Review: Bread Crumbs DVD

STUDIO: Green Apple Entertainment | DIRECTOR: Mike Nichols | CAST: Marianne Hagan, Steve Carey, Amy Crowdis, Jim J. Barnes, Alana Curry
RELEASE DATE: 1/25/11 | PRICE: DVD $24.98
BONUSES: none
SPECS: NR | 88 min. | Horror | 1.33:1 fullscreen | Dolby Digital 2.0

RATINGS (out of 5): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall

Marianne Hagan starts getting scared in Bread Crumbs.

Bread Crumbs, a horror movie that turns on a van full of randy young adults that get lost in the woods, takes its title and general concept from the tale of Hansel and Gretel, in which two children leave bread crumbs behind them as they make a path into a forest so they have a trail to follow home. As we all know, Hansel and Gretel didn’t make it home. And neither do most of the folk in Bread Crumbs.

The gang in this film is actually heading out to a remote cabin (for a change) to film a pornographic movie (now we’re talking!), but along the way they ask for directions from a very odd girl and boy with a gaping head wound who just happen to be strolling in the road. You know you’ll be seeing this couple again…

The nominal tension among the porn movie cast is that this is aging star Angie’s (Marianne Hagan, Stake Land) final production before she retires, which gives her seniority in the cabin. Thus, she’s the one who gets to scream to let the “children” into the house once the mayhem starts, not realizing it’s the children who are creating the ghastly horrors.

Director Mike Nichols (Dead Calling, not the Mike Nichols who directed The Graduate) who also plays the director of the film-within-the-film, has a few nifty variations on the old murder-by-farm-implement cliché. He stretches out the gore to sickening effect by stringing up most of the victims as they are about to expire and letting them have a few blood-choked last words, usually, “Look out behind you.”

The actors playing the “children” are well beyond the ideal years, and the pace is a bit slow, with too much arguing about making a run for it or not, or letting the children in or not.

Gorehounds who’ve seen the setup and carnage in countless other genre movies probably will be entertained. Ditto for those looking for lots of B-styled nudity and sex. But those looking for clever twists or justifiable reasons for the mayhem should seek them elsewhere.

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