When on their way to attend a wedding, a group of friends stop at a Bed & Breakfast for the night in the sleepy little town of Lovelock. But the night is filled with anything but rest, as the friends finds the Inn's chef murdered, along with the owner who suffers a heart-attack. They contact the local Sheriff who immediately is suspicious of the kids, but soon they find out that the town's folk has been possessed by an evil spirit who turns the citizens into zombie-looking things. Now, how can they stop the evil spirit, and what if it can't be stopped?
Dead & Breakfast is not half as funny as it claims to be, still though, it's an entertaining flick that features a lot of gore and splatter. Another thing it features that's on the plus side are some good actors that makes this flick more enjoyable. You have Jeremy Sisto from Population 436, the lovely Gina Philips from Jeepers Creepers, David Carradine from Kill Bill, Ever Carradine from Party of Five, CSI, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back etc, and Erik Palladino from CSI as well, just to mention a few. All put together, they manage to make the film a bit more entertaining I think, and these actors characters are all pretty likable.
Even if Dead & Breakfast is supposed to be a horror comedy, don't expect anything similar to Scary Movie or whatever, since it's not like that at all. I would say that it features some comical elements every now and then for the first hour, but after that it's basically goodbye comedy and heeellooooo splatter. One could maybe compare it to Braindead/Dead Alive since it goes in the somewhat same direction. That is starting out as more as a comedy but after a while turning into a pure splatter movie. Although, Braindead still managed to keep and deliver the humour even when it turned into a splatter-fest, something that Dead & Breakfast did not manage to do at all.
It starts off with that this group of friends decides to spend the night at a Bed & Breakfast while on their way to a wedding. At the B&B they meet the chef (Diedrich Bader from Drew Carey Show, Office Space etc) who plays some French chef which is not really funny, but still a bit funny though. He soon gets a knife in the throat, and the owner of the Inn (David Carradine), suffers a heart-attack. David (Palladino) sets off to get the local authorities, and comes back with the local Sheriff who's a real jerk at first, but later on becomes a bit more likable.
Soon they find out that an evil spirit has been released and have possessed the folks in the sleepy little town. Now, those who have not yet been possessed has to try and stop this ongoing madness, kill the zombies, and find the source of it all. It's not a very original movie, basically some people gets trapped in a zombie-infested little town and has to deal with the zombies and the weird locals. But at least it's entertaining, has a bunch of pretty funny moments (some moments are more stupid though), and has some shitty music accompanied by some decent music that switches place with each other every now and then.
Speaking of music, there's also some local cowboy dude with a guitar, singing songs for the viewer inbetween some of the scenes about what just happened or what's gonna happen. If you've seen 'There's Something About Mary' you know exactly what I mean with the dude singing as it's just the same. Unoriginal of course but still works. Another thing that works are the comic book influences, and there are comic book drawings shown inbetween some of the scenes and in the intro as well. It adds a nice little touch to the whole thing, and it's pretty cool.
So it's not very original but who cares? It has some decent comedy stuff and some comical things that does not work at all either. What it has though is a bunch of good actors, playing likable character and that made the movie deliver on one level acting-wise. Now, Dead and Breakfast actually had some pretty good gore, that was something they were not holding back on which was appreciated as well as the splatterfest towards the end. So, good blood, gore and splatter, a bunch of likable character, good pacing and a few jokes that works. Not too bad eh? It's far from great but at least it's watchable and pretty entertaining.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2004
DIRECTOR: Matthew Leutwyler
WRITING CREDITS: Jun Tan, Matthew Leutwyler
GENRE: Horror, Comedy
CAST: Gina Philips, Jeremy Sisto, David Carradine
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 88 min
RATING: 6/10
Dead and Breakfast Website/IMDB Click here
Dead and Breakfast Trailer Click here
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