| The Red's Breakfast |
| Experience |
| Short film. Depending on who you talk to, it can either be described as artistic masturbation, or an accessable forum for young filmmakers to showcase their talents. Thankfully this collection of short films by director Caleb Emerson falls into the latter. The Red's Breakfast Experience chronicles the making of three short films about a bloodthirsty serial killer named Red Toole. |
| Red's Breakfast is the first short, and introduces us to the slightly zany killer who is played with great gusto by Tim Gerstmar. After some insane dancing and a little perusing of his pornography collection, Red drags a defenceless girl from his closet, and proceeds to disembowel her, and eat her intestines. Red's Breakfast was but a sign of things to come. Years later, Caleb and Tim would team up for the follow up. Red's Breakfast 2: Dawn of the Red picked up where Red's Breakfast left off. This time, Red meets a girl named Violet, who really digs serial killers. He asks her to come to his house later on for a few drinks. While he's madly mopping up the blood of his victims, the cops come to the door. It seems that the neighbours have been complaining about loud chansaws, screams, shuffling, and the blood dripping from their ceiling. Red explains that the chainsaw and shuffling sounds are a result of his ice-sculpting hobby, the screaming was him when he saw a huge spider, and that the blood was from the spider ('it was a big f**kin' spider!'). This is probably my favorite scene from Dawn of the Red, and actually isn't too far from the truth of many a bumbled serial killer investigation (Jeffrey Dahmer gave ridiculous excuses to the cops a number of times before his capture). The short gets even weirder from here, with Red and Violet forming a relationship based on murder and mayhem. |
| The last installment, Die You Zombie Bastards! Is the most ambitious of the three short films. For a meagre $3000, we're treated to a half hour epic in which Red has to rescue his beloved Violet from the evil Dr. Nefarious Guy. Nefarious has invented a device that turns people into mindless zombies. It's up to Red to kill off the hordes of the undead, and save Violet. Die You Zombie Bastards! is currently being re-made by Caleb and his crew as a feature (see links below).He was able to make a third of a feature this good for three grand, so given a real budget the possibilities are very promising. These shorts are joined together by entertaining wraparounds in which the cast and crew of the Red's Breakfast trilogy are interviewed. These are done in an irreverent fashion which never gets boring. Another thing I liked about this collection were the obscure in-jokes. When Red and Violet are chatting, the bizarre little ditty from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is playing away in the background. The Red's Breakfast Experience was full of things like this that the average cult film fan will get a kick out of. Caleb Emerson knows his audience, and doesn't waste time trying to pander to a mainstream audience. All in all, this is an entertaining hour or so of indy filmmaking. It also showed a few scenes from a short film based on Ed Gein which looks pretty atmospheric (it would make a worthwhile extra for a Die You Zombie Bastards! dvd release) and authentic. Hopefully with the renewed interest in film brought about by the popularity of dvd we'll see a new wave of exploitation films. Maybe that's too much to hope for, but there's at least one genuine exploitation movie headed our way with Die You Zombie Bastards!. Until then, The Red's Breakfast Experience is well worth a look. Check out the links below for more information. |
| Entertainment : 3 out of 4 |
| Watchability : 3 out of 4 |
| Overall : 3 out of 4 |
| Reviewed by Blake |