The Gingerdead Man (2005) on Netflix
Millard Findlemeyer kills most of the Leigh family in Waco. Sarah's testimony sends him to the electric chair, and his ashes are baked into a gingerbread man at her family's bakery.
- Netflix1.7/5
- IMDb3.4/105,467 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
At a diner in Waco, Texas, Millard Findlemeyer kills most of the Leigh family. Sarah Leigh and her mother Betty survive, and Sarah's testimony sends Millard to the electric chair. His mother collects his ashes and mixes them into a gingerbread spice blend. Sarah and Betty are trying to keep their pastry shop open, and Betty drinks. Jimmy Dean wants to buy their property. A delivery of the spice mix arrives, and Sarah and Brick Fields bake a giant gingerbread man; Brick cuts himself and his blood gets into the dough. The gingerbread man comes to life.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Gingerdead Man (2005)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Charles Band offered Gary Busey $25,000 to star as the killer cookie, expecting him to turn it down, but Busey accepted and shot his scenes as Millard Findlemeyer in just two days. Busey was reportedly upset to learn those two days were the whole shoot, since he had assumed he would appear throughout, and most of his lines were dubbed with ADR.
- The Gingerdead Man began as a rejected pitch for a Mad TV sketch by writer William Butler, about a gingerbread cookie that comes to life and kills a family at Christmas. It was dropped because a sketch featuring a woman fighting the Snuggle bear mascot had just aired and the idea was seen as too similar.
- Charles Band greenlit the film on the spot when writer William Butler pitched the idea at a meeting with Full Moon Features, after Band asked him for the goofiest idea he had ever thought of. Band told Butler he was filming it in a month and to go write a script.
- Full Moon could not use Butler's script because it was estimated to cost around three million dollars, so the studio bought it and had Domonic Muir rewrite it under the pseudonym August White. Butler said almost nothing of his original script survived except minor gags like the Gingerdead Man driving a car.
- Butler's original Gingerdead Man was meant to be a fully CGI character resembling the Pillsbury Doughboy, but the rewrite redesigned him to look like an actual gingerbread man cookie. The character was achieved with practical hand and rod puppets plus a full-body suit, created by John Carl Buechler.
