- Directed by Charles Band
- Written by William Butler, Dominic Muir
- Stars Gary Busey, Robin Sydney, Ryan Locke
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 10 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by-KVHh1srw
Spoiler-Free Judgement Zone
It’s essentially “Child’s Play” with a killer cookie-puppet instead of a doll. If that sounds a little “half-baked,” you’re right. It’s really stupid. There are entertaining moments, and some decent puns but overall it doesn’t quite make a “good” bad. It’s more of a “mediocre” bad.
Synopsis
We start with Millard Findlemeyer shooting up a Cadillac Jack’s. He torments several of the patrons before killing them. He’s just maybe just a little crazy. He can’t bring himself to kill the final girl in the diner, he just shoots her in the arm, but he is soon captured and swears to get her and finish what he started. Credits roll.
We cut forward to a bakery, where Sarah Leigh, the survivor from his rampage, works as a baker. She looks at the newspaper clipping stating that Findlemeyer is going to be executed. She finds a box of gingerbread blend on the back porch, just in time because she was running low, and pours it into her mixture. Her assistant Brick cuts himself and accidentally drips blood into the gingerbread batter. How many health codes does this place violate?
Julia reads the paper and tells Sarah that Findlemeyer was executed two days ago, they cremated him and sent his ashes to his mother. Sarah’s mother Betty shoots at the big restaurant across the street; they want to run their bakery out of business. Jimmy Dean, the owner of the place, comes over and tells Sarah off. He offers to buy Sarah out, but she refuses.
Meanwhile, Brick mixes the gingerbread, which grows little arms when he isn’t looking. Sarah whines dramatically about her life to Brick. He goes home, and she goes into the backroom to continue baking. She rolls out the dough and stamps it with a cookie cutter and puts it in the oven.
Lorna, Jimmy Dean’s evil daughter, brings a rat inside the bakery to get them to shut down, and the two girls end up having a pie fight. And donut fight. And bun fight. They bump into the electrical box, which shorts out and provides the last ingredient needed. The gingerbread man in the oven gets all Frankensteiny and starts to laugh. Amos, Lorna’s boyfriend, comes in and opens the walk-in oven. The gingerbread man walks out and talks like Gary Busey.
The trio runs away but overhears the gingerbread man in the storeroom, eating.
Old, drunk, Betty comes back in and spots the rat. The Gingerbread man confronts her, and she puts down the booze. The little man picks up a knife and cuts her finger off. She recognizes his voice as Millard Findlemeyer. He then whacks Julia over the head with a frying pan.
Amos goes out to his car and gets a gun. The trio isn’t smart enough to just leave through the unlocked front door. Amos comes inside, and Lorna asks, “Can you get us outside?” to which he says there’s no way, even though we just saw him walk in the front in the same, uncut scene. Really?
We stop all the action so Amos and Sarah can flirt and reminisce about her sixth birthday party, completely forgetting the “cereal” killer on the other side of the door.
Jimmy Dean shows up looking for Lorna, but gets run over by Findlemeyer in his own car. Sarah explains Findlemeyer’s resurrection as a cookie to Amos, but he’s skeptical for some reason. Lorna steps into a booby-trap and gets a knife stuck in her head.
Rick shows up out of nowhere, “Your ass is toast!” he cries. Rick bites him in the head as Julia hits him from behind. Rick literally eats the villain. “Got milk?”
A bit later, Brick looks in the mirror and has funny eyes. “It’s not over yet.” The others leave, but Sarah goes back inside for Brick, “Gimme some sugar, baby!” Amos and Julia push him into the oven and cook him good.
Commentary
Sarah’s father and brother were killed in the pre-credit sequence, and we never stop hearing about Sarah’s personal dramas. It’s pretty dull stuff, and it’s not well-acted enough to sell it.
These super-low budget tongue-in-cheek horror parodies are never well-acted, but this one takes the, uh, cake. I mean, it’s really crummy. The acting here is truly flaky. The creature effects are limited to a puppet with Gary Busey’s voice.
Seriously, the story is awful. At any point, they could have walked out either the front or the back door and just left the bakery, but instead, they roamed all over this three-room bakery until they were picked off one-by-one.
And don’t get me started on that huge, walk-in oven. Is this a bakery or a crematorium?