20 horror movies for $5; what could possibly go wrong.  Part XIII.

To be fair, I did not see the original Gingerdead Man.  I also have not seen Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust. However, I propose a new Oscar category for Best Title to properly recognize that film’s achievement in motion picture arts & sciences.  Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, you had a good run.

The most shocking thing about this movie is that I didn’t hate it.  In fact, for the first 10 minutes, it was pretty great.  It starts out with a fun spoof of Silence of the Lambs.  Clarissa Darling has come to see the Gingerdead Man at the Institute for the Study of Homicidal Baked Goods.  After being taunted by a murderous baguette, pie, brownie and bagel, she reaches the glass cell of Gingerdead Man.  He is manacled to the wall, wearing a Hannibal Lector face-mask.

As she is interrogating him, the Institute is overrun by animal rights activists who seek to free the prisoners.  One of them, believing Gingerdead Man to be a shaved Capuchin monkey, sets him free.  Making his escape, he ducks into a door labeled Time Travel Studies (as all cutting edge physics is done on prison grounds).  After killing the 2 scientists who have discovered the secret to time travel, he uses their invention to escape back to 1976.

Unfortunately, being a low-budget film, we are stuck with a lot of generic, stock disco music.  And we get a LOT of it.  Just a little dose of Night Fever or Stayin’ Alive would have helped immensely.  If they made a star of John Travolta, they can do anything.  One bit that gets used several times sounds like the opening to Carwash only to cruelly dash our hopes for a tune each time.

Having dispensed with the Silence of the Lambs portion of our program, we now move into the Carrie phase.  Skateland owner Trixie announces that the disco will close due to back-taxes.  She introduces her shy niece Cherry Wright who is movie-ugly (i.e. hair is in face).  When someone shouts “nerd” she shorts out a few lights.  There is also a girl with a red baseball cap in case we don’t get the Carrie whole homage.  Sadly, the red hat homage was chosen over the equally iconic foggy, slo-mo high school locker room scene.

Expect a lot of this.

Three of the girls put on a car wash to save Trixie’s.  They even have a giant professionally-made color banner promoting the car wash despite the fact they only heard of Trixie’s tax problem 10 minutes ago.  Seeing the bikini babes, Gingerbread Man is feeling his oats, so hooks their hose up to a conveniently placed barrel of hydrochloric acid.  They melt down like the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Meanwhile, Cherry is going against her aunt’s wishes and skating with the guy who fumigates the rental skates; the guy who cleans the toilets apparently being out of her league.  Some of the other girls give her a makeover and decide to get her elected Roller Boogie Queen.

We take a brief side-trip into Porky’s for a take off on the scene of Balbricker with the tallywacker.  Which sounds funnier than it is.

Jacqui Holland

Gingerdead Man then offs 3 more people in a storage room using a nail gun that fires CGI nails like an Uzi.  As the girl to the right is is one of the victims, Gingerdead Man has squandered a considerable amount of goodwill from me.

The movie follows the Carrie template with the pig’s blood and subsequent murder of just about everyone in the disco.  These scenes are kind of fun even though most of the people seem oblivious to the lightning bolt mass murders happening 10 feet from them.

A couple of kids who had made off with Gingerbread Man’s time travel device earlier now reappear for the Bill & Ted segment.  They have rounded up Adolph Hitler, Charles Manson, Lizzie Borden and Jeffrey Dahmer because it takes 4 people to subdue an 18-inch killer made out of cake.  I don’t recall any of them being known for  the physical prowess.  In fact, I’m not sure 2 of them ever personally killed anyone.

They get Gingerdead Man stuffed back in the cookie jar — no, literally — that was the big plan.  The time-traveling kids send him back to the future, resurrect the dead disco crowd, and have the good sense to sneak a peek at a lottery drawing to win a million bucks.  HELLO, MCFLY!!!!

Would I recommend?  The banal music really does drag it down, and each scene is follow by an increasingly tiresome footage of the skaters.  I could see it being fun with a group enjoying adult beverages or state-approved medicinal ganj.

Post-Post:

• Trixie is a man, man!
• Actress Junie Hoang sued IMDb for publishing her real age.  See also, Streisand Effect.

Why isn’t this woman a star?