Dead and Breakfast
****
DVD
Directed by
Matthew Leutwyler
Written by
Matthew Leutwyler
Cast
Diedrich Bader
David Carradine
Portia De Rossi
Gina Phillips
R
88 mins
The
zombie movie, ladies and gentlemen. There have been HORDES of them
coming out lately--everything from the truly lousy ones like "The
Wickeds" to the slam-bang action ones like "Dead Meat". George Romero
actually came back to the theatres to give us "Land of the Dead," with
mixed results. And the newest horror genre, the zombie comedy, was born.
Much to the delight of horror fans everywhere.
It
kicked off with "Shaun of the Dead," and was quickly followed up with
movies like "Snow Day, Bloody Snow Day," "Hide and Creep," and now,
"Dead and Breakfast."
They bear a lot of the same elements.
Romero physics rule the day--destroy the brain and you destroy the
body. Lots of siegeworks are laid--buildings are boarded up and
barricaded as a way to defend against the undead hordes.
And as
if that weren't enough, they pack in the jokes. Tons of jokes. All
manner of funny bits, from slapstick to cerebral. If you don't laugh at
least once during the proceedings, check your pulse--you just may be a
zombie yourself!
So what we have here is a road trip gone wrong,
and the besieged bed and breakfast the six friends that went on the
road trip find themselves in, resting for the evening. Now, naturally,
if you're on a road trip with friends in a horror movie, something is
going to go catastrophically wrong. And if that something goes wrong in
the state of Texas, you know it'll go very wrong in a very big way.
Naturally,
it does. The bed and breakfast is besieged by a legion of the walking
dead. Which is pretty much why they called it "Dead and Breakfast."
The
opening menu is surprisingly clever. Watch that swirling background
(shades of Hitchcock!) and tell me you're not even vaguely impressed.
And
I positively love the first couple of minutes' comic book style opening
credit roll. The rockabilly song going on in the background is the
perfect compliment, and I'm just very impressed.
The country
song at the five minute forty second mark is too funny for words. I
mean it, folks...this is FUNNY. Funny is a great term to describe "Dead
and Breakfast"--adding Diedrich Bader to the cast was an excellent idea
for the comedy, and the creepy quotient gets ramped up handily thanks
to David Carradine.
But it gets better! Sixteen minutes and
forty eight seconds features one of the best jokes in the entire
movie--the "Find The Corpse" sequence. The morbid hilarity is
underscored by the soundtrack, and for being so horribly messy, it's
just really, really funny.
You know what? If I tried to
chronicle every single laugh-out-loud funny moment in "Dead and
Breakfast," I'd be here for days describing this to you. You'd be
sitting here reading a small novel about all the comedy. Suffice it to
say there are literally tons of comedic gems sitting in "Dead and
Breakfast," and that's long before the zombies even show up.
And
when the zombies first start to crop up, the comedy takes a back seat.
Oh, it's still there, but it's subdued in favor of a whole bunch of
really vicious action scenes and plenty of gore.
Forty eight
minutes fifty five seconds proves that "Dead and Breakfast" was really
paying attention during "Night of the Living Dead" as they take
alarmingly similar measures to board up the bed and breakfast. The
homemade shotguns are just incredibly brilliant pieces of improvised
weaponry.
And the song at one hour and fifty five seconds...oh
man. The comedy is back with a vengeance as the zombies mount a DANCE
NUMBER.
The ending is stuffed to the gills with action
sequences, the occasional joke, and a few nifty surprises. Including a
recapping music video during the final credit roll.
The special
features include commentary tracks, deleted and extended scenes, a
blooper reel (which is just a hoot in a movie like this), additional
music, a poster and still gallery, plus trailers for "Dead and
Breakfast", "Man With The Screaming Brain", "All Souls Day", and "It
Waits".
All in all, "Dead and Breakfast" is a hoot. Though there
will be obvious comparisons between it and "Shaun of the Dead", these
comparisons are cosmetic at best. "Dead and Breakfast" is a laugh riot
with lots of action and plenty of gore to be had. If you're not
laughing, folks, check your pulse.
Tags:
Movies Movie Video horror 
