#144 -- "B" Challenge: Bread Crumbs (2011)

Director: Mike Nichols
Rating: 2/5

I had pretty high hopes for this. It claims to be a dark twist of the classic Hansel and Gretel story, which it is in a sense. But sadly, it just falls short. It had so much potential, but it didn't live up to it at all. What we have is a group of porn film makers at a cabin in the middle of the woods. They spent their first night there getting drunk and acting stupid, and planned on getting their movie started the next day. They never got very much filming done, though, because they all started dying off. There were two children out in the woods, and it seemed as if they were the culprits. They were, of course. They were siblings Henry and Patti. Patti was the brains behind the operation, and Henry was the muscle. Patti would hum a creepy little tune to inform Henry of the actors/crew members whereabouts, and he would show up and take them out. They all acted pretty stupidly. One, once they figured out that the kids were trying to kill them, they decided to go to the kids' house for help. What kind of logic is that? Anyways, Patti says that they live in a house of candy, and that she saw and understood the terrible things that were happening there. I guess "candy" could symbolize temptation in this situation. But I think it means many different things. It could be any of the seven deadly sins. It could be any number of things. The tagline is "we all live in a house of candy." So I guess we're all sinners, and it's up to these two kids to punish us. I'm not quite sure, because it doesn't get that much into it; it just leaves you to form your own conclusion. One thing that really bothered me was the fact that everyone called Patti and Henry little children. I don't know how old those actors are exactly, but I would guess they're around my age (22). They weren't children at all. I think this movie would have been a whole lot better, and a lot creepier, had they cast actual children. There really is something scary about evil children, but adults pretending to be children? It's just stupid and annoying. I also didn't like the lack of an explanation. All the explanation we got was that they lived in a house of candy. That gives us nothing, really. I would have liked more. It was a dark twist on a fairy tale we all know and love, but it failed on so many levels. First of all, it wasn't scary at all. It wasn't even creepy, really. The tune that Patti would hum to call Henry was a little spooky, but it wasn't enough. I hate to see such great potential go to waste, because I believe this movie could have been completely terrifying. Instead, it was boring and disappointing. The ending was stupid, and there was no real suspense leading up to it. Some parts were funny, but sadly, the best character was the first to die. In conclusion...Bread Crumbs was a huge let-down. What I thought would be a scary fairy tale turned out to be a yawn-fest that failed at being even remotely creepy. The killers were a couple of unintelligent 20-somethings pretending to be little children, and it was just poorly thought out. On the drawing board, this probably looked fantastic. But once it was put on film, it failed to be anything other than a one-time view for people who are bored.