Thursday, October 5, 2006

Dead and Breakfast (2004)

Instead of telling you what DEAD AND BREAKFAST is about, I wish could just play one of the great songs off the soundtrack in order to give you a taste of what this low-budget but extremely fun movie is like. Sitting squarely in the same corner of the room as other great splatter-comedies like EVIL DEAD 2 and Peter Jackson's BAD TASTE and BRAIN DEAD, DEAD AND BREAKFAST is a exuberant mash of the above films as well as THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. While the beginning is a little slow and doesn't hesitate to scream "Direct to Video!", somewhere around the 40 minute mark things begin to go completely ape-shit and you no longer care, more than happy to get sucked right in to the ridiculous insanity that ensues.

Where to begin? After a fantastic hand-drawn opening sequence, we meet our three couples traveling across Texas on their way to a friend's wedding when they get lost and decide to stay in the creepy old bed & breakfast in the dead-end town of Lovelock. You know you're in trouble when the owner of the bed and breakfast is David Carradine in full-blown creep mode and your "French" chef is Drew Carey alumnus Diedrich Bader. Before you know Diedrich's dead in the kitchen and Carradine's keeled over from a heart attack next to a tiny evil box containing the spirit of his dead son. You know what's next - spirit gets out, possesses one of the kids who proceeds to kill everyone and turn them into zombies.

Oh, did I mention the singing and dancing?

The best part of the movie is Zach Selwyn, who acts as the Jonathan Richman character in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, narrating the events of the movie via song. Unlike MARY, however, Zach gets turned into a zombie and performs a hip mix of rockabilly-meets-rap. Don't worry: there's also a dance number called "We're Comin' to Kill Ya" complete with zombie line-dancing.

Lots of blood, decapitations galore, but very little actual scares. Looking to jump or be frightened? This is definitely NOT the movie to watch. Looking for cheap fun that's off the beaten track with absolutely kick-ass music? Then I wholeheartedly recommend DEAD AND BREAKFAST.

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