Dead and Breakfast

Dead and Breakfast (2004): How can you resist a movie with a title like this. What we have here is a modified zombie movie with attitudes similar to ‘Shaun of the Dead’. In actuality, it appears to be a starring vehicle for Ever Carradine, David’s niece. David Carradine makes a cameo appearance and is mostly shot from mid-chest up; you rarely see his bottom half. (Hey, that’s not an all bad idea, come to think of it.) The director’s commentary explained that the eccentric David would constantly use his cell phone between takes and always had it in his hand during shots so they had to shoot high. That’s dedication to your craft. In any event, he was apparently just lending his famous name to help his niece’s picture take in the rubes.

While a pretty standard zombie movie, this one has a twist in that you only become a zombie if some of your dead bits get put into this ancient Asian box. Once in, you follow the orders of the prime zombie. This sets up some pretty funny situations as these dead guys apparently have a small level of self preservation left. After charging the Bed & Breakfast where the victims are holed up, they get a little sheepish when the whole front rank is mowed down by home made shotguns. They start to get funny looks on their faces that you don’t normally see in zombie movies and you can see their tiny brains working hard as they start to have second thoughts about their marching orders. One zombie even plays the guitar and sings. And in what other movie can you see line dancing – hip hopping zombies? Oh, there are plenty of exploding zombies, lots of body parts flying, and blood gushing but it’s so over the top that it is meant to be funny. True to form, cast mortality is appalling but Ever does survive but has to be dug out of a pile of dead guys. This was pretty fun and not your normal zombie movie. Beware; it does have a low budget. The movie is rated R for; gallons and gallons of blood, flying zombie parts, single shot shotguns, singing zombies, angry zombies, fearful zombies, and especially for the street full of line dancing zombies.