Butcher The Bakers is a 2017 horror comedy about two bakery workers who are asked to defeat a recently fired Grim Reaper from collecting souls for an evil deed.
Well folks, here it is yet again. The story where two lovable losers end up saving the whole universe, despite only us and the characters on screen having any indication of what took place. Sam (Sean Walsh) and Martin (Ryan Matthew Ziggler) are two misguided heroes who have been working at this bakery for several months. Not because they have a love or appreciation of baked goods. I mean, they have some appreciation, but they are way more interested in ripping off the place than how to make a good loaf of bread. After a small act of kindness involving cookies made by the kid from American Vandal, they are chosen by Lance (Alex Dittmer) for a very important task. They must stop a recently fired reaper named Dragomir (Mike Behrens) from collecting any more souls so he can open a portal to another world.
Sam and Martin want to be in the same playing field as Bill and Ted, Beavis and Butthead, Jay and Silent Bob, Tucker and Dale and many more, but sadly I don’t think they will ever get off the bench. There is just nothing memorable about any of them. All I know is that one of them has a dark beard and the other one does not. There was just nothing that separated one from the other. They just seemed to be both one of the same person. I don’t blame that on the acting, but on the writing.
You may think I’m being hard on this movie because it’s an indie feature and that’s not true. I don’t care how much your movie cost, just as long as you tell me a good story. Butcher The Bakers feels like one of those movies where the title came out first and than a story was written around it. There is no explanation as to why these two are chosen for this task, and I am fine with that. It’s a comedy and not everything needs to have a reason. Yet there is no explanation of what motivates our two main characters either. Why are they working at a bakery in the first place? Was it left to them? Were they forced to take on a new job after being fired from their last? I don’t know.
Bill and Ted’s quest was to pass their exam. Beavis and Butthead wanted their TV back. Harold and Kumar wanted White Castle. I really don’t know why Sam and Martin agree to kill Death. Yes, they are promised Gold from Lance, but it’s not like they needed it. There is this cool sub plot where a woman asks her friend to help her dig up her dead father and I felt that these two should have been our protagonists because at least they have a purpose.
LISTEN IN: Check out the Cinema Recall Podcast on Butcher the Bakers
While I did have some issues with the story, some of the practical special effects were cool to watch and I liked a few of the sequences between some of the characters. In one scene a woman is holding a gun and everytime she tries to get rid of it, tt just reappears in her hand for no reason. I also liked the team that Drag hires to help kill the Bakers and found their story a bit more engaging than the main plot line.
Butcher The Bakers feels like it wants so badly to be in the same class as other horror comedies but it forgets to do its own thing. What made those other movies classics is that they changed or subverted a well-known trope and made it their own. This one seems to be only concerned with copying other ones that have worked before and it doesn’t stand out from the rest. I know comedy is subjective and if you found any of what I said amusing, you might enjoy it. For the rest of you, just skip it.