Now Playing: Dead & Breakfast

CDS reader Nathan sent me a NetFlix recommendation for this 2004 horror-comedy and I finally got around to watching it today. Let me start by saying that despite the 1980's title and 1980's approach to low-budget gore this really feels just like a 1980's horror flick knock-off complete with C-listers headlining it. That's sarcasm, by the way. Overall it was a lame horror flick, but I thought it excelled as a muscial.

No, that wasn't a typo.

Dead & Breakfast has some of the funniest lyrics this side of "Weird Al" Yankovic and the musical sequences lift an average gore-fest to at least a B-range rental. Imagine a cross between the gore of Dead Alive and the Greek chorus from There's Something About Mary and you'll get an idea of what the film makers went for. The songs are mainly country-based but there is a side-splitting rap about three-quarters of the way through that had me howling. Big thumbs up to Brian Vander Ark who wrote the score.

The story as it is follows six friends en route to Portia de Rossi's wedding (a sight gag by itself) when they stop at the sleepy town of Lovelock and check into the local B&B. The small town is teeming with rednecks so every Southern cliche you can think of is paraded out. David Carradine seems asleep in his two scenes, but special mention goes out to both Diedrich Bader and de Rossi for stealing the entire movie. What's more impressive is that both are in it for a combined total of about eight minutes. Naturally, things go wrong when some Eastern mysticim, a small box, and a creepy drifter all pop-up and the town winds up turning into zombies and coming after the kids.

By no means will this tax your IQ but it's a fun way to kill an hour and a half and you're guaranteed at least four or five belly laughs. Be sure to stick it out through the final song over the credits which rehashes pretty much the entire flick via country twang. What makes this one the best-for-last is how the build-up to the chorus grows funnier with each verse. Check this one out if you have a healthy tolerance for blood and enjoy Thriller parodies.