Crumb Catcher
Crumb Catcher
Christopher W. Skotchdopole’s debut feature “Crumb Catcher” which was released eight years ago and this, sounds an even longer time ago when compared to how dated works by Mario Bava and frankly, even the subtitle says, is about a thin parasite of an American wife grasping at some affluent husband. In this combination of eccentric comedy and home invasion done upside down, newlyweds confined within an active brief respite only to disturb when the need provokes, are taken aback when they are invaded by guests, changing the situation for the worse, once again. If you can endure being with these obnoxious and quarrelsome people for close to two hours, then, there will be a payoff in a well-constructed, becoming public, highly anticipated mystery where it is already clear that trouble will follow or even precede the arrival of that date, within limited release in the U.S, comes July 19.
Despite wearing wedding gowns and donning tuxedos to have their engagement pictures taken, members of Shane (Rigo Garay) and Leah (Ella Rae Peck) do not seem to have found true love even after, that is if there was any to find in the first place. It is understandable that he is embarrassed by the plush environment sponsored by her otherwise critical parents while she makes it a point to ‘validate’ everything he utters. However, even their romantic connection is deceptive; it is more about business than love. She is head of promotion at a publishing company that is preparing for the release of his first new book.
While trying to warm up his long-suffering mother-in-law, she turns him away, possibly for the umpteenth time. Disturbed, Shane leaves, only to wake up the next day fully dressed in his tuxedo, and with no recollection as to what had transpired in the interim. The angry wife, instead of allowing herself to calm down says, “Get in the car already” and adds that there is a nicer place that they will be staying in for their honeymoon and that it is somewhere upstate. The labor becomes greater as such a cloud as it is unbearable and for the first time – Harris’s commentary on the painfully produced autobiographical book causes trouble. Careerist Leah doesn’t take this argument in. However, a car catches her eye.
In this obscure place, it is reasonable to wonder how come John (John Speredakos) shows up, an oily waiter who had already bothered them in yesterday’s major occasion, since he is a seemingly out of place obnoxious character. It looks like he has tagged along to this place to bring them the long overdue wedding cake. “Aren, cheezars, let me clear up, I am not going anywhere” he seems to ignore their annoyance and pushes forwards to a painstakingly thought-up scheming patrolling of perverse sales and assault blackmail involving him, and a commanding nag of a wife who stalked Tim and who was keen to show up at shores of the wedding in the car.
They are a twosome unsuccessfully attempting to sport scammers dressed up for the stage show so badly that it seems they are summer stock Goons from Ottawa’s Tim Curry and Bernadette Peters characters of musicals depiction of Annie. Only it isn’t with the sun coming out tomorrow here. Instead, maybe there is even a long night of quiet ominous threats and increasing strangeness unsurprisingly culminating in violence.
The actors (most of which are returned from the previous Larry Fessenden’s productions) are fine, yet the tension among the character fails to develop much further than this morbid diorama. “Crumb Catcher” would have switched off every pursuit of that depth unfound in a more basic unit of time.
Skotchdopole’s direction, while hinting towards being average, manages to keep enough tension in, and his screenplay provides enough complication in the very four-handed trainwreck. There’s even a smidgen of poignance in the late going when such silly disputes as direct rivalry between two couples are resolved instead by wildly reckless boozy driving along the twisty rural backroads. These impotent-looking sad sacks all the more painful when being marched towards the conclusion where they reach the point of becoming a circular firing squad energetically rips the final part.
Made in New York’s Hudson Valley, the film can, despite its humble budget, even more efficiently use what it has in that the psychological dramas are so well woven it is not until the last twenty minutes or so, when the fifteen cast members number dwindles down to almost nothing for some non what is the key to this production action, do you actually start to miss the action. Plus, the fact that the primary location, that rented modernist countryside mansion (with art to match), mores so than applies to any realist fiction without wanting to plain put it away in the video, act as an aspirational gap enforcing the class divisions amongst the characters. However, although ‘Crumb Catcher’ is rather insipidly wicked – more so than it absolutely needs to be, seeking entertainment value than substance – it is rather difficult to argue that there is enough substance in the overall glue to warrant a press kit Director’s statement that it is “a cautionary tale” regarding “the American Dream” today.
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- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Thriller
- Country: United States
- Director: Chris Skotchdopole
- Cast: Rigo Garay, Ella Rae Peck, John Speredakos, Lorraine Farris, Rebecca Watson
