Review – GINGERDEAD MAN 2 (2008)

So I wasn’t a fan of The Gingerdead Man (can you blame me?). Aside from the beginning with Gary Busey being Gary Busey, I found the flick to be a pretty dull affair that took itself too seriously given the material at hand. Come on, a fucking killer gingerbread man? There is no room for seriousness in a film that entertains that concept. Hell, I think doing my taxes conjured more laughs than that flick. So, naturally, could I really be blamed for going into the second installment, Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust, with very low expectations? Not really. However, the filmmakers must have realized the boredom incurred from the first installment and decided to go right for laughs with the second. Did they succeed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0ZzfJsrUcQ

After being subjected to a fairy tale-style recap of the original, as well as an awesome parody of Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation,” we learn that all is going to pot at ol’ Cheatum Studios as they have too many pictures being made and lack the dough to support them all. But Kelvin Cheatum (Kevan Moezzi) isn’t worried: all will work out in the end, right? Despite monetary problems and actors/filmmakers threatening to quit, Kelvin maintains an upbeat attitude. He even takes time to show Heather (Kelsey Sanders) and Tommy (Joseph Porter) from the End of the Rainbow Foundation around as Tommy is Cheatum Studios’ biggest fan. However, shit is really about to hit the fan as the Gingerdead Man has just arrived from Texas in a box of baked goods – and he is hellbent on getting out of his damn cookie body. Will the Gingerdead Man be able to secure the five drops of blood he needs to perform the transference ceremony (which he reads about in a prop Satanic grimoire)? Will Cheatum Studios be able to secure more money to continue producing schlock? Is Tommy really who he appears to be?

Okay, okay: so you’re not gonna get high art here. Hell, you’re not gonna get mid-level art here. You’ll be lucky to get gutter art. But that ain’t the point here, folks. The point is to provide some goofy/bizarre/hilarious entertainment. And man, did Full Moon nail it with this one. While the first was pretty much a clunker, Gingerdead Man 2 does away with the serious tone of the original and amps the comedy up to eleven! I found myself laughing quite a bit at the antics of the Ginderdead Man as well as his one-liners. A highlight comes when the Gingerdead Man sodomizes a flamboyantly-gay hairdresser with a curling iron. I actually had to stop the movie because not only was I laughing really hard, but I had to reflect on what I had seen. “What am I watching, and why in the hell am I watching it!?” Then I remembered it’s because I have dubious taste, then resumed with my viewing pleasure.

The puppetry and prosthetics of Gingerdead Man 2 are highlights as well. While the puppets are goofy and shoddily made – I mean, what do you expect, really? – the fact that they didn’t take the Lazy Man’s Route and just CGI them all in gets mega points. And by “puppets,” I mean the Tiny Terrors, who play a big part in the finale. Never before have I seen such a display of goofy grotesquery. I mean, where else are you gonna see a puppet with shit for brains, or a possessed dildo with eyes? Nowhere else, that’s where! And the prosthetics were pretty good too for such a low budget flick. Big kudos there.

And – big surprise! – I found the characters to be engaging as well. No, you’re not gonna find deep and complex characters here, nor are you going to find phenomenal acting, but the fact that the characters aren’t just boring slabs of wood being tossed around by a carpenter definitely made the film more engaging.

Final Thoughts:

All in all, Full Moon scores a goal with Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust. It’s trashy entertainment at its finest! So go grab your friends, some choice liquor and see if you can catch the Ginderdead Man!