Tag Tiny Terrors

• AKA:


• Director: John Carl Buechler


• Writer: Brent Olson, Luca Bercovici (characters), Jefery Levy (characters)


• Starring: Kevin McCarthy, Evan MacKenzie, Griffin O'Neal, Thom Adcox-Hernandez


• Run Time: 94 mins

Everybody’s favorite troublemakers are on the loose again!

A college professor unleashes the Ghoulies from their bathroom prison when he reads out an enchantment from a comic book. Using them as his servants, he orders that they put a stop to prank week at the college, where rival frats continuously play jokes on one another in an attempt to win a crown.

Gremlins has a lot to answer for, spawning two successive similarly-themed ‘little monster’ franchises (Ghoulies and Critters) each of which have produced four films – no mean feat for any horror franchise (come to think of it, when Puppet Master currently stands at ten films plus a crossover with Demonic Toys, then any old franchise can sequelise itself into oblivion). In comparing the Gremlins-wannabes, the Ghoulies came off a lot worse than the Crites….and I mean a lot worse. Looking like sock puppets from the Victorian era that someone had found in a moth-ridden loft, the monsters looked every inch a pathetic bunch of no-hopers that wouldn’t scare a timid, ninety-year old granny who has had a few heart attacks and is clinging on to life. Someone saw some potential in them and after their disastrous first outing, even though the monsters were virtual spectators in their own film, they were back for the first sequel. Ghoulies II was just as awful as the first one, featuring marginally more Ghoulie action but they still looked like they’d been found in the rubbish dump. Not an auspicious start to a franchise.

The good news here is that Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College is the best of the series by a long shot. That’s not too hard considering the low budget ridiculousness of the previous two films and the sheer ineptitude of the next sequel. Hardly considered scary, this one works best if you take it into consideration with the other screwball 80s horror-comedies that were being released straight-to-video at the time. Containing frat boy humour, lots of drinking, a bit of college girl nudity, some cheap gore and a general feeling of harmless fun, Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College is best described as one of those juvenile American college comedies (National Lampoon’s Animal House, Porky’s, etc.) with some rubber monsters thrown into the mix. The entire plot revolves around two frat houses which are trying to one-up each other during prank week and the Ghoulies get involved. That’s literally it for story and what ensues is a cherry picking through the scrapbook of stereotypical college situations with little monsters causing havoc in each one. Sadly, the Ghoulies are once again given the shaft and they’re more background pests than outright threats.

There’s only three Ghoulies this time around and even though they look like shoddy stick puppets, they fair better than they’ve done in the previous outings, most likely due to the fact that there are fewer of them to animate. They look bigger than they did before, which gives them the impression of being overgrown kids when they dress up in frat gear. The bonus this time is that they talk. The little demons now fire off wisecracks and talk to each other instead of growling, leading to schoolboy humour-esque situations for example which they mimic the professor word for word. It’s hardly high-brow sophisticated comedy but it is daft and you’ll hate yourself for laughing along. The fact that they now talk leads to all manner of shenanigans, with the audience now able to listen to them joke amongst themselves whilst they perve on naked chicks or drink beer. And believe me, there’s plenty of naked chicks to go around, so much in fact that I must applaud the director for coming up with creative ways in which to justify it (like hell he does, he just constantly shows chicks taking showers).

Kevin McCarthy had fallen a long way since his glory days of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and he is given the thankless task of portraying Professor Ragnar, the man who controls the Ghoulies. McCarthy doesn’t give two hoots that he’s in something as terrible as this and ploughs on ahead with a crazed zest which puts many of his contemporaries to shame. If only everyone seemed to be having as much fun as him in their roles. Matthew Lillard, more famous as one of the killers in Scream (and of course, as Shaggy in Scooby Doo) makes his film debut here.

Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College is hard not to like in a “I know this is total rubbish but what the hell” sort of way but it doesn’t take itself seriously, emits an innocent charm and despite the silliness and stupidity, it’s still watchable 80s junk which hopes you’ll jump along for the childish ride. You’ll probably go along with it too – I certainly did.

• AKA:


• Director: Charles Band


• Writer: Benjamin Carr


• Starring: Michael Citriniti, Rhonda Griffin, Mel Johnson Jr, Jacqueline Lovell


• Run Time: 82 mins

Deformed. Devious. Depraved.

Two groups of rival collectors of severely deformed oddities are trapped inside a mansion with four of the little monsters which have come to life.

Charles Band continues his monopoly on ‘tiny terror’ horror films by featuring yet another low budget rehash of his successful Puppet Master films. Replace tiny puppets for tiny deformed monsters and it’s virtually the same film with Hideous! Band and his Full Moon company had fallen on hard times in the late 90s and without the distribution deal he had with Paramount Pictures, Band was forced to slash budgets, resulting in a number of films which look almost identical and were set inside the same old creaky Romanian castles which doubled up as glamorous mansions. Hideous! is one such film though such is the repetitive nature of these Puppet Master wannabes that it could have doubled up as Blood Dolls or Demonic Toys 2 and I’d have been none the wiser. All of these ‘tiny terror’ films blur into one for me because they’re so alike.

At least the killer puppets had charm and were more human-like than their acting counterparts. These freaks aren’t even worth a second glance, hardly coming to life with little movement and no distinguishing mannerisms to give them that lifelike touch. Maybe it’s because they don’t look like little people (watch the first few Puppet Master films and tell me that Blade doesn’t look like he comes to life) and so it is harder for the script to sell them as being alive.

When they do attack characters, it’s just a case of the actors grabbing hold of the puppet models and holding them to their throats or head and writhe around as if they’re being attacked. Considering how poor the selection of human characters are you’ll still be rooting for these oddities. Of course, you’ll be questioning how something small that doesn’t even come close to being knee-level with the characters can brutally murder them and with such ease.

The humans……ah yes. Never before have I seen such a dire selection of actors attempting to bring life to their strange roles. I’d never heard of anyone in this film before watching and doubt I’ll here from them again. Oh yes, Mel Johnson Jr. did star as mutated cab driver Benny in the original Total Recall but that’s not exactly a massive claim to fame. Jacqueline Lovell spends half of her screen time wearing a mini-skirt and an open black top, more than adequately providing enough token nudity for a handful of films let alone one. Another of the women gives blondes a bad name and her character got really irritating. It seems like she knew she was in a right turkey of a film and decided to ditz it up a bit.

However Hideous! is a film which seems to thrive on being oddball and weird-than-normal. Daft stuff happens (naked chicks with gorilla masks holding guns in the snow outside anyone?), no explanations are given and the story moves on as if you’re expecting to see the sights you see. Common sense, reason and logic go out of the window. These are meant to be throwaway films, devoid of any narrative structure, coherence or melodramatics and instead focus on ideas which purposely make the film seem cheesy and camp. I guess it works to a degree – it just doesn’t make for good viewing.

Hideous! was supposed to be a comedy horror but the only people laughing were Full Moon who actually got me to rent this piece of trash. Band’s only worthwhile ‘tiny terror’ flicks were the first couple of Puppet Master films so skip these pretenders and head to the real thing.

• AKA:


• Director: Jeff Burr


• Writer: Douglas Aarniokoski (screenplay), Steven E. Carr (screenplay), Jo Duffy (screenplay), Todd Henschell (screenplay), Keith S. Payson (screenplay), David Schmoeller (characters)


• Starring: Gordon Currie, Chandra West, Ash Adams, Teresa Hill


• Run Time: 79 mins

When Bad Puppets, turn Good

Rick is a young scientist working on an artificial intelligence project who moves into Andre Toulon’s old Bodega Bay Inn to continue his research. There he discovers a locked trunk with all of the puppets inside as well as Toulon’s life-giving formula. But underworld demon Sutek is angry that Toulon originally stole the formula from him and sends his demonic minions to retrieve it and kill those in possession. In order to defend himself, Rick animates the puppets and they become his protectors.

It’s a bit of an overly fantastic plot but how many times can you see a film about killer puppets before it becomes boring? Well in the answer of the Puppet Master series, the answer is three because this fourth instalment is pretty devoid of any new ideas apart from having the puppets fight other miniature monsters. Film back-to-back with the next sequel, Puppet Master 4 takes a nose dive off from the as-normal-as-films-about-killer-puppets-go style to the as-silly-as-films-about-killer-puppets-go style. Virtually rebooting the series with a new lead character taking control of the puppets and the fact that they are now the good guys, Puppet Master 4 is definitely going through the motions with the material.

The idea of turning the puppets into the good guys does give the series a tiny extra bit of life but that’s about all the energy you’re going to get for a sequel that is running on empty. Though all of this allegiance swapping throughout the series is a bit confusing, especially when you take into consideration the time periods in which they were all meant to be set. Besides which it’s much more entertaining seeing them slice up humans than tiny demons. They don’t do that here but neither do they do a whole lot of demon killing either. In fact not a lot happens for a good chunk of the running time. Just as things start to get more exciting at the finale, the film ends and it is then obvious that the rest of the decent stuff would take place in Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter. If you’ve seen that then you’ll know that’s not entirely the case but the whole double film idea just screams padding out. There was hardly enough material to fit into one film let alone make two out of it.

Once again the puppets steal the show and are more life-like and believable than the human cast. Their limited movement doesn’t really allow you to buy into them as killing machines any more but their mannerisms still make them seem more like little people than little puppets. When they finally start taking down the Totems in the finale, the novelty value of seeing them work together is quite good including a brutal three-on-one assault. Tunneller, Six Shooter, Blade, Pinhead and Jester are all back although most only get limited screen time. Annoyingly, Torch (the flame-thrower puppet and my personal favourite just because he looks so cute with his little helmet and boots) is nowhere to be found despite being on the film poster. Ms Leech is also absent but I was never a big fan so it’s not a problem. Despite this, the puppets are still animated in stop-motion in a couple of scenes which at least makes the special effects far better than any of the sequels that followed.

The new puppet, Decapitron, is little too far fetched to be in this film and is one of the things that make the entire film seem rather silly and cheesy. He has inter-changeable heads, laser beams and machine guns? Where did this puppet come from? Surely Toulon wasn’t a scientific genius capable of producing laser beams in WW2 Nazi Germany? Whatever the reason for its creation, the puppet has blatantly only been put in this as a way for the writers to abruptly solve a problem with a totally unexpected twist. Plus who in the world gave it the name Decapitron? That just sums up the film for me – a little too goofy and over-the-top considering how fairly well grounded the previous films were.

Puppet Master 4 is strictly for die-hard fans of the series and even some of those, like me, will struggle to sit through this yawn-fest with the promise of a small amount of cheesy puppet action at the end. If you aren’t a fan, then you’re best off checking the first three films for the best of the series.

• AKA:


• Director: Claudio Fragasso


• Writer: Rossella Drudi (screenplay), Claudio Fragasso (screenplay & story)


• Starring: Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey, Connie Young


• Run Time: 95 mins

One was not enough!

A young child is horrified at bedtime stories of goblins by his Grandpa Seth. His worst nightmares come true though when his family takes a trip to the remote town of Nilbog, a place filled with strange humans and even stranger food. It turns out that the entire population are actually goblins who are trying to feed the family food which will turn them into goblin food!

To kick off this review, I’ll quote the tagline for this infamous sequel – “one was not enough!” It certainly wasn’t and thus we are presented with one of the most universally-recognised worst films of all time. It’s currently sat in the bottom 100 on IMDB (number 17 at time of writing – I can’t believe there are another 16 worse films out there!) with a brilliant score of 1.9 out of 10. It’s reputation has begun to precede it and there’s a good reason for that – it is one of the most horrific, mind-numbingly, eye-destroying wastes of ninety-five minutes I’ve had the misfortune of subjecting myself to. But with its reputation as a shocking piece of entertainment, it’s also turned into one of the more sought after films – everyone just has to get a copy to see how bad it is. Believe me, no one in their right mind would want to even sit and watch just to say they’d seen it. I am sure in years to come there will be some sort of medical condition given to people suffering from the after effects of enduring this.

As if the first Troll wasn’t bad enough, some Italian hacks come along, make a totally unrelated film about GOBLINS and then seems to have tagged the Troll title along for release in foreign markets. Apart from a few moments where people turn into blobs of green goo or become plants, there’s nothing lifted from the original at all. Well there are the pitiful creature effects, the awful dialogue, the laughable acting and the ridiculousness of the first film all rolled up into one here. I can’t really write a comprehensive review of the film because I’ll just ramble on about how awful it is. So let me give you a few snippets from the film to get you into the mood.

Realising the goblins turn their victims into food by getting them to eat food, the young boy tries to stop his family from eating a meal the locals have laid on for them. He stands up on the table and pees on the food. In another moment of randomness, the goblin queen turns into a blonde chick to seduce a guy in a camper van. In the midst of seduction she pulls out a corn cob, which they then share between their mouths. He says he prefers popcorn so the next moment the bed explodes all around him with loads of popcorn.

Also in the film, a group of goblins chases a woman through the woods wielding weapons. A teenager rescues her and proceeds to walk up to the goblins and starts trying it on. Even if they’re only small, you still don’t pick fights with weird creatures you’ve never seen before and that wield spears. In another scene, one of the transformed teenagers is now a plant and is punished for trying to help a friend escape by having parts of his body (or stem, I’m not sure what he was at this point) cut off with a chainsaw. The young boy constantly gets advice by his dead grandpa, who then appears later in the film and is able to stop time and restart it at will. The film ends with a sandwich being the ultimate weapon of choice for the young boy which banishes the goblins.

Ah sack it: let’s hammer the film a little more. I’m sure no one will mind. The acting is an abomination and its chumps like this that give other actors a bad name. The whiny brat boy is the most annoying little twerp I’ve ever seen. All he seems to do is misbehave and shout “grandpa.” His sister is no better, seemingly smiling blankly at the camera in some scenes as if she’s forgotten her lines. The dad sounds like he’s just escaped from having a lobotomy and the locals are just that – local people in the village that it was filmed in.

The special effects look to have been lifted from a kid’s TV show. You can see the presenter now asking the kids to bring in green paint, some sticky-back plastic and some toilet rolls and then letting the youngsters run wild. The goblins wear potato sacks and their masks are those cheap and nasty Halloween masks that rip when you put them on or sting your face because there are so cheap, they’ve thrown any old skin-blistering paint on them.

If you thought Schindler’s List was a life-changing film, then you ain’t lived! Troll 2 is where it’s at. Traumatic and coma-inducing experiences don’t get any worse than this. I feel like the urge to die.

• AKA:


• Director: Peter Manoogian


• Writer: Charles Band (original idea), David S. Goyer (screenplay)


• Starring: Tracy Scoggins, Bentley Mitchum, Daniel Cerny, Michael Russo


• Run Time: 86 mins

They want to play with you.

After they are busted by the police and kill a cop, two arms dealers escape into a toy factory. One of them is shot in the process and bleeds into the floor, inadvertently releasing a sixty-six year old demon that has the power to bring toys to life to act as his minions. The demon is looking for a body to inhabit and instructs the toys to bring him the female cop, who is pregnant, so that he may possess the body of her unborn child.

Charles Band has some sort of obsession with little things and low budget horror films. The man who brought us the Puppet Master series was also the brains behind a slew of ‘tiny terror’ films like Hideous!, Dollman, Blood Dolls and more. It’s no surprise to delve into his back catalogue to find a whole load more miniature monsters ready to cause mischief. Killer toys are the name of the game in Demonic Toys, one of his earlier efforts released way back in 1992. Clearly one for milking an idea until it is dry, Band

Taken for the low budgeter that it is, Demonic Toys can almost be enjoyable at times: that is when the annoying demon child isn’t talking in his ridiculous deep voice. Or even when the cast aren’t doing unexplainable things which are simply there to further the plot (like lock themselves in a store room). Or the constant knack of another character getting introduced to simply fill out the body count a little more (why was the runaway girl in the film, for instance). As is the common theme with these films, you have to suspend your brain for the proceedings. This is always the case when you have to try and believe that something around an eighth the size of a fully-grown man can actually out-power one, let alone kill them. Even more so when one of these things doesn’t possess any arms!

The toys spend all of their time skulking around in the warehouse. It’s the only real set of the film which is a plus in many respects as the budget could have gone into the special effects, assuming there was a budget to begin with. Porn shoots would probably get more money than Demonic Toys did which conveniently leads me into my next point in that the cast look like they’ve just come from one. I’m not even sure whether Demonic Toys was actually just a side-project in between porn shoots. The one-location story makes for monotonous watching and the film is always dark and gloomy. There’s not even a lot happening in between random toy attacks and there’s an awful lot of padding here for an eighty-six minute film. Its hard to believe that writer David S. Goyer would go on to pen the Blade trilogy after this.

There are lots of problems with Demonic Toys but thankfully, when the title creatures are on-screen, the film is a lot of fun. Baby Oopsy-Daisy is a hilarious little bugger with a foul mouth who cracks all of the one-liners to give the film some comedy value. It may be a little crude and juvenile but the sight of such a thing verbally ripping apart the humans is a sight to behold and would give Chucky a run for his money. There’s Jack Attack, a jack-in-the-box who looks like a miniaturised version of one of the Killer Klowns From Outer Space, complete with a sadistic little laugh. These are the only two toys (to date of review) to make it through the other sequels and spin-offs. The other toys don’t fair as well, with Grizzly Teddy and Mr Static, a toy robot, making up the foursome in less memorable fashion. We know that the special effects aren’t going to be great but John Carl Beuchler works some magic on them, turning the toys, especially Baby Oopsy-Daisy into legitimate threats. It’s a shame that their screen time is limited, with the focus of the film being on the demon. Too much time is spent on this weak story and not enough time on little things killing bigger things!

Demonic Toys has some mildly entertaining B-movie moments whenever the toys are around but their screen time is too intermittent and the rest of the film drags like crazy. It looks like someone found these toys from a charity shop because the whole thing smacks of bottom-rung budget. Best to donate them back!

• AKA:


• Director: Jim Wynorski


• Writer: Luca Bercovici (characters), Jefery Levy (characters), Mark Sevi


• Starring: Peter Liapis, Barbara Alyn Woods, Stacie Randall, Raquel Krelle


• Run Time: 84 mins

A little black magic, a little black leather… and a lot of black humour.

Alexandra attempts to raise the demon Faust but inadvertently releases two Ghoulies into the world. Jonathan Graves, who encountered the Ghoulies years earlier, now works as a police detective in LA. It isn’t long before both Alexandra and the Ghoulies come looking for him and the crystal he wears around his neck.

The Ghoulies were the product of classic 80s low budget horror film making. Clearly rip-offs of the Gremlins, the Ghoulies were also small, aggressive and mischievous creatures intent on causing havoc and mayhem. They looked rubbish, the films were rubbish and they should have been consigned to the scrap heap for all eternity after the first film. But there was always heart to it and I actually felt sorry for the Ghoulies because of how shoddy they looked, especially the green one who always popped out of the toilet. They tried, bless them. And someone thought that they were popular enough to spawn a couple of sequels. So they were resurrected in 1988 and 1991 and now again with this third sequel.

Only they didn’t resurrect them. This time there’s no sign of the creatures that plagued the university in the last instalment or wreaked havoc at the fair apart from a few flashbacks (no doubt to remind you that you are actually watching a sequel). This time the Ghoulies are played by two very small actors with ridiculous troll masks and jive talking accents. They look like they just walked off the set of Troll or are a couple of kids on their way to a Halloween fancy dress party. They have changed their ways too, now siding with good against evil. They’re not the main focus of the film and are more of a side act for the majority of the running time. They’re not in it that much which is a good thing or bad thing depending on whether you assume more of them would have made the film more enjoyable (it wouldn’t, believe me). This whole film would have probably worked better as Troll 3 to be honest. The ‘black humour’ apparently featured in the film is mainly restricted to the antics of these two creatures as they attempt to find a way back to their own dimension. It’s about as funny as getting a wisdom tooth removed.

The film is one of those films that is literally unwatchable because of how atrocious it is. It’s boring and plodding. It’s got a lousy script which goes for the ‘buddy cop’ feel instead of little creatures causing havoc. It’s got terrible overacting from some people and drama school acting from others. The special effects consist of the usual low budget 80s bright lights and smoke machines. This one tries to compensate for the lack of Ghoulies by linking in with the first film and pretending that the last two didn’t happen. It does mean that there is a bit of story present but I’m sure that the handful of people (and I mean handful) who ever watched the original wouldn’t really have cared if they continued the story or not. It hardly feels like a Ghoulies movie at all.

The ‘highlight’ is the constant sigh of that chick on the front cover wearing a PVC costume. She’s the villainess but how could any warm-blooded male actually want to dislike her? She does look like a porn star or stripper in the outfit and it’s easy to see why she was cast. Peter Liapis reprises his role from the original in the attempt to get some continuity into the series. Though they forgot to bring back the original Ghoulies, instead settling for some ridiculous alternatives.

Ghoulies IV is helmed by a hack director notorious for his terrible films (many of which I’d watched!) and filled with the sort of inane film making that I’m sure would give guys like Rogert Ebert living nightmares. The previous three films may not be classics but at least they had actual Ghoulies in them and despite them looking like toys from a junk shop, at least they were entertaining in their own way.

• AKA:


• Director: Siliva St. Croix


• Writer: Muffy Bolding, William Butler (story and screenplay), Aaron Strongoni


• Starring: K-Von Moezzi, Kelsey Sanders, Joseph Porter, Frank Nicotero


• Run Time: 80 mins

Freshly Baked Terror!

Kevin attempts to keep his late father’s floundering movie studio afloat by making a sequel to Tiny Terrors, one of its infamous trashy low budget horror films. Unfortunately one of the crew resurrects the evil Gingerdead Man who then proceeds to slice and dice his way through the cast and crew in an attempt to find a human host body in which he can transfer his soul.

I’ll give you the good news first. This is better than its awful predecessor. But that’s about as far as the good news goes. Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust should not exist as a feature film. It’s a sequel for fans only but I didn’t realise the first film had any! It was utterly dire. Gary Busey aside, there was nothing to distinguish it from the millions of little puppets/dolls/monsters/demons films that Charles Band and Full Moon took it upon the world to monopolise. However someone decided a sequel was necessary and they have unleashed this abortion of a sequel onto the unsuspecting horror genre. Someone hand me a bin as this gingerbread has gone well out of date.

One of the first things I need to address is the running time and how liberties are played with the paltry eighty two minutes. It’s over six minutes before we get any new footage in this sequel as it begins with the obligatory flashback to the best bits of the previous film (including some token shots of Gary Busey to remind us he has a better agent now). Get a good look at him because he’s not around this time, not even the presence of his vocals. Following this, there’s a lengthy title credits sequence which only serves to pad out as much time as possible. Couple this with the overlong credits at the end (another four and a half minutes) and you’ve got a film which runs for little over an hour. When the new footage finally begins, one of the initial sights you’re greeted with is that of a haunted dildo.

That said, this opening sequence is rather amusing as it pokes a lot of self-deprecating fun in the direction of Full Moon Productions, Charles Band and his reputation for producing scores of these ‘tiny terrors’ horror films in which people have dealings with pint-sized creatures (Puppet Master, Demonic Toys, Blood Dolls, Skull Heads, Doll Graveyard, Hideous!, etc). The haunted dildo is one of these said creatures along with a wizard doll, a pirate wench puppet and coffee pot with machine guns mounted on its side. These creatures are all originally props on the set of ‘Tiny Terrors 9: Purgatory of the Petite’ but they’re brought to life at the end of film as the Gingerdead Man sets about trying to resurrect himself as a human. I’d rather have seen more of them on their own in a standalone film to be honest. It’s this horror film set which makes up the bulk of the story or lack of it.

The Gingerdead Man is more like a passenger in his own film and the rest of the running time is filled with the satirical day-to-day happenings of low budget film studio. Effeminate make-up artists. Horny mature actresses desperate to relive their glory days. Disgruntled special effects artists. Angry actors demanding to get paid. Directors so into their own vision for their film that they’re unable to see how poor it is. You know: he stereotypical characters you’ll see in any such film-within-a-film. Anyone with a vague knowledge of Full Moon and their vast film library will at least find some amusement in what they see here as it’s all essentially one big in-joke.

Oh yeah and every so often the Gingerdead Man will pop up and kill someone. No attempt is made to explain just how he’s still alive or how he came to be at the studio. I can’t remember how the original ended and nor do I have a burning desire to sit through it again to find out (the flashback at the beginning here hardly helps matters) so I’m going to go with the flow and assume that something cool, original and totally out of the book of horror resurrections happened. He’s more annoying and irritating than ever before, spouting off some truly banal one-liners and acting like a mischievous kid (albeit one who kills adults!). He does get the best line of the film when he sarcastically quips “who writes this s**t?” and I’m guessing it’s up to the viewer to decide whether it’s a direct joke at their expense. But, as I’ve already said, he’s an afterthought in the film and the ‘hilarious’ hi-jinks of the fictitious film crew take centre stage.

Veteran low budget horror director David DeCoteau makes a cameo. It’s especially funny as he’s known for his horror films which feature homo-erotic undertones. Cue the sight of him here directing a film with semi-naked men dressed up as angels. Long time special effects man (and sometimes director) John Carl Buechler also cameos. Their appearances are arguably the highlight of a really depressing film but unless you know who they are, the jokes will be lost on you.

Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust is a truly juvenile flick which you’ll most likely hate with a passion or absolutely love depending on your frame of mind and mood. I’ve never been a huge lover of gingerbread and close contact with this one will rot your teeth…and brain.

• AKA:


• Director: Charles Band


• Writer: William Butler (story), August White


• Starring: Gary Busey, Robin Sydney, Ryan Locke, Larry Cedar


• Run Time: 70 mins

Out of the oven… and into your heart!

In a small diner, deranged killer Millard Findlemeyer opens fire on the Leigh family and kills them all except for the daughter, Sara. During the trial, Sara testifies against him and he is sentenced to death via the electric chair. In a vow of revenge, Findlemeyer’s mother mixes her sons ashes with that of a secret gingerbread cookie mix and sends it to Sara’s bakery. When one of her employees cuts his arm and bleeds into the mix, Findlemeyer is resurrected as a murderous gingerbread man, intent on getting revenge against Sara!

Yes that is the plot, as silly as it sounds. I can’t even begin to imagine how the writers pitched this idea to the studio but Charles Band has a fetish for small killer things (eg. Puppet Master, Hideous!, Demonic Toys, et al) so anyone with a killer miniature will immediately get their film authorised! It’s a silly reworking of Child’s Play with a serial killer’s soul being transferred into something small and sinister so you would at least expect this to be campy, corny and a little bit fun? Right? Wrong!

This is one lame film. It doesn’t help that it only clocks in at a paltry seventy minutes but then you’ve got the handful of characters (and I mean handful, there’s only about five people in this film) milling around and doing pretty much nothing for the majority of the running time. It’s dull and dialogue heavy and dying for some serious gingerbread man action. After all, isn’t that the only appeal that this film has? Don’t tell me you’re here to watch one of those brilliant actors doing their thing? Or maybe marvel at John Carl Beuchler’s special effects for the gingerbread man himself?

No you’re here in the hope of catching a glimpse at the rarest of rare serial killers – a twelve-foot tall gingerbread man – slicing and dicing people. Well you best take your binoculars elsewhere because you’re not going to see much of him. The ‘special effects’ for the gingerbread man aren’t too bad. I mean it’s not like he’s on screen a lot for you to get a good look at him but when he is, he looks like a gingerbread man gone wrong. He does things that all gingerbread men do like drive cars so prepare to be amazed! Unfortunately his only real shining moment is when he comes to life for the first time and the novelty value soon wears thin. With such a unique and cheesy premise, it’s a total travesty that it ends up the way it does.

Gary Busey stars and although he’s apparently a bit of a nutter in real life and has a history of playing slightly psychopathic characters in his films, it’s a pity he hasn’t held down a decent A-list career. The man has the psycho role down to a tee (all of that real-life experience!) so it’s a crime that his human form is only in this for about two minutes of screen time right at the start. His voice does the rest of the acting and despite the Gingerdead Man having some decent one-liners, you’d be mistaken for thinking Busey wishes he was somewhere else. I don’t care for any of the other actors present. The script just has them running around this bakery (which only seems to have two or three big rooms) for most of the time but the mute button would have done me a lot more favours.

The Gingerdead Man could have become one of those low budget horror franchises like Puppet Master which had a great cult following. With a strong DVD cover, laughably-promising plot and general goofiness it could and should have been better. However it’s poor application of a truly unique premise is just appalling. It’s fifty-five minutes of pure tedium, shoddy writing and a total lack of imagination from all involved. Please spare us the inevitable Gingerdead Man Vs Puppet Master!