Dead & Breakfast

March 30, 2006

Rated: NR Runtime: 88 min Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Dead & Breakfast is the type of zombie movie that polarizes fans of the genre. They will either love it or hate it.

Dead & Breakfast The movie starts off with six friends driving down the highway in a camper, headed to their friend’s wedding. They get lost and end up in a small town, and are forced to stay the night at a local Bed & Breakfast. Then things go terribly awry.

I’ll leave you with that setup so you can enjoy the movie spoiler-free. Okay, one quick spoiler: there are line-dancing zombies.

I actually hated D&B for the first thirty minutes or so. I felt the movie was trying to be all things to all horror fans: funny, scary, gory and ironic. The movie wasn’t committing to any of these recognized styles of horror storytelling, and it was quickly becoming a sloppy mish-mash with no identity.

But at some point, I began to appreciate the movie for its hodge-podge of styles. It was probably during the country/rap song “I’m Comin’ To Kill Ya”, which was accompanied by the aforementioned zombie line-dancing. (I guess saying zombie line-dancing is redundant, since line-dancing is a pretty zombie-like activity.)

By the last third of the movie, the story has gone completely over-the-top, with gore that rivals Evil Dead and even Dead Alive at times. At this point I had fully embraced the movie and was loving every second of it. When the credits rolled, I was ready to watch it again. (And I did.)

On the DVD box cover, a quote compares this movie to Shaun of the Dead. I think they are completely different movies. They both have zombies and they’re both one helluva ride, but that’s where the comparison ends for me.

If you’re not a horror purist and you like fun mixed in with your zombie movies, Dead & Breakfast is a DVD you absolutely must own.

Posted by Chris Terranova | Filed Under 5 Stars, Action, Comedy, DVD, David Carradine, Erik Palladino, Ever Carradine, Horror, Jeremy Sisto, NR, Oz Perkins