Directed by Silvia St. Croix
Expectations: Low. The first one was abysmal.
On the general scale:
On the B-Movie scale:
The Gingerdead Man 2, despite featuring a storybook opening detailing the events of the first film, disregards everything from its predecessor except the titular character and chooses to forge ahead into unknown territory. Well, maybe unknown is a bit extreme, but you get the point. The Gingerdead Man 2 instead goes for the Full Moon jugular, aiming itself squarely at Charles Band and the Full Moon filmmaking mentality, as well as the overarching genre of low-budget horror pictures. Surprisingly, it actually succeeds a lot more than it fails at this and winds up being an okay movie.
So as I mentioned above, this is a parody of Full Moon, set on the Cheatum Studio Lot where they are hot in production of their newest franchise film, Tiny Terrors 9: Purgatory of the Petite. There’s quite a few well-placed jabs at Full Moon, but a lot of them also come off as sad because they can be taken as realistic criticisms of the studio. For instance, when one of the FX artists says, “…These assholes can’t afford to do this shit right! Who built this crap?” actual FX artist John Carl Buechler (playing the film’s director) shuts the guy up by informing him that he had in fact built them. It’s funny if you’re familiar with John Carl Buechler and what he looks like, but I like most viewers will just agree with the FX tech that most Full Moon movies have sub-standard FX that don’t always live up to expectations. Yeah, this one’s definitely for the hardcore… which is made even more amusing by the “Internet blogger with unrealistic ideals for a low-budget movie studio” subplot.
I have to wonder if they’ve kicked this story around for years, as it could totally work as a movie without any mention of the Gingerdead Man. He is but a cursory element in his own film, with the award for most memorable puppets going to the mock-Puppet Master reject dolls meant to inhabit the film-in-production within the film. They’re all pretty damn good, but my favorites are Perculator, a coffee percolator with twin machine gun arms; Shit for Brains, a baby doll with a healthy dose of brown runny shit oozing from his head; and the Haunted Dildo, a penis with eyes and a tuxedo. It’s no wonder why a simple talking gingerbread man takes a back seat to these one-of-a-kind creations.
Full Moon fans will definitely enjoy this one, but all others will be left wanting. Don’t let the Gingerdead Man name fool you, this is a lot more than a tired sequel to an awful film. You have to admire the exterior shots of the studio lot as well, which seem to be shot clandestinely in the middle of the night, across the street from a “real” studio. Low-budget guerilla filmmaking is alive and well.