The Gingerdead Man - I was hoping for so much more

Now, there’s a school of thought which I call the ‘Snakes-on-a-Plane’ viewpoint – it’s where a film’s title tells you everything you need to know about the story and therefore, if you can’t work out whether you like it or not from that, you don’t really deserve to complain if the movie turns out to be not for you.  So, armed with my love of cheesy and ‘so-bad-they’re-good’ films, mixed with my enjoyment of the horror genre stories and appreciation for Gary Busey, I figured that the low budget ‘Gingerdead Man’ would be right up my street.

I think it’s fair to say that I’m not ‘spoiling’ the film by letting on that Gary Busey plays (mainly be voicing) a killer who’s murdered, but whose soul is sent to that of a gingerbread man (think ‘Child’s Play’ but with pastry instead of a ‘Good Guy’ doll).  Then he returns to reek revenge on those who, er, turned him into something from a baker’s window display.  I expected daft.  I expected ludicrous.  I expected low budget.  I expected a ridiculously over-the-top performance from Busey.  However, I only really got the low budget part. 

Yes, the film’s premise is as daft as it sounds and the budget is so small that the film stock used actually looks worse than you could probably recreate on your iphone.  In fact, the budget appears so small that there’s only really one location used for the whole film – a pretty bland factory.  Not only is the scenery nothing to write home about, but there are only really three cast members.  Now, the problem with this in a ‘slasher’ film is that it doesn’t really give the deranged killer many options with who to kill.  In ‘Scream’ the film would be over in about a quarter of an hour with that few ‘expendable’ characters!  Of course the lack of people to murder also equates into a lack of gore and/or creative kills, so don’t do expecting too much of the ‘red stuff’ here.

Yes, Busey does do his best with the script and adds an air of sheer manic madness to the proceedings, but I just felt that his best wasn’t enough to justify it.  Or, rather an idea this whacky could have been so much better with a bigger setting, cast and (gore) effects.  I could forgive the awful model of the Gingerdead man himself as that seemed to add to the overall silliness.  So, I think I can safety say that I wasn’t as much of a fan of the franchise as I thought I’d be.  Yes – franchise.  Just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean that other people agree with me.  It seems to have developed enough of a cult following to warrant a fair few sequels, so what do I know?  I just won’t watch them.  I’ll stick to viewing Gary Busey on the UK’s ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ to get a true dose of his madness!

2/10 Scuzzier than the leftover goo from a Queen alien's egg sack