GINGERDEAD MAN (2005)
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 70 Minutes 42 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Charles Band
Cast: Gary Busey, Robin Sydney, Ryan Locke, Larry Cedar, Newell Alexander, Margaret Blye, Johnathan Chase, Daniela Melgoza
I imagine the pitch for this went something along the lines of "Okay, imagine Child's Play, but instead of a killer's soul trapped in a kid's doll he's reincarnated into a gingerbread cookie, voiced by Gary Busy, it's a killer cookie flick!". This is one of those movies that I thought I had watched long ago, only to realize few minutes in that apparently I have ever only watched the third film some 20 years ago, and I remember liking it more than I would have expected. So, with that in mind I was actually looking forward to checking this out, I'm always down for some schlocky Full Moon fun.
Directed by Charles Band (Crash!) the killer-cookie flick opens in a in small-town greasy spoon diner where a deranged serial-killer Millard Findlemeyer (an off-his-rocker Gary Busey, Silver Bullet) blasts the Leigh family, killing father James (Newell Alexander, The Slayer) and son Jeremy (James Leigh, She's the Man), also shooting daughter Sara Leigh (future Charles Band wife Robin Sydney, The Lost) but she survives, and later testifies at his trial, where he is found guilty and sentenced to death, vowing to get revenge on Sarah. After his trial Millard gets the electric chair and is cremated, and then his dear old mother (E. Dee Biddlecome), also clearly demented, mixes her son's ashes in with her secret gingerbread cookie recipe and delivers it to Sara Leigh's family bakery. That's where one of the bakery employees, the wrestling-obsessed Brick 'Butcher-Baker' Fields (Jonathan Chase, Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust) uses it to make some oddly large gingerbread cookies. While doing so he accidentally cuts his arm open and bleeds into the mixture, and proving that the bakery should be closed down, continues to make the damn cookies! After popping the cookies into the oven The Gingerdead man is born, a 12" walking, talking killer cookie hellbent on killing not just Sarah, but everyone at the bakery! Yeah, it sounds stupid, and it most certainly is, but I had a fun with it, though I wouldn't call is a Full Moon classic by any stretch of the imagination it still delivers that low-budget Full Moon atmosphere that I admit I have a fondness for.
Other characters that pop-up here are business competitor named Jimmy Dean (Larry Cedar, The Hidden) who is looking to buy-out he bakery, as well as his bitchy daughter Lorna (Alexia Aleman) and her boyfriend Amos (Ryan Locke, Supercross: The Movie), as well as Sara'h alcoholic mother Betty (Margaret Blye, The Entity).
I will say that I think the killer cookie itself looks fucking awful, but it does have a weird grossness to it that I sort of liked, though it does not look much like Busey in anyway, but him voicing it is a hoot. The film is a horror-comedy more or less, and it needed more Child's Play-esque one-liners, we get a few doozines but they are not all that memorable. All the carnage takes place at the bakery, and there's not a ton of creativity when it comes to the kills here, sure, we get a shooting and stabbing during the opening diner scene, and later Dean is crushed by a car, there's a knife to the head, but it's not gory at all. All the kills are rather disappointing, if they had made them a bit more creative or gored them up a bit this could have been a bit better. The acting is also fairly bland but at least it's not awful either, the best stuff is the bitchiness between Lorna and Sarah, and of course Busey voicing the killer-cookie.
The Gingerdead Man is not classic Full Moon by any stretch but it is a fun enough killer-cookie flick, along the lines of stuff like Jack Frost, Evil Bong, and other pint-size creature-features. It could have been better with a few better one-liners and a more unhinged and animated vocal performance from Busey as the killer-cookie, and some gorier kills, but it falls short, but is not not-entertaining, it's just not amazing, so it's pretty much par for later-era Full Moon, so more Evil Bong than Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge - interpret that how you will.
Audio/Video: The Gingerdead Man (2005) arrives on Blu-ray from Full Moon Features in 1080p HD framed at 1.78:1 widescreen. This is advertised as being remastered from original elements, and it does look pretty good in HD with great colors and decent blacks, depth and clarity are modest but pleasing, and contrast is strong, and the source is in excellent shape. Audio comes by way of lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1 surround with optional English subtitles. It's nothing to write home about but the compressed audio does the job just fine, dialogue and score are well-balanced.
Extras include an 18-min Behind the Scenes Featurette; the 2-min Original Trailer and a 5-min Blooper Reel, plus a selection of Full Moon Trailers. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork.
Special Features:
- Behind the Scenes Featurette (18:08)
- Full Moon Trailers: Bad CGO Gator, Bring Her To Me, Aimee: The Visitor, Subspecies 5, The Gingerdead Man, Weedjies: Halloweed Night
- Original Trailer (1:55)
- Blooper Reel (5:07)
Buy it!
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