Rating: B
Dir: “Sylvia St. Croix”
Star: Kevan Moezzi, Kelsey Sanders, Joseph Porter, Michelle Bauer
I must confess, I never thought the original was exactly crying out for a sequel, but whaddya know, even without Gary Busey reprising his role as a pissed-off confection, possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, this is a lot of fun, I’d say more so than the first installment. Do have to mention, though, that I believe in the existence of obviously-pseudonymous writer-director St. Croix, about as much as I believe in the Gingerdead Man.
This time, the evil biscuit is wreaking havoc at the broken-down movie lot of Cheetum Studios, where Kelvin Cheetum (Kevan) is struggling to film Tiny Terrors 9: Purgatory of the Petite, in the face of peeved superstars, budgetary shortcomings, Internet critics and a terminally-ill kid in a wheelchair. So, the last thing he really needs is a murderous cookie rampaging through his cast and crew, slaughtering them in messy ways, with a foul-mouthed and mean-spirited quip: that is, of course, exactly what he gets.
Far more than a straight slasher-flick, as in the first one, this is mostly a brutal yet adoring parody of low-budget film-making. Kelvin is a puppet-obsessed second-generation B-movie maker, and is, very obviously, inspired by Charles Band, who produced this; the film also has Bauer, playing a faded 80’s scream queen, genre veterans Dave DeCoteau and Kenneth J. Hall, plus SFX gurus Greg Nicotero and John Carl Buechler. It’s a lot of fun, and I loved the “Tiny Terrors”, which include such creations as Perculator and Haunted Dildo: I’d liked to have seen more of them.
The film does drift off towards more familiar – and, consequently, less interesting – territory towards the end, but redeems itself with… well, I momentarily thought of this as a spoiler, but given the poster, it hardly counts, so… with the crucifixion of the Gingerdead Man. It’s a moment of sublime, delicious blasphemy that could only be done in a renegade production like this. While undeniably highly self-indulgent, it quite restores my faith in low-budget movies and their ability to boldly go where no Hollywood blockbuster would dare tread.