The Gingerdead Man (2005)

Best movie of this year hands down!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The Gingerdead Man: Directed by Charles Band and Written by William Butler and August White(Pseudonym for Domonic MuirThis was a suggestion by James Cowdrey but I'm not entirely sure it was a serious suggestion. This movie is called The Gingerdead Man and it features a bonkers Gary Busey voicing a sentient cookie trying to murder people. This was never supposed to be taken seriously. The actual gingerbread man is pretty well done and shot in a way to make it as convincing as it needs to be in this situation. This is an extremely short movie. It says it runs at 76 minutes but it has a good ten minutes of credits. It also has this super cheap royalty free casio keyboard music that runs through every single solitary minute of the movie. If it was used a little more sparingly, it would work better to add to the wacky, goofy mood this film is trying for. There is almost no gore and all the gags you think they would use they do albeit poorly. This comes from Charles Band, that great B movie video king who I enjoyed during the 90s. This has a few moments that are fun in that way but not enough. It's schmaltzy. The acting is abyssmal as to be expected. It's also not very funny. It's what you think it is.I give this movie a D.

Gary Busey is a prime example about how a promising career can be flushed down the toilet by accepting the wrong scripts! Actors tend to ignore the fact that a lot of people can not tell the difference between real life and soumthin' dae done seed at the Four Corners Gulch picture showin'. And that means what comes around goes around, even when it comes to celluloid! The mind is a powerful thing ... and if people hate you enough, you are in big trouble! Which explains how a man can have a 30-something year career and wind-up playing a killer cookie! You can't play the role of the bad guy and expect to have the life of Pierce Brosnan! As for the movie ... stoopid! A little cookie has the strength to knock a 20 something year old out with a wooden kitchen tool? That's gonna happen! Sorry ... though much of the acting wasn't too bad, not at all ... the movie still sucked pimentos! However ... there is a good lesson here ... you really are what you eat! GOT MILK?

Gary Busey is known for being odd in general. From his uneven eyes to crazed-looking grin, it shouldn't surprise viewers that he would be cast in such a ridiculous movie. To be honest, this isn't even a feature length movie. Its running time is 70 minutes and 10 of them are end credits so it's more like a TV movie more than a feature film. But I digress, this horror film does show some ingenuity in various places but it also lacks focus at the plot.The title is self-explanatory. Gary Busey is a psychopath, Millard Findlemeyer. He goes on a rampage and kills the owner of a family business along with his son because they attempted to stop him, leaving the daughter, Sarah (Robin Sydney), wounded. Once Findlemeyer was arrested, he was sent to the electric chair and cremated. A couple years later, Sarah is struggling to keep the business afloat along with a new eatery across the street threatening to close the shop. Little does Sarah realize, Findlemeyer will be back,...as a gingerbread man. Yeah.Silly - yes. Preposterous - absolutely. Acceptable - to a point actually. The reason why this concept is acceptable is because voodoo plays apart of the story. It certainly does not play as strong or as creepy but look at Child's Play (1988)...a killer's soul is transferred to some nonliving object. It's not terrible, it's just not original. Here's what does work for this picture - the creature effects, Gary Busey and the music. First, Gary Busey is a fine choice to play this particular psychopath because well, it's Gary Busey. He's just a strange man playing a strange character, which seems to fit the bill well.The creature effects were also pleasantly well crafted, for its budget at least. The look of this killer gingerbread man looks like a rejected Muppet but still carries a little charm (thanks to Busey); even if the dough looks a lot like rubber. And to be frank, I'm glad they used a puppet, because using CGI would have made it that less enjoyable knowing I was watching something just pasted on screen instead of actually being filmed. Roger Ballenger's one time musical score wasn't the greatest but it did contain some rather goofy tunes, which I liked. And although it is a horror film, Ballenger's score is appropriate because this movie is goofy. Who can take a talking gingerbread man seriously no matter how deadly?But looking at everything else is where this movie just doesn't work. First and foremost, the plot lacks focus. Too many times the direction and point of view will shift between the protagonist (Sarah) and the gingerdead man, but it'll happen way too often. Even more surprising, is how little the villain is actually in this movie. Findlemeyer's screen time is far less than Sarah's. Instead, viewers will have subplots of drunken old ladies and forgotten birthdays thrown at their faces for no reason. These kinds of movies aren't made to be complex, so why bother? Viewers came to see the gingerdead man and that's what they should see. Sarah as the protagonist is okay but she doesn't do much to make herself stand out from any other actor there. Oh and let's not forget that one dumb person who says they're leaving several times but keeps returning. Ugh. However, the most shocking part of this whole movie is the violence. There is practically no gore at all. There really isn't. I would assume of this because of how little the killer was on screen. Again, I realize that this movie had a tiny budget and only Gary Busey as its star power but there are films out there that became successful with very little. Too bad it doesn't work as well as it should have. Maybe if Busey's character had more screen time, it would have been better.Gary Busey works as the crazy cookie because he IS a crazy cookie. That's about it though. The practical effects look efficiently used but it's only visible when the villain is on screen, which isn't often.

The B in "B Movie" stands for Gary Busey in this film. He dominates in this film. If anything, the whole reason a price tag is on this film should be for Gary Busey. He is a great, creepy killer in this film. Even in cookie form. Who cares if the film is bad? Who cares if this film makes no sense? GARY BUSEY IS IN IT! Thats enough for me.This is a strange film, it was a movie I stared at in the video store wishing I could rent it, but no. I was never allowed to rent anything R or PG-13 at Family Video at the age of ten. I saw this, Uncle Sam, Santa's Slay, Jack Frost and it's sequel, and Banned & Exposed: Too Hot for Cable TV! looking me in the face, begging me to rent them. But I couldn't. But the covers were enough, I loved every cover of these films. They were a big tease, but the covers were very cool. With this one, I said "What the hell is this?" I couldn't imagine how this would work.The film starts at a diner where a killer named Millard Findlemeyer (Gary Busey) opens fire on the Leigh family and kills Jeremy (the brother), James (the father), and leaves Sarah (Robin Sydney) and the mother Betty (Maggie Blye). A year later, Sarah is working at a bakery and while making a Gingerbread man, an employee drips blood into the dough and while baking a power surge makes the baked good come to life with Millard Findlemeyer's soul possessed into it. It has an extreme Child's Play feel like no other movie and feels like almost another one in the series.The premise is up and down a lot. The film is only around seventy minutes, but even with the minimal requirement for a movie length, it struggles to keep the movie going. It sometimes drags on for the most simplest of things. I hate that, it's extremely annoying. Though The Gingerbread Man has comebacks and remarks almost exactly the same of ones like Freddy Krueger or Chucky would say. The comebacks/gags are corny and though sometimes amusing, throw off the "scare" level of the film.I also want to point out that shockingly there's a sequel to this film too. The Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust was released in 2008. There will also be a third film entitled The Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver that was due for a release in 2009, but maybe coming out this year or 2011. I will try and find the sequel and do a review but after seeing how this film played out, though entertaining, still had various flaws, I'm in no hurry.Starring: Gary Busey, Robin Sydney, Ryan Locke, Alexia Aleman, Jonathan Chase, and Maggie Blye. Directed by: Charles Band.