Zombie movie fans have had a stretch of good luck lately. Resident Evil’s had some mixed reactions, but Shaun of the Dead received near unanimous praise. Now if Dead and Breakfast gets any sort of wide release, there’ll be another slab of brain-eating goodness for fans of the recently deceased.
There are two main reasons Dead and Breakfast is so entertaining. First is the cast. David Carradine is always the best choice for the creepy, quasi-mystical guy. The Drew Carey Show’s Diedrich Bader may have one of the worst French accents ever captured on film, but it just makes him all the more amusing. The second reason is a consistently clever script playing along with genre conventions, but managing enough nods to other films in the genre and enough genuine laughs to elevate this above the pack of horror flick also-rans.
Ok, so there’s a third reason. Zach Selwyn’s interjections as the country-singing narrator (and eventually country-rapping zombie) work as nice breaks from the zombie-killing action. The dancing zombie joke’s been an easy target ever since Thriller came out, but it doesn’t change the fact it’s funny every single time.
Obviously Dead and Breakfast isn’t high art. But it knows what it wants to do, and it does it well. Watch for not-so-subtle nods to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead and Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive.