Directed by Silvia St. Croix
Starring Joseph Porter
Kelsey Sanders
Michelle Bauer
A wanna-be-Troma-movie without any guts, "Gingerdead Man 2" is a catastrophic failure. It's neither scary nor amusing -- but given the mild cult following the first film has generated, it's unfortunately going to be seen by a lot of people.
"Gingerdead Man" was a fun bad movie because, like a lot of Charles Band's other efforts, it actually did get you to suspend disbelief from time to time -- long enough to realize how laughable the concept of a serial killer gingerbread man really was. It was terrible, but it managed to draw you in. Actually, Charles Band -- bad as many of his films have been -- is a talent.
But the sequel -- helmed by first-time director Silvia St. Croix -- doesn't draw you in. Set entirely on a film studio lot where a Charles Band-like puppet movie is being filmed -- the Gingerdead Man, resurrected from the first film, shows up to wreak havoc -- the movie seemed to want to be the new "Terror Firmer", only without any of the cult sensibilities of that movie.
The film opens with an annoying punk rock song opening credits sequence. The best scene in the whole film is probably the first one: a campy satanic ritual featuring a slightly overweight Anton La Vey type resurrecting a crew of evil puppets. Naturally, the sequence turns out to be a sequence from a movie being filmed -- and "Gingerdead Man 2" starts to go downhill from there.
The entire movie takes place on the set of a low budget film studio. The best way to describe this mess is as a boring version of "Terror Firmer." It just tries too hard to be campy and silly. The first film ends up looking like a masterpiece in the process.
Some of the individual scenes are funny -- like one where the Gingerdead Man takes over a robot body armed with ray guns. And the scene where he humps one of the puppets on the set. But it's not enough to sustain this film -- no matter how many beers you've had before watching it.
Avoid it like the plague.
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-- Review by Lucius Gore
Posted by Tenkei on July 14, 2008 Quick question, as I haven't gotten to see this yet, which monster-controlling a robot scene is better, Gingy getting the robot in this, or Belial getting the robot in Basket Case 3?
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