Title: Dead and Breakfast (2005)
Director: Mathew Leutwyler
Cast: Jeremy Sisto, Ever Carradine, Erik Palladino, Oz Perkins, Gina Phillips, David Carradine
Review:
Some people are calling Dead and Breakfast America's answer to Shaun of the Dead. I don't agree so much with that comment but oh well thats what their calling it. Read my review to see why I don't agree.
The story is about these friends who are on their way to a wedding and on their way there they end up staying at a Bed and Breakfast in the small town of Lovelock. Everyones a hillbilly and the place is full of weirdos. When one of the kids mistakingly opens a little oriental box that has a demon trapped inside it people start to get possessed and the bloody mayhem and gore begins. If that isn't a tired and worn down premise for a horror movie I don't know what is.
The problem with this movie for me was that it lacked a lot in the originality department. It was influenced by a few other horror movies and was desperately trying to imitate them and therefore sacrifice its freshness. First off, we get mixing music with the zombie mayhem which is good and all, but we've seen that before. These zombie go as far as imitating - step by step- the dancing zombies in Michael Jacksons thriller video. Even worse is the fact that this same gag had been used in a film called Shaolin Soccer. So right off the bat I felt this "been there done that" vibe. Not only that but since it wasn't something all that original the sequence felt forced. Like they were just trying to duplicate something that they found funny in some other film they saw.
It also wanted to be Dead Alive a lot. This is most noticeable in a sequence in which one of the main characters is assaulted by a swarm of possessed folk and she goes crazy hacking them up into pieces with a chainsaw resulting in a very similar ending then the one we saw in Dead Alive in which Lionel goes crazy with the lawnmower. Only thing is that when we saw that scene for the first time in Dead Alive it felt fresh and new, here it just feels like something we've seen before.
The movie has some comedic moments here and there like the scene in which one of the possessed uses a head as a ventriloquist dummy. But the problem is that when the film finally does find a cool visual gag or joke it overuses them till the point where they are annoying. They keep using that ventriloquist joke all through out the film. Same thing happens with the country singer who appears every few minutes to sing about whats going on in the movie. The first few times its funny...but then it just feels over used.
The possessed folk don't look posses at all! I mean if this movie was so influenced by the Evil Dead as it obviously was (heck there's even an Evil Dead poster hanging from one of the walls at one point) then why not take a hint from that movie and make your possessed people look scary? Nope, not here. Here we only get people with a little bit of black make up underneath their eyes and cheeks and thats it. Thats what passes for posses people here.
OK, OK, I'm not only going to bash this movie, it had a few cool things going for it. #1 thing that they got right? The gore. Its plentiful and unrestrained. Its got some cool gory scenes to boot. One that stands out is a sequence in which a dude gets a chainsaw stuck to the back of his neck as he sprays blood all over the place. And some people get their heads blown off by shotguns. But as we all know, a movie isn't good simply because it has gore in it. This movie needed to beef up its characters so we could care about em, it needed to explain its story in a better way (the whole thing with the Chinese box was a bit fuzzy) and it needed to come up with better gags and not just using the same jokes over and over again.
And as for this being America's answer to Shaun...well I don't agree for various reasons. Number one being that these are NOT zombies, they are possessed people. They talk and act like normal people and the only thing that makes em look possessed is the fact that they have black make up beneath their eyes. Thats it. Second, Shaun of the Dead was actually funny. This one is trying too hard to be funny and ends up being dumb and stupid.
Its a fun film, but nothing grand. Its repetitive, dumb, gory, fun at times but ultimately not fresh and original. On the plus side, I liked a few of the hillbilly songs that the band sings. Specially the one that all the zombies dance too. But that wasn't enough for me not to feel disappointed while watching this over-hyped film. Its like watching Evil Dead, but without Sam Raimis great directorial skills behind the camera. Final Word? Watch only for the gore.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Director: Mathew Leutwyler
Cast: Jeremy Sisto, Ever Carradine, Erik Palladino, Oz Perkins, Gina Phillips, David Carradine
Review:
Some people are calling Dead and Breakfast America's answer to Shaun of the Dead. I don't agree so much with that comment but oh well thats what their calling it. Read my review to see why I don't agree.
The story is about these friends who are on their way to a wedding and on their way there they end up staying at a Bed and Breakfast in the small town of Lovelock. Everyones a hillbilly and the place is full of weirdos. When one of the kids mistakingly opens a little oriental box that has a demon trapped inside it people start to get possessed and the bloody mayhem and gore begins. If that isn't a tired and worn down premise for a horror movie I don't know what is.
The problem with this movie for me was that it lacked a lot in the originality department. It was influenced by a few other horror movies and was desperately trying to imitate them and therefore sacrifice its freshness. First off, we get mixing music with the zombie mayhem which is good and all, but we've seen that before. These zombie go as far as imitating - step by step- the dancing zombies in Michael Jacksons thriller video. Even worse is the fact that this same gag had been used in a film called Shaolin Soccer. So right off the bat I felt this "been there done that" vibe. Not only that but since it wasn't something all that original the sequence felt forced. Like they were just trying to duplicate something that they found funny in some other film they saw.
It also wanted to be Dead Alive a lot. This is most noticeable in a sequence in which one of the main characters is assaulted by a swarm of possessed folk and she goes crazy hacking them up into pieces with a chainsaw resulting in a very similar ending then the one we saw in Dead Alive in which Lionel goes crazy with the lawnmower. Only thing is that when we saw that scene for the first time in Dead Alive it felt fresh and new, here it just feels like something we've seen before.
The movie has some comedic moments here and there like the scene in which one of the possessed uses a head as a ventriloquist dummy. But the problem is that when the film finally does find a cool visual gag or joke it overuses them till the point where they are annoying. They keep using that ventriloquist joke all through out the film. Same thing happens with the country singer who appears every few minutes to sing about whats going on in the movie. The first few times its funny...but then it just feels over used.
The possessed folk don't look posses at all! I mean if this movie was so influenced by the Evil Dead as it obviously was (heck there's even an Evil Dead poster hanging from one of the walls at one point) then why not take a hint from that movie and make your possessed people look scary? Nope, not here. Here we only get people with a little bit of black make up underneath their eyes and cheeks and thats it. Thats what passes for posses people here.
OK, OK, I'm not only going to bash this movie, it had a few cool things going for it. #1 thing that they got right? The gore. Its plentiful and unrestrained. Its got some cool gory scenes to boot. One that stands out is a sequence in which a dude gets a chainsaw stuck to the back of his neck as he sprays blood all over the place. And some people get their heads blown off by shotguns. But as we all know, a movie isn't good simply because it has gore in it. This movie needed to beef up its characters so we could care about em, it needed to explain its story in a better way (the whole thing with the Chinese box was a bit fuzzy) and it needed to come up with better gags and not just using the same jokes over and over again.
And as for this being America's answer to Shaun...well I don't agree for various reasons. Number one being that these are NOT zombies, they are possessed people. They talk and act like normal people and the only thing that makes em look possessed is the fact that they have black make up beneath their eyes. Thats it. Second, Shaun of the Dead was actually funny. This one is trying too hard to be funny and ends up being dumb and stupid.
Its a fun film, but nothing grand. Its repetitive, dumb, gory, fun at times but ultimately not fresh and original. On the plus side, I liked a few of the hillbilly songs that the band sings. Specially the one that all the zombies dance too. But that wasn't enough for me not to feel disappointed while watching this over-hyped film. Its like watching Evil Dead, but without Sam Raimis great directorial skills behind the camera. Final Word? Watch only for the gore.
Rating: 2 out of 5