Since Osgood Perkins’ feature debut with The Blackcoat’s Daughter, the filmmaker quickly developed a reputation for somber, atmospheric horror. Perkins left that variety of horror behind for his fifth outing as director with The Monkey, opting instead to entertain with an absurdist, gory comedy that mines death for all its mordant humor. It’s a move that might seem out of left field at first, until you recall Perkins’ early career start as an actor with comedic roles including the underseen early aughts horror-comedy Dead & Breakfast.

The 2004 zombie comedy from writer/director Matthew Leutwyler follows a group of friends road-tripping in an RV to Galveston, Texas, for a wedding. Because this is a horror-comedy, the group gets lost and winds up at a bed & breakfast in Lovelock. Things are already weird and eccentric in small town Texas, but then group oddball Johnny (Perkins) opens a small wooden box and unleashes “Kuman Thong,” a malevolent spirit that possesses Johnny and turns Lovelock into a bloody battleground for survival. 

Oh, and Dead & Breakfast also happens to be a musical.

Perhaps more accurately, Leutwyler’s horror-comedy features a minstrel in the form of singer-songwriter Zach Selwyn’s Randall Keith Randall, the gas station attendant doubling as Lovelock’s resident musician and narrator. It’s Randall Keith Randall who keeps the viewer appraised of the mounting horror lore while keeping an ever watchful eye on the chaos. Dead & Breakfast smartly never overplays this element of its comedy, keeping the musical numbers reduced mostly to a single scene of singing, line-dancing zombies. It also helps that this scene features the catchiest tune of the movie.

However, it does take a while for Dead & Breakfast to settle into its horror-comedy groove and unleash the zombie fun; Leutwyler spends a bit too much time establishing the group’s dysfunction and baggage first. The good news, of course, is that the cast is stacked on this indie feature.

Kill Bill star David Carradine cameos as the bed & breakfast’s owner, with the actor’s niece, Ever Carradine, in a much more substantial role as the no-nonsense, resourceful group member, Sara. Jeremy Sisto (May), Erik Palladino (Return to House on Haunted Hill), and Bianca Lawson (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) round out the central group members prone to romantic drama, while Gina Phillips plays Melody, the pure-hearted friend all but destined for final girl status. Portia de Rossi also cameos, and “The Walking Dead” star Jeffrey Dean Morgan turns in a charming performance as the plucky town Sheriff.

Then there’s Johnny, the oddball tagalong of the bunch as Sara’s brother. Osgood Perkins’ Johnny is all but earmarked for villain status from the moment he’s introduced as the loner weirdo and most teased member of the group who keeps a roadkill tally while driving the RV. The picked on kid of the bunch then becomes the lead bully when Johnny unleashes Kuman Thong, transforming from seething wallflower into acerbic evil mastermind. This is also the turning point where Perkins’ performance really comes alive, with the actor having a clear blast as the murderous zombie-type who adores wielding decapitated heads as hand puppets. It’s that playful spirit that heightens Dead & Breakfast‘s sense of fun and serves as a precursor to Perkins’ delightfully deranged turn as Chip, Hal’s mutton chop-sporting swinging uncle in The Monkey.

Like the Perkins-directed The Monkey, Leutwyler’s film revels in bloodletting. While nowhere near as impressive with its body count as Perkins’ film, Dead & Breakfast does deliver a respectable amount of gore. Once the mumblecore dynamics are in the rearview, Johnny amasses an undead zombie that lays siege to Lovelock in vibrantly violent ways that leave no one safe from the mayhem. Heads roll, scalps are ripped, and a home invasion siege coats the walls in viscera. The splatstick comes with a heaping helping of witty zingers and self-referential jokes, of course. Look for knowing winks to Perkins’ horror lineage among the meta humor jokes and sight gags. 

Dead & Breakfast was overshadowed by higher profile zombie comedies like Shaun of the Dead, released in the same period, or even 2004’s Dawn of the Dead. It doesn’t shake up the formula, and the first act’s dry humor takes a while to warm up. But like Lovelock itself and its laid back country folk, Leutwyler’s zom-com offers irreverent charm and a tongue-in-cheek commitment to splatstick entertainment. It’s also a fun early aughts time capsule that includes an early look at a contemporary horror stalwart; Dead & Breakfast serves as a showcase for Osgood Perkins’ horror-comedy talents a full two decades before The Monkey.