Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver (2011)

The horror genre is not afraid to wear its influences on its sleeve for everyone to see.  Sometimes that comes in an homage, where a certain moment of terror will call back to something from another movie.  Think of Jason X, when Jason bashed a sleeping bag against a tree, much like he did in an earlier installment of the franchise.  But there are also the horror movies that dive much deeper into the referential waters.  They involve meta commentaries on earlier, iconic horror films.  Scream called back to Halloween and the whole slasher genre.  The Final Girls was playing upon the Friday the 13^th franchise.  Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver played with the story of Carrie.

The third Gingerdead Man movie was released in 2011.  It saw the Gingerdead Man (William Butler) time travelling back to the 1970s where a roller rink was going out of business.  During the last week of business, the owner, Trixie (Kent Fuher), brought her niece Cherry (Paris Wagner) into the establishment.  She told Cherry not to roller skate, but Cherry skated anyway and earned popularity among the other skaters.  When Cherry was up for the queen of the roller-skating establishment award, a skating rival planned to embarrass her during the ceremony.  Meanwhile, the Gingerdead Man was killing people.

If the story of Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver sounds familiar, it’s because the whole movie was an homage to Carrie.  The character of Cherry was a stand-in for Carrie White.  She had the same telekinetic powers and went through the same sort of story arc, with the main difference being that the ending involved defeating an evil gingerbread man.  The rival was the bully from Carrie.  The rival’s friend was named P.J. as a reference to P.J. Soles, who was that character in Carrie.  Trixie was filling the role of Carrie’s mother, the overbearing to the point of abusive matriarch of the household.  There was the nice guy, and the rival’s boyfriend.  The primary characters of Carrie were all there in Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver, in their new versions.

There are many movies out there that use stories that feel like what came before them.  The different story beats line up with each other.  The overall arc of the main character is the same in each film.  Sometimes this is an oversight on the writer’s part.  They saw or read something similar and it subconsciously influenced their own writing.  It happens.  Other time, like with the mockbusters of The Asylum, the movies are blatant rip-offs meant to capitalize on the success of other movies.  Then there are the twinning movies where two studios make similar stories at the same time.  Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver was a little different in that it was an homage to the 1976 horror film Carrie, and the Stephen King novel that came before it.

What’s the difference between an homage and a rip-off?  That’s a big question and there’s a very fine line between the two.  Most of that comes down to the intentions of the filmmaker.  If they’re in it for the money alone, and they’re just trying to make a quick buck by aping someone else’s story, that’s a rip-off.  Their intention is to capitalize on someone else’s work.  That’s all.  An homage is a tribute to another movie, through the story, characters, or story beats while the movie still does its own thing.  The filmmaker makes it apparent that they know what the influence is.  They convey it to the audience.  But they aren’t using the influence as the source of the movie’s success.  They’re using it to further their own creativity.

Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver fell into that homage category, though it bordered on crossing into parody or spoof.  The opening scene played off of The Silence of the Lambs, with a Clarice Starling surrogate, and the Gingerdead Man taking the place of Hannibal Lecter.  Other evil pastry characters took the place of the other inmates, including one that shot cream filling onto the Clarice character.  It wasn’t entirely played for jokes, though, which is what kept the scene from going full on into parody.  It was a part of the story that was necessary to tell the tale that writer/director William Butler was telling.  The scene was a joke, but it was also a crucial story moment, allowing the Gingerdead Man to escape and time travel to 1976.

Once the Gingerdead Man was back in 1976, the polish of the story became Carrie.  Cherry Wright was dealing with her high school type of life in the roller rink.  But the story was still about the Gingerdead Man going around and killing people.  Every once in a while, during the Cherry story, someone would notice the Gingerdead Man running around.  Usually it was Cherry, but sometimes it was the other characters as they were being killed.  Though Carrie was the basis for the way the story played out, the Gingerdead Man killing people was still the main focus for the movie.

It should also be noted that the conclusion of Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver didn’t rely on any of the story beats of Carrie.  The homage was concluded and most everyone was dead at the hands of the Gingerdead Man.  The defeat of the Gingerdead Man is about to be spoiled, so anyone who wants to watch the movie without spoilers should skip the rest of this paragraph.  Cherry and her new boyfriend were some of the only people left standing as the Gingerdead Man stood, almost victorious.  Two children returned to 1976, after disappearing with the Gingerdead Man’s time machine.  They came back with Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Lizzie Borden, and Hitler.  The four evil people killed the Gingerdead Man, then everyone had a dance party at the roller rink.  It was an odd ending because it made the audience cheer on some of the worst people to ever live.  They had each been the cause of infamous murders.  Now the audience was expected to sympathize with their newest murder.  When every bad thing is compared to the atrocities orchestrated by Hitler, it becomes tough to want to see him do something for the betterment of mankind.

Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver paid homage to Carrie and The Silence of the Lambs as a way to tell its own story.  It was still the tale of a serial killer’s spirit possessing a pastry and killing people.  It just told that tale through the filter of two classic horror flicks.  It paid tribute to what came before it in its own story about murders.  It wasn’t ripping off.  It wasn’t spoofing or parodying.  It built upon the foundation of what came before, let the audience in on that inspiration, and moved on from there.

The horror genre is filled with movies that take their inspiration from other movies.  There are slasher movies that play on the tropes of past slashers.  There are fads that go through the genre, such as horror set at summer camps.  Some movies rip each other off, while others make reference to what came before as part of a shared horror history with the audience.  That’s what makes the genre so much fun.  Aside from the scares, the transparency of the rip-offs, homages, parodies, and references creates a canon with the audience.  Everyone feels involved.  They become a community.  We all need a community to be a part of.

These notes are a part of this post:

• Robin Sydney had a cameo in Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver.  She was also featured in The Gingerdead Man (week 69), Evil Bong (week 52), Evil Bong 2: King Bong (week 104), and Evil Bong 3: The Wrath of Bong (week 271).
• Kenneth J. Hall made an appearance in Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver.  He popped up in The Summer of Massacre (week 26) and Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust (week 252).
• Bogdan Szumilas showed up in Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver, after showing up in Sandy Wexler (week 231) and Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance (week 241).
• The final third timer in Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver was Peter Stickles, who had previously been in Showgirls 2: Penny’s from Heaven (week 170) and Evil Bong 3: The Wrath of Bong (week 271).
• Junie Hoang returned from Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust (week 252) to appear in Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver.
• Finally, Amanda Barton showed up in Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver.  She was in The Beast of Bray Road (week 176).
• Have you seen Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver?  Have you seen any of the Gingerdead Man movies?  What did you think?  What do you think about the homage vs. rip-off idea that I presented?  You can discuss any of that in the comments.
• The comments are also a place where you can suggest movies for me to watch in future Sunday “Bad” Movies weeks.  I’m always looking for new movies to show up on my radar that could fit well into the schedule of this blog.  If you don’t want to comment, you could always find me on Twitter and let me know there.
• Sometimes, when I’m watching bad movies, I share bits and pieces of them on Snapchat.  If that sounds interesting, feel free to add me (jurassicgriffin).  You will be disappointed.
• Now let’s talk about next week.  After all of that blood got put on the dancefloor, it needs to be washed away.  That’s not why I’ll be checking out The Wash, but it’s a good segue, right?  This comedy starring Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg will be the subject of my writing next week, so come on back to see what I have to say.  See you then.