Dead & Breakfast

I had this one sitting around for awhile (as I recorded off TV about two years ago), but I heard mainly poor things which made me leave to sit on my shelf gathering dust. Clearing out my copies, I decided to take the dive and in all honesty it wasn't too bad. It might be dumb, but still sorely entertaining. The very low-budget horror / comedy 'Dead & Breakfast' is completely daft, but surprisingly amusing with its tongue-in-cheek pulp send-up of the zombie sub-genre. Its influences are obvious, but it doesn't try to hide it but wears it on its sleeve. After an imaginative get-go, it does fall on the familiar side (small rural town under threat/people boarded in a house with the dead outside) with its running joke beginning to wear thin, but its comic book enthusiasm (and crazy blood splatter) drives it on. It really relishes in the gruesomely squishy make-up FX and oddball pluckiness. However it has some interesting facets like the storyboard illustrations cutting between scenes and linking the erratic storytelling is a singing narration (which does feel longer than it is) with a real country swing. But the leering one would be variation of how the zombies come about. Nicely done. Roaming through is a rock soundtrack, and a score that's got the flair to match. The performances are light-head, but colourfully quirky and sharp with the likes of Gina Phillips (who's perfectly wholesome), Jeremy Sisto, Bianca Lawson, Ever Carradine, Erik Palladino, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Brent David Fraser and Miranda Bailey. It was cool to see David Carradine pop up in a cameo role too. Also recognizable showing in minor parts are Vincent Ventresca, Portia de Rossi and Diedrich Bader. Spiritedly goofy, messy fun.

I was at a screening of Dead and Breakfast tonight at the Sidewalk Film Festival here in Birmingham and really enjoyed the movie.

Warning- this movie is not for the weak of stomach. Gore content is out of the roof. However if you are a fan of splatter comedies such as the Evil Dead series, this movie is a must see.

The premise of the movie is your stereotypical horror movie set up. On the way to a wedding a group of semi-strangers get stuck in a small town overnight and someone gets killed.

The highly comedic twist to this horror is apparent even after the first killing as one of the group spends a good thirty seconds trying to run away from the dead body and instead slipping in a pool of blood over and over.

This movie was very much influenced by the Evil Dead series (in fact you can even see an Evil Dead poster in the closet where they first find the chainsaw) but does the comedy even better.

The appropriately over-the-top music of Zach Selwyn serves as a good and humorous progression between the scenes. He features original songs such as "Comin to kill ya", "Possessed" and "Quiet Little Town".

This was one of the best movies that I've seen in a very long time and I would give it a 9/10.

Horror comedies are usually much better on paper than on film, which Dead & Breakfast wholeheartedly proves. The first half is a mish-mash of self-consciously 'witty' dialogue and 'hilarious' situations as a group of yappy twenty-somethings throttle in a Winnebago towards Texas for a wedding. But an overnight detour leads them into a den of hillbilly zombies and handmade shotguns, and some semblance of fun, whether it's comedic or not.

With its unnecessary close-ups, terrible acting, and abhorrent hand-held camera use, Dead and Breakfast has all the charm of a first feature by a fanboy with too many ideas and too little experience. (Note that this is actually writer/director Matthew Leutwyler's third feature.) This isn't to say that the movie's bad – there's plenty of gore and creative death scenes to tickle your attention span for 88 minutes. But as a horror film it never finds its voice, and as a comedy, it tries far too hard to ever provoke a good chuckle out of me.

Early on, the lead is taken by Christian, a pill-popping but level-headed mediator played by the always wonderful Jeremy Sisto. But his premature nixing leaves the scattered cast without a den mother. Sara (Ever Carradine, who amazingly looks nothing like a Skolnick) should be leading the pack, but she spends the rest of the film bellowing, 'you've got to be kidding me!' as she wards off zombie attacks. Hardly a leading heroine. The rest of the cast – much better than the headshot-cast prats I see in studio horror pics these days - simply squabble amongst themselves about personal issues while under attack. Then there's the 'comedy': look, drunk guys aren't funny, rude French people aren't funny, and while slipping around in a puddle of gore is funny (see Shaun of the Dead's off-screen tumble by Simon Pegg), when the scene lasts upwards of 30 seconds, one feels pandered to. Even hillbilly zombies aren't funny – isn't that a little too on the nose?

You could do worse than Dead & Breakfast, but if you're looking for a genuine laugh with a good smattering of gore, check out another of Lions Gate's indie horror acquisition, Monster Man. And if you want a good zombie gorefest, stick with Dead Alive or Evil Dead II, which Dead & Breakfast aspires so painfully to be. Because there's nothing funny about desperation, is there?

People who compare this to Evil Dead and Braindead should be ashamed! I'm not saying this movie is bad but those two movies are so much better. I gave this movie a 6 because I enjoyed it the whole way through.

The comedy aspect of it was the worst part. The actors wasn't that funny and the jokes was usually a bit tired and took away too much from the vibe of the movie. I would have liked the humor to be a bit more sinister. And the gore a bit more visual and extended.

Everyone who likes splatter will probably enjoy this but don't expect a masterpiece like Evil Dead or Braindead.

A group of young adults decides to stay in a bed and breakfast for the night, but by morning two people are dead. Now witnesses and possibly suspects, the sheriff keeps them in town... but that's not the best idea, since there's about to be an outbreak of zombies, and not many will survive the next few days.

Maybe you stumbled on this film because you like horror comedies. And if you did, that was a good idea. It's funny and has gore that may remind you of such low budget classics as the early works of Peter Jackson ("Bad Taste" and "Dead Alive"). Nice blood, decapitated heads, a chainsaw and a homemade shotgun.

Maybe you stumbled on this because of the cameos from Diedrich Bader and David Carradine, or the appearance of horror regular Jeremy Sisto. Bader and Carradine are both great, though their parts are small. Sisto is also his typical self, which means you'll probably enjoy him. He's not as prominent as he is in other films (such as "May"), but he does not disappoint.

The reason you should have watched this film, but you probably didn't, is for Zach Selwyn (also known as simply Zachariah). He plays Randall Keith Randall, the musical gas station attendant. His songs are great, particularly one where he mixes rap and country, and has zombies dancing the "Thriller" dance. (Outside of this film, he is marginally known for his songs "CILF" and "TSA Gangstaz"... YouTube them.) The film would have been great without him, but he brought the enjoyment over the top.

I had known of this film's existence for years, but never had it forced on me until now... I'm glad it was. The picture's a little grainy and the budget is clearly nothing special, but if you're the type of horror fan who can look past that... you'll love it. The only problem is that Billy Burke (Charlie Swan from "Twilight") dropped out and doesn't appear... but you wouldn't notice.