MADISON
PG, 94 mins.

That “Madison” played at Sundance could be seen as a good sign. That “Madison” played at Sundance in 2001 and didn’t find a distributor until now might more accurately be seen as a bad one.

Sporting a dull, hooray-for-small-towns wholesomeness and concerning a sport that manages to be less exciting than NASCAR, “Madison” stars Jim Caviezel as Jim McCormick, head of the engineering team for the Miss Madison, a racing boat owned by the town of Madison, Ind. Jim was once the driver of the M.M., but gave it up when he was involved in an accident that injured him and killed his best friend. Gee, I wonder if Jim will be coaxed into getting back in the driver’s seat just in time for the big championship race?

Jim is married to Bonnie (Mary McCormack); Ms. McCormack walks around with an awkward slouch and sports some bad-looking bangs, and her character is given little depth aside from the traditional spouse role of being in perpetual worry. Bruce Dern, however, classes up the picture with a solid supporting appearance as Jim’s mentor. “Madison” is also given a round of genuinely superfluous narration by John Mellencamp, playing the grownup version of Jim’s son, Mike.

Director and cowriter William Bindley includes plenty of Budweiser product placement for the children, and fills his script with cliche situations and some particularly atrocious dialogue. “Did you bring a calendar with you?” a menacing rival racer asks Jim. Why? “To time that boat with!”

– Edward Goldberger

DEAD & BREAKFAST
R, 88 mins.

‘Dead and Breakfast,” which plays at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater until April 26, is a goofy, gore-filled ho-down in the Lloyd Kaufman tradition of cartoon over-the-top violence. This indie horror film, drenched in cheeky humor (the main zombie uses a severed head as a hand puppet), also features a country-singing Greek chorus.

The film’s plot focuses on a group of people (including Jeremy Sisto and David Carradine) staying at a B&B that gets overtaken by the undead when an evil spirit is unwittingly released. The pale zombie makeup leaves a little to be desired, but the death scenarios (one guy gets a drumstick through the eye, someone else has a symbol sliced through his skull) are joyously diverse. And this is almost certainly the best film ever made with a character named “The Chick With the Foaming Mouth and the Hammer in Her Head.”

– Edward Goldberger