Full Moon releases, so yea I liked this movie. I like that it was set on at a movie studio - obviously one just like Full Moon.

This was campy fun, with some gore, and a nice stupid twist right at the end. Oh, and it also had a dose of Satanism! Which, for me, anyway is something that is near and dear to my heart. In a way, this whole movie is kind of a spoof of Full Moon productions. It also touches a lot on the whole internet driven movie fandom as well as what its like to run a low-budget movie house. Oh, did I mention there is a crazy gingerbread man running around killing people? That alone makes this 100% of awesome.