Although I still aver that the slasher genre is played out, I’m willing and happy to acknowledge when a filmmaker takes those tired old tropes and gives us something half-decent with them. While too many indie microbudget genre directors are content to crank out love letters to the trash slasher flicks they loved in junior high, director Mike Nichols and writers Charles Black and Sam Freeman make Bread Crumbs (2009) more than a slavish imitation of thirty-year-old cheapies. It’s not a terribly good movie, but it’s good enough to be a net positive. This despite the fact that the movie is, essentially, the blending of two related slasher subgenres: “spam in a cabin” and “killer rednecks.”
#1 by perletwo on February 6, 2011 - 12:48 am
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I’m no expert either, but is that genre of “Indie filmmaking” really all that big on the location shooting? Unless it’s of the ‘hey, my aunt edna’s place is empty this weekend and we can shoot there free’ sort?
#2 by Nathan Shumate on February 6, 2011 - 8:07 am
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“Indie” really covers a wide range. There are the micro-budgeters who shoot on video, finance on their credit cards, and yes, use whatever locations fall cheaply into their laps. But larger productions like the original Halloween and three out of four Phantasm movies qualify as “indie” as well, simply because they were made with private finances outside the studio system. I would estimate that Bread Crumbs had a budget which didn’t exceed $200,000. There are three entities listed as production companies, only one of which (according to the IMDb) has produced another movie. So it’s pretty clearly indie.
#3 by perletwo on February 6, 2011 - 2:19 pm
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Oh! No, I meant the “indie filmmakers” that comprised the spam in a cabin, not the Bread Crumbs filmmakers. Sorry that wasn’t clear.
#4 by Nathan Shumate on February 6, 2011 - 8:35 pm
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Ah. Even there, you can go from camcorder epics to well-funded independent productions. Actually, I’d say that of all the cheap horror subgenres, spam-in-a-cabin relies MOST on location shooting, because a single location is central to the movie.
#5 by perletwo on February 7, 2011 - 12:28 am
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Yes to that, because atmosphere is half the battle in horror – Session 9, or ‘spam in an abandoned psychiatric hospital,’ is another great example – and a good woodsy setting full of gray skies and dead leaves and a primitive enough cabin gives you nice visuals and your cut off from the rest of the world feeling.
#6 by MatthewF on February 7, 2011 - 9:00 am
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Who would have thought that low-budget horror movie makers get caught by killers would become a genre of itself?
I’ve watched a lot of them myself but I do get tired of filmakers who apparently have never had an inspiration that didn’t come from a pre-existing film. Of course this charge goes right up to the Tarantino/Rodriguez types but seems most prevelant in low budget horror. Yes, you’ve seen all of the banned video nasties, well done, no need to reference them here.
Sorry, just ranting.