The Gingerdead Man

What is it that makes this Charles Brand tick away? This guy is like the not-quite-as-talented step-son of Roger Corman, producing hundreds of films, very few of them people actually probably legitimately like with a straight face (let alone those he might have, heaven forbid, directed). I didn't know this until I a) looked him up on IMDb, and b) was subjected to The Gingerdead Man, one of his recent, um, "features". I bought it thinking I'd get some laughs, after all it's hard to not find the prospect of a Chucky-style killer in the form of a Gingerbread Man (voiced by Gary Busey himself) quite tempting as a truly fun bad movie. But I didn't expect it to be this boring, this absolutely dreadful, so abysmally acted to the point where I wished my own bed-ridden Grandmother could walk on to the set and wipe the floor with these other "actors" with her own non-existent acting chops.

Oh sure, Brand *tries* to put a story together, something close to it I suppose, involving a bakery called, um, "bakery", and how it is under threat from a Mondo Burger style competition of a new bakery across the street and how the workers cant seem to cope and, uh, work into the late hours of the night and then one of them cuts his finger and so conveniently blood drips into the flour and the electricity goes off on.... damn, you get the idea. What little hope I had for the movie, perhaps from the trailer, was moot. Brand probably does know how to put together a trailer for a movie - looking at the one for this and a couple other "Full Moon" productions on the DVD it looks like that is their real metee - but the actual film is um... a film? More like a string of terrible, inexcusable and inconceivably written scenes strung together by wretchedly done "attacks" from the pastry on his dumb-as-wood victims. The only thing more stupid and ridiculous is how the poor little feller meets his/its end.

I wish I could recommend this, I wish I could say this is the "shiznit" of killer-whatever movies that you can turn off your brain and enjoy as fun schlock. I can't, in good conscience, ever do that. If it weren't for Gary Busey's little bits of "WTF-ness", I might have come close to slitting my wrists and swearing a life of nothing but Ozu and Bergman for the rest of my life.

The problem with this video cheapie isn't necessarily the concept. Sure the concept is cheesy and all but the film itself should abide by the rules of a good cheesy movie. Instead half of this film focuses on a teenage love triangle in bakery one scary night. It's like watching a soap opera called 'General Bakery'. The biggest plot hole here is that everyone stays inside the friggin bakery and lets a Gingerbread Man chase them around! No one ever thinks to get out or go get help when someone is hurt. Also there is no explanation whatsoever as to who the guy with the black cape was that brought the gingerbread dough to the bakery (I'm supposing it was Darth Vader). Of course it takes a little blood mixed with this dough to make an evil gingerbread man, so it just so happens someone cuts their finger while getting out the dough and viola! Vader knew it would happen.

The first couple of scenes with the Gingerdead Man made me laugh. I think it's funny to see Busey in gingerbread man form. It's just weird. But there isn't enough of him and the good stuff that makes a good cheesy straight to video flick.

The problem with this film is that it isn't fun enough. They tried to be a little too serious at times with the love story and the attempt at humor, especially the one guy acting like a superhero-ninja wannabe, can be particularly painful to watch.

I love Charles Band, his movies in the late 80's and early 90's have and still entertain me greatly, but this stuff coming out lately just ain't what it used to be.

With a title like that, and the premise being a walking/talking/killing cookie, I think most viewers will picture this movie being a (black) comedy. And it could have worked - I thought that the original "Jack Frost" movie, about a killer snowman, worked. But in this case, NOTHING works. The movie is really cheap, looking like a backyard production made in the 1980s and shelved for twenty years without any restoration. There's also a minimalist feel, with barely enough props and scenery, all looking very unconvincing. Gary Busey just seems to be going through the motions, with the scene he actually appears in as well as voicing the killer cookie. The supporting cast comes across as even worse, if that's possible, not helped by a script that makes them the stupidest characters I've seen in a movie for a long time. And even though the movie barely lasts 60 minutes (not counting the s-l-o-w closing credits), it goes by at such a slow pace that it feels endless. This movie actually has spawned two sequels, making me conclude that it was even cheaper than I thought, since I can't see most people liking this movie.

Now I did not expect this movie to be any good, and that is exactly what I got, a bad movie with one hell of a villain. Actually, this movie is more of a comedy than an actual horror. This movie is essentially about a killer who's soul gets somehow trapped in a batch of "magical" gingerbread dough. This ultimately spawns a homicidal, foul-mouthed and sadistic gingerbread cookie. It's just as bad as it sounds. There was horrible acting and a curious plot. However, there is one good thing about this movie and that is it's great surrealistic tone and coring. Other than that, there isn't that many things good about it.

So lets kick off, shall we? The acting was atrocious and really bad. Robin Sydney and Ryan Locke both displayed the perfects example of really bad acing as well as Larry Cedar, whose performance seemed as though he was trying not to laugh during his monologues or seemed that he was personally trying not to act at all. There were points where the acting was so over the top, that it wasn't even funny. One of the only good actors, and he wasn't all that good, was Jonathan Chase who actually was creepy near the end, though they killed him off way to quickly. As for Gary Busey, well, he was in the movie for a whopping 10 minutes.

The plot itself was very bad because it never fully explains anything, nor does it explain where the batter came from and it was never really confirmed that it was Millard as the Gingerbread cookie. The story took place in a closed bakery with glass walls and the main characters where panicking because they were trapped and they needed to find a way out, rather than breaking the windows or using the keys to unlock the door, since they work there. Plus, they were getting worried because the police won't come when one of the character literally ran out the door to look for her dad, who died, and rather than running to the police, she ran back inside. They also never explained who was it that dropped off the evil cooking dough. Also, Cedar's character was stupid enough to run into the wall as the gingerbread man ran into him, thereby becoming a victim of his own stupidity.

There were no scares in this film; even some of the gore and killings were laughable. But wait, there were only 2 dead people. I can't take a talking homicidal gingerbread man seriously and when he lops off fingers, shreds somebody's face or shoots somebody, it's actually quite entertaining in a funny way. The only scary part was when Jonathan Chase's character becomes the essence of the Gingerdead Man, and that in itself was pretty hysterical. I'm sorry, I just can't take a talking gingerbread seriously, even for a horror movie or a supernatural sci-fi it was pushing the box too hard.

However, the was one big aspect of the movie that I did enjoy and that was it's surrealistic atmosphere that practically tributed comic book style scenes as well as 80s horror movies. There was excellent red and green lighting that coincided with the theme of gingerbread and a bakery shop. There were great references to the ingredients of gingerbread cookies that was demonstrated through the lighting and special effects such as sparkles (sprinkles), yellow and some blue lighting (the frosting) and gumdrops. The camera angles were very interesting because they incorporated some great angular shots as well as some great pans and zooms. The camera work itself stayed consistent to the comic book style of setting up scenes with a primary focus and individual or group shots, as well as some POV's. It was an altogether great accomplishment for the technical side of this movie.

Overall, this movie was about as scary as your average Disney fairy tale; it even had its "Disney Magic" to it as well. The acting was insanely stupefied as well as the plot, mainly because it didn't make sense. There were points were I could not look at the movie and just turn away to laugh, because it just wasn't scary. It was if somebody turned the Gingerbread Man from Shrek into an angry, belligerent and more annoying "thing." I would recommend this movie to those who enjoy a good hardy laugh or to those who enjoy a not-so-good quality horror movie. But for those who actually want to be scared, or who are looking for something with a kick, stay away, far away; I didn't so now I'm remorseful.

It sure makes me psyched for the upcoming Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust. Blah!!!!!

"The Gingerdead Man" has a promising plot, and thinking that it would be similar to such gems as "Jack Frost", I decided to rent it from Netflix. My rental would have been better used elsewhere.

So, here's the plot. Gary Busey, playing a psychotic killer guy, gets sent to the electric chair because of one girl's testimony. See, this girl's brother and father were killed by Psycho Busey, and because Busey didn't kill her, the girl testified against her.

Well, one night, the said girl is making a gingerbread cookie in her little bakery (that looks so rundown from the front that you wonder why anyone would ever go in there) and somehow the cookie comes to life. Now if you read the plot line on the Netflix sleeve, it says that Psycho Busey's ashes found their way into the cookie. Apparently if you cook ashes in an oven, they come back to life in the form of whatever they're in. But you don't go into movies about killer cookies looking for plot lines.

Unfortunately, "The Gingerdead Man" doesn't have anything to offer. Sure, there's Gary Busey in cookie form, and he's good for a few laughs, but the VAST majority of the movie is just filler. The 60-minute running time (does that really qualify this as a real movie?) seems like 2 hours, because most of the movie is just people running around the bakery going "what is that thing", "I think it's Gary Busey", and "well, let's run away". Except they don't run away, even if they could have easily just tore out of the bakery and ran to safety.

Ultimately, the killer cookie plot can't save this dull, horrible movie that looked like it was made for $20. Seriously, I could make this movie. It isn't even the low budget that does it in, it's the fact that the movie is just dull, it has no even somewhat cool kills and there's just not enough killer cookie goodness. I was expecting a "so bad it's good" movie, but I just got a really, really bad movie that wasn't even unintentionally funny. Disappointment.