Millard Findlemeyer (Gary Busy) is a homicidal maniac. At a diner called “Cadillac Jacks” he proceeds to shoot James Leigh and his son Jeremy. Daughter Sarah (Robin Sydney) survives and testifies against Millard who is sentenced to death. After Millard dies in the electric chair he is cremated and his ashes are given to his mother (E. Dee Biddlecome).
Millard’s mother is a witch. She mixes Millard’s ashes in with a gingerbread seasoning and leaves it on the doorstep of Sarah and her mother, Betty’s (Margaret Blye), bakery. Sarah thinks it is a normal delivery. Sarah’s employee Brick Fields (Jonathan Chase) cuts himself and bleeds into the gingerbread seasoning. The seasoning is then mixed into the gingerbread batter. Sarah makes a gingerbread man and puts it in the oven.
Meanwhile Jimmy Dean (Larry Cedar) and his obnoxious daughter Lorna (Alexia Aleman) are opening a fancy bakery across the street. Jimmy wants to buy off Sarah but she is not willing to sell. Besides mourning for her father and brother, Sarah is trying to keep the bakery afloat and take care of her alcoholic mother. Bratty Lorna comes back to the bakery to plant a rat and get it shut down by the health department. Lorna and Sarah get into a catfight and manage to hit the circuit breaker sending an electric charge to the oven and the gingerbread man inside, bringing it to life.
The Millard Findlemeyer gingerbread man, who sounds creepily like Gary Busy, continues the murder spree he started before he became a giant cookie.
“The Gingerdead Man” was released in 2005 and was directed by Charles Band. The film is a comedy/horror movie.
I’ve seen a lot of bad movies and, yes, “The Gingerdead Man” is basically a bad movie. I said bad movie. I have seen some that were a lot more mind numbing than this one. There is some slasher aspects to it and some really awful jokes but the guttural and vicious reviews that I have seen for this movie seemed a little over the top. It was like critics were trying to outdo each other on how cruel and brutal they could be in their assessment of the film. Yeah it was bad but scheech, come on. It wasn’t any worse than a “Chucky” slasher movie. Perhaps not as much gore but just as unfunny.
The movie is billed as being seventy minutes long but it’s really an hour long with ten minutes of final credits. Also the movie never says who the mysterious woman is who drops off the gingerbread seasoning and what it is laced with. You’ll have to read the DVD cover to find out. There are other plot holes and writing gaffs, basically same old same old.
Charles Band has directed a bunch of bad movies and has produced over three hundred, some OK some not so OK. He is responsible not only for the “Gingerdead” series but the “Evil Bong” movies as well as the “Demonic Toys” and “Puppet Master” franchises. Quite a few of his films promote pint size monsters. He is an acquired taste. Those that have seen some of his other films know what to expect. For the rest of us, well, the title really should tell you something.