Crumb Catcher is like The Menu by way of Funny Games. While flawed, it’s a delirious, dizzying romp through the entertainingly uncomfortable, and one hell of a feature directorial debut for Chris Skotchdopole. It also features one of the year’s best performances: John Speredakos as John, the event waiter who pitches the titular invention to the newlywed couple he’s basically holding hostage in the film’s unforgettable second-act climax.
That young couple is the vehicle for middle-aged John and Rose’s (Lorraine Farris) sick little game. After a somewhat icy wedding, Shane (Rigo Garay) and Leah (Ella Rae Peck) head to Leah’s boss’s estate for their honeymoon. Leah works in publishing and Shane has been writing a book about his father for the past few years. They’re eagerly anticipating the release of the book — or at least Leah is. Shane is having second thoughts about both the book and the marriage, mainly because his Latin-American heritage puts him at odds with Leah’s prejudiced, upper-class, white bread family. Shane’s father seems to be a fascinating character for reasons which are never explained. Nevertheless, Shane is starting to resent Leah’s family’s examination and criticism of his father as excerpts of the book are released. There’s definitely love in the relationship despite all of this, but that love’s foundation is starting to falter.
Enter John and Rose, both wait staff at Shane and Leah’s wedding. John makes the first move by showing up uninvited and unannounced to said estate with the top portion of the wedding cake (there was a mix-up about it earlier). He strolls around the house like he owns the place, taking no hints as to why and when he should leave for the sake of politeness. He then starts vaguely pitching his invention — a glorified broom and dustpan — before getting Rose involved and turning Shane and Leah’s honeymoon into the most frightening episode of Shark Tank you’ve ever seen.
There’s a lot of hand-waving involved in explaining why these two weirdos are allowed to continue. However, there is one thing that keeps their extended stay believable: the bit of blackmail material the older couple has on the younger. Now, why isn’t the possibility of police intervention brought up sooner? You’ve got me stumped there, but Crumb Catcher is certainly fun enough to forgive a few genre contrivances.
The aforementioned pitch scene is the perfect balance of edge-of-your seat tension and pure whacked-out weirdness. Speredakos brilliantly occupies an eerie kind of comedic zen most closely comparable to the Twilight Zone style parody of Tim & Eric’s Bedtime Stories. If you’re not a fan of Tim & Eric, don’t fret. Nothing in the film is quite that abstract or obtuse. Even when we’re not quite sure what’s going on, our noses aren’t being rubbed in any sort of pretension. John and Rose are just categorically different kinds of people than Shane and Leah, and that strangeness about them is used to great effect precisely because they come off like they’ve dropped in from a different dimension.
Skotchdopole and cinematographer Adam Carboni achieve some terrific, almost Saw-like moments of the delightful kind of fright as they swirl the camera around the actors in some of the story’s toughest moments. As nice as this effect is, when paired with an over-reliance on close-ups, it tends to obscure certain plot details, requiring us to catch up while being just a step behind the characters. However, seeing as another standout sequence involves a car chase, that kind of audience participation seems somewhat fitting for this psychological game of cat and mouse. | George Napper
