Movie Review: Bread Crumbs

Without giving to much away, Bread Crumbs is a re-imagining of Hansel & Gretel. Mainly the "re-imagining" referring to the two children being the brutal killers in this one and a certain lack of witches. Bread Crumbs actually follows the crew of a porn shoot that takes place in a lovely home in the woods, or so they thought. There are a lot of characters here, but the ones central to the story are Angie (Marianne Hagan) an aging porn star set to retire and Henry (Dan Shaked) and Patti (Amy Crowdis) the two children that cause all the trouble.

The plot here is pretty thick, in a surprisingly good way. Some characters are duller than others but the ones that matter have enough scripted oomph to make them matter. Writer/director Mike Nichols (No not the Mike Nichols of The Graduate and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? fame) crafted a decent little horror thriller here. The movies premise is fairly original and the genre required twist is actually well timed and satisfying. As a whole this film is worth a lot more than its low budget indie parts.

It isn't all gum drops and candy houses (get it?) in this one though, there are some things keeping this one from truly being a sleeper indie great. Some of, but not all, of the acting is mildly bad, which is alleviated as more characters die, surprisingly leaving the best actors alive going into the end. On the other side of the camera, the movie also seems to lack a bit of a soul. Let me explain, even though a lot of things where done right, Nichols fails to build much on the presentation here, resulting in much of the production lacking personality.

The originality here showcases a great idea but fails to elaborate much farther. We as viewers keep being alluded to the candy house and fairy tale origins but we fail to reach a point where we get it. Probably leaving some more confused than scared, there might be more here but it gets left unexplored. Getting back on point though, the children's underdeveloped story might be getting to nit picky.

This movie is a great successor to the 80s and 90s slashers (i.e., Halloween, Friday the 13th), it follows in much the same vain. Bread Crumbs is a solid little film, with a few surprising performances and a fairly unique idea. Mike Nichols (again not THAT Mike Nichols) has shown he can put together a good little picture, I for one am interested to follow his growth in his next feature. Horror fans will definitely want to find this one and check it out, and everyone else might find something to like too. Stay tuned to PCB for whatever Nichols' next project could be, because I think it could be a good one. Bread Crumbs premiered at Cannes Film Festival back on May 17th but it comes to DVD today Jan. 25th, check it out at Amazon.

Bread Crumbs

Pop Culture Beast Rating:

5/10