“My sister and I don’t trust houses of candy.”

BreadCrumbs (2009)

Hansel and Gretel by way of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? Well, it probably could have been. You know, if it had been done right.

A group of people venture into the woods and find more than they bargained for. Yes, that one again. This time the group in question consists of a director, his wife, a cameraman, a makeup artist and a cast of “actors.” They’ve all come to a cabin in the middle of nowhere to shoot a porn. Marianne Hagan (virtually unrecognizable here and last seen by me in the abysmal Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers) stars as a woman on the way out – an “actress” named Angie appearing in her final “role.” I will admit the major reason that I decided to watch this was because of Marianne. Her performance in the sixth Halloween was one of the few not awful things about that film. Another Halloween alumn, Kristina Klebe (Lynda in the Rob Zombie remake) almost slips under the radar – I didn’t realize it was her until the credits rolled. She appears in the short opening segment and barely has a line of dialogue. The director of BreadCrumbs, Mike Nichols (no, not the one who made Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) also plays a role in the film – the annoying asshole porn director. He is one of the most insufferable characters of recent memory and even surpasses in detestability the moronic jock from Altitude. The characters in this film are quite possibly the stupidest group of any movie, ever. They truly become dumber and dumber with each scene. The acting is all over the map but when the “Hansel and Gretel” killers descend upon them it all bottoms out and everyone ends up shrill and unconvincing.

I like the idea of taking a fairy tale and spinning it out into a horror movie – the majority of the original Grimm fairy tales were horrific parables. BreadCrumbs has more than a little in common with the (far superior) Buffy the Vampire Slayer season three episode entitled “Gingerbread.”

Like the recent Little Erin Merryweather, BreadCrumbs fails to deliver on the promise of its premise – it never captures the fairy tale element and while both films begin with a charming rough hewn style, both also quickly lose their way.

The effects and makeup work herein is especially weak – nothing ever looks or feels authentic. I know this was a low budget affair but BreadCrumbs goes beyond just that – it is lowbrow and ludicrous. Avoid. D