Dead & Breakfast fell into my lap years ago not because of word of mouth or media promotion online, but because of one actress in particular. Bianca Lawson is one of the main characters in this horror-comedy and I had discovered her years ago when she had a four episode arc as Kendra on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Since then she’s moved on to another vampire themed show, Vampire Diaries, and another popular show, Pretty Little Liars, which is horrific in its own right as a tween soap opera. Speaking of cast members, Dead & Breakfast also features Ever and David Carradine, Brent Fraiser, Oz Perkins, Portia De Rossi (Cursed), Gina Phillips (Jeepers Creepers), and Jeremy Sisto (Wrong Turn). Being that Dead & Breakfast came out in 2004, this was a time when the above actors were much more famous than they are now.
The plot centers around a group of friends on a road trip to their best friend’s wedding. Can you tell where this is going yet? They get lost and end up in a little town and decide to spend the night. During that night, some people die and, of course, the sheriff suspects the travelers as suspects. A mysterious box is discovered during the investigation and an evil spirit is released, a spirit with the power to possess multiple people at once. Now the group has to survive a whole town taken over by evil.
From reading the plot you already know that the movie contains both supernatural and slasher elements. But, due to the evil spirit’s powers, zombies or zombie-like possessed folk are also a big part of this movie. They actually do some sort of country line dancing thing in the film that is completely out of place, but remember this is horror-comedy so anything is possible! Production quality kept in mind, the film was made very well despite a budget of only half a million dollars. 
At first, I was actually kind of bored with this film. Being bored made my mind wander a little bit, so the plot became kind of confusing. The whole plot of the film is explained within the first 20 minutes and if you miss that part, you’ll be lost at some points in the film. On a second watch later on, the events depicted in Dead & Breakfast were much clearer. The film was rated NC-17, but the gore here is very close to the type that you would see in the Hatchet franchise. It seems like nothing to us horror fans, but MPAA thought audiences could not handle it and the film was re-cut to an unrated version as well. However, gore fans will still be pleased. According to IMDB, over 34 gallons of fake blood were used during production of the film.
The film originally premiered at the SxSW Festival in 2004 and went on to play at multiple festivals and conventions. A few of the awards it picked up were – “Best Film,” at the AKA Shriekfest, “Best Feature,” at the Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival, and the “Audience Award,” at both the San Francisco Horrorfest and Weekend of Fear in Germany.
I would definitely recommend Dead & Breakfast for horror-comedy fans, as well as gore and indie film fans too.
