Day 356: The Gingerdead Man

The Gingerdead Man 

I wonder if he knows the Muffin Man

Sometimes you just need to see a bad movie. There's nothing wrong with purposely watching a bad movie, it's an indulgence, like eating a piece of chocolate or an entire White Castle Crave Case by yourself. You know it's bad for you, but it doesn't matter. You want to enjoy this bad thing for all it's worth. It's one of life's joys. There are plenty of terrible horror movies out there and some even have a cult following. Full Moon Features/Entertainment specializes in putting out ridiculously schlocky horror movies like Evil Bong, Demonic Toys, and Puppet Master. When you pick up a movie called “Evil Bong” you pretty much know what you're going to get. Despite making a whole lot of “so bad it's good” movies, they still managed to screw one up starring the human dynamo known as Gary Busey.

The Gingerdead Man is a 2005 horror movie starring Gary Busey (Under Siege, I'm With Busey) as crazed killer Millard Findlemayer. At a diner in Waco, Texas, Findlemayer goes on a shooting spree killing Jeremy and James Leigh. As the police are closing in, he fires at Sarah Leigh (Robin Sydney, Masters Of Horror: Right To Die, Evil Bong), but she manages to survive (or it misses her, it's not really clear). Some years pass, and Sarah is running a bakery on the verge of closing thanks to businessman Jimmy Dean (Larry Cedar, Deadwood, The Crazies) starting his cafe business across the street. We learn through a voice-over that Millard Findlemayer was executed and his ashes were given to his mother who happens to be a witch. Sarah receives a package of gingerbread spice left at the back door by a cloaked figure. While mixing ingredients, Brick Fields (Jonathan Chase, Gamer, The Mentalist) one of the store's bakers, accidentally cuts his hand, spilling blood in the mixture. The contaminated dough is then cut into the shape a large gingerbread man and placed in the oven. Jimmy's daughter Lorna (Alexia Aleman, Close Call, Mad Men) brings a rat into the bakery in order to get it closed down and a fight with Sarah ensues. Lorna's boyfriend Amos (Ryan Locke, American Gun, Supercross) breaks up the fight, but not before Lorna causes an electric surge to hit the oven and reanimate the gingerbread man with Millard's soul. The murderous Gingerdead Man, as he is dubbed, goes on a violent killing spree, murdering Jimmy, cutting off Sarah's mom's finger, and encasing one of the workers in frosting. With the doors booby-trapped and the Gingerdead Man seemingly impossible to kill, how will Sarah and Amos survive?

Pictured: Gary Busey in his natural state

I knew it was going to be bad. There was no “maybe” about it. When you pick up a movie about a killer gingerbread man voiced by Gary Busey, you know you're not watching the next Ben-Hur or Schindler's List. With movies of this caliber, you want lots of murders, ridiculous one-liners, and perhaps a little nudity. Instead, The Gingerdead Man feels the need to try and be a real movie. There are far too many scenes filled with boring dialogue and exposition and not enough insane, laughable violence. The movie starts off so promising as the very first scene of the movie involves Gary Busey, who may or may not have been acting) walking into the shot and firing a gun. No dialogue, no setup, just a disheveled Busey and a gun. That's magic right there. Unfortunately, that's all the live Busey we get as he voices The Gingerdead Man for the rest of the film. For whatever reason, we never see him arrested or executed, instead getting a 2 sentence voice-over explaining his death and his mother's witchy abilities. The movie is barely an hour long, they couldn't spare an extra minute to show some of this? It's not like the rest of the movie was crammed with action either.

When the movie finally gets around to the violence, it becomes immensely more entertaining. It's still not great because a movie like this needs to be ultra violent and ultra bloody. While it's funny to see an gingerbread man driving a car into Jimmy, it's not the most creative way they could have killed someone. With a bakery full of all sorts of tools and machines, don't you think they could have been a little more creative? As a former baker, I couldn't believe that a) they work without gloves and b) used a mix that someone bled into. Lorna didn't need to bring a rat into the bakery, it was already worthy of an “F” rating from the health inspector. The movie is strangely very dark making some scenes difficult to see. There are some laughs in the movie, mostly coming from Busey's foul-mouthed Gingerdead Man and goofball wrestling fan Brick. The actual gingerdead man puppet is kind of funny looking with a scrunched-up typically evil face. I think it would have been better if it switched back and forth between a normal, sweet-looking gingerbread man and the evil one. Kind of like the snowman in Jack Frost. 

"Welcome to Wal-Mart!"

The Gingerdead Man is ridiculous and absurd, but for all the wrong reasons. Despite being only an hour long, the movie moves incredibly slow thanks to unnecessarily long dialogue scenes that go nowhere. We don't need or want dialogue with this type of movie. We want lots of over-the-top violence and lots of Gary Busey. When you have a loose cannon like Gary Busey (see here, here, and here for proof) in your movie, just let him go nuts and have him on screen as much as possible. We only get a little bit of him and it's incredibly disappointing. The violence is good, but should have been far more extreme. I almost feel bad for criticizing a movie about a killer gingerbread man. Almost, but not enough to stop me from doing it. The movie doesn't reach the “so bad it's good” level of C-list movies and tends to annoy more than entertain. And to make things worse, they made multiple sequels. If you're with a group of friends or have been drinking heavily, you may get a sarcastic laugh or two out of The Gingerdead Man. If not, do yourself a favor and avoid it and stick with donuts.

Be sure to check out another review of The Gingerdead Man by Josh Langland (@TheHorrorGuru) from Blood Splattered Cinema. It's far funnier than the actual movie. Buse-anity!

2.5/10

Day 319: Puppet Master

Puppet Master

Obey your master...master

I've reviewed a few movies courtesy of Full Moon Entertainment, including Demonic Toys, Decadent Evil,  Evil Bong, and Meridian. While all three were different, their similarities were obvious. All were made on the cheap and were completely balls-out insane. I mean, a talking bong that kills people? A Beauty And The Beast knockoff horror movie? Whatever the fuck Decadent Evil is? When a movie with murderous toys is the least batshit insane movie out of the bunch, you know there's something wrong. Full Moon did actually have a breakout hit amongst all their stealing piles of crap: Puppet Master. The Puppet Master franchise has spawned over ten movies, comic books, and toys. If a movie franchise has lasted this long, the original has to be great, right? Of course not, this is Full Moon we're talking about!

Puppet Master is a 1989 direct-to-video horror movie written by Charles Band and Kenneth J. Hall. The movie stars Paul Le Mat (American Graffiti, American History X) as psychic Alex Whitaker. In 1939, puppeteer Andre Toulon (William Hickey, Tales From The Darkside, The Nightmare Before Christmas) is tracked down by two Nazi spies. Toulon had discovered the secret ability to give life to inanimate objects and bestowed the gift on his puppets. As the Nazis are about to break down his door, Toulon shoots himself before they could get his secret. Fifty years later, a psychic named Alex Whitaker begins to have strange, violent dreams involving both the past and the future. At the same time, fellow psychic Dana Hadley (Irene Miracle, Midnight Express, Inferno), has a vision of getting her throat cut. Alex and Dana, along with psychic couple Carissa and Frank are summoned to the Bodege Bay Inn where their former colleague Neil Gallagher (Jimmie F. Skaggs, Cutthroat Island, Leathal Weapon) is staying. They meet Neil's wife Megan who informs them that Neil has killed himself and before his burial, insisted that the four psychics were present. As the day turns into night, Toulon's puppets come to life and begin to wreak havoc on the guests. Soon, only Alex and Megan are left alive. To their shock, Neil turns up alive and well. How is this possible and what does Neil have in store for Alex and Megan?

"Ain't I a stinker?"

As with any killer doll movie, you have to take the plot with a grain of salt. Done correctly, the killer doll genre can be quite scary and very entertaining. Child's Play and the Talking Tina episode of The Twilight Zone are proof. Puppet Master gives us different dolls with unique attributes, like knives for hands and spitting up leeches to keep things interesting. Sure, it's utterly ridiculous to see a plastic doll spit out multiple leeches, but hey, at least it's different. The puppets look good with some nice detail put into each one. The use of stop-motion gives the puppets semi-believable mobility and multiple first-person camera shots for the puppets' point of view is fun and mixes things up. There are some fun kills and the usual amount of violence and nudity expected in a Full Moon movie.

The problem with Puppet Master is that the over-the-top violence and action doesn't come in until the last third of the movie. Instead, we have to sit through a story that must have been dipped on molasses before it was made. I had literally zero interest in the psychics and their screwy dreams. It has very little to do with the killer puppets, which is stupid because the entire point of the movie is to see the puppets kill people! I didn't watch the movie so I can hear about psychics and the barely-their connection to Toulos. The dream sequences were ridiculous time killers that had a high unintentional comedy factor. I didn't care about Alex, which is a problem because he's the fucking main character. If I don't care about him, why should I care about anything else? On top of that, his hair was a ridiculous amalgam of Meatloaf and Dennis Miller hair. The acting is downright painful, though it's not like they had a lot to work with.

Yeah, this makes sense

When I watch a killer doll movie, I want to see killer dolls. I don't want to have to sit through some unnecessary blather about psychic. You wouldn't watch a zombie movie if the focus was on the main character's golf game, would you? The first 40 minutes are painfully dull and almost completely useless. When the dolls finally start killing people the movie actually becomes fun and entertaining. The variety of dolls kept things interesting and the first-person camera shots were a nice touch. The violence was decent and distracted from the plot holes and filming mistakes like an elevator clearly going up while the numbers go down. While I wasn't expecting Citizen Kane, I figured that a movie that spawned 10 sequels would have at least been decent. Demonic Toys was a better movie. DEMONIC TOYS! If you're morbidly curious or a completest, I'd say check out Puppet Master. If you're looking for a good movie, check elsewhere.

3/10

Day 96: Decadent Evil

Decadent Evil

Dshitty

Usually my intros have a little explanation of why I chose a movie or what a movie means to me. This time, I'll just post the description of the movie: “A vampire named Morella feasts upon the blood of strip club clientele while housing her ex-lover Marvin – part human/part reptile – in a bird cage.” If that makes any sense to you and sounds like a good movie, congratulations, you are a lunatic. I knew what I was getting into would be bad, but I didn't know just how bad.

I'm going to keep this short and sweet because if I explain too much, blood might start to pour out of your eyes. A female vampire named Morella is trying to drink the blood of 10,000 victims in order to gain control over all vampires. She keeps her ex-lover Marvin, a half man/half reptile Homonoculus, in a bird cage as punishment for cheating on her, because why not? For reasons beyond my comprehension, she thought that having two stripper minions get her victims is the best way about achieving this goal. The strippers (I'm not making this up) are named Sugar and Spyce. That's not a typo on Spyce. A man named Dex is in love with Sugar and despite dating her for a long time, hasn't noticed her vampire teeth or seen her during the day time. Vampire hunter Ivan (Phil Fondacaro, Evil Bong, Land of the Dead) clues Dex into to all the vampire information and together they go to Morella's mansion to kill her. Dex convinces Sugar to leave with him, but Spyce and Morella stop them. Ivan kills Spyce, but is stopped by Morella. Ivan sees Marvin in the cage and recognizes him as his lost father. Will Ivan be able to kill the vampire while Dex and Sugar escape to live happily ever after?

This is what happens when you can't spell correctly 

If you've managed to make it through that synopsis, God bless you. It feels like the story for Decadent Evil was written on the back of a used napkin and the dialogue was written on a filet-o-fish wrapper. The movie starts with a few minutes of explaining how Morella became a vampire. It makes no sense, mostly because it's actually clips from a completely different movie called Vampire Journals. WHY BOTHER?! It adds absolutely nothing to the movie and makes bad story even more disjointed. And why do you have to have vampire stripper minions get your victims? Wouldn't they just take away meals from you? Why do they have to be strippers? Isn't it easier just to go to a homeless shelter or a hostel and pick off people that no one will notice if they disappear? The whole Marvin side story makes even less sense. It's so incredibly stupid that it belongs at a Tea Party rally.

The movie makes it a point to explain why you can see the vampires reflection and why the show up in pictures. Something about vanity. In the very same scene, Ivan says not to believe everything you see in movies. Why change that one thing about vampires and nothing else? Crosses, garlic, and stakes to the heart seem to work just fine. Phil Fondacaro puts on the best performance in the movie, but he doesn't have much to work with. Lines from the other actors have all the emotion of a cactus. There is enough nudity and sex in this movie for it to qualify for Cinemax: After Dark, but it's far from enjoyable. There's some action, but nothing to really keep you interested. The movie clocks in at just over an hour, so I should be grateful that this ended quickly.

WHY IS THIS IN A MOVIE?!?

Simply put, Decadent Evil is a wretched pile of shit. The story makes NO SENSE, the dialogue is ridiculous, and the acting is terrible. Apparently it took 6 days to film this movie, which is about 7 days too long. For whatever reason, they felt the need to make a sequel. I guess they couldn't fit in more insane things like a talking muffin or a vampire pimp. Either way, avoid this monstrosity of a movie at all cost.

1.5/10