Overview: During the dress rehearsal for a festive Christmas play in small-town Serenity, Iowa, star Louise Lamont topples over after a bite of prop pastry.

Since the frosty actress had earned plenty of enemies through her offstage dramatics, the cast of suspects is longer than Santa’s Naughty or Nice list.

Prop mistress Brandy Borne and her diva-turned-director mother, Vivian-assisted by their savvy shih tzu, Sushi-must solve this fruitcake fatality before it’s curtains for anyone else.

DVD Verdict: Written and directed by Max Allan Collins and based on the bestselling Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures mysteries written by Max and his wife Barbara Allan, what we have here within this gloriously low, oh-so low budget Agatha Christie-style reveal of suspenseful surprises and fraught, pensively sculpted moments is a center stage play that stops at nothing to entertain the viewer from the very off.

I mean, aside from the fact that if you are already a fan of those most wonderful books within the Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures mysteries you will love this movie regardless, but what the casual passerby will glean from an evening spent with it is that as much as the acting and facial/body movements can look somewhat stilted, the quippy comebacks not as sharply delivered as one would have hoped, every single person on your screen is most assuredly earning their bare minimum, did-it-for-love paycheck, that is for sure.

Funded, for the most part, by both Max and Barbara, the low budget production is one that will most definitely entrance anyone watching along. Sure, you are more likely to enjoy seeing the amateur sleuth antics of mother and daughter Vivian and Brandy Borne brought to life if you know the books it is based on, but that aside, I didn’t know the books (still don’t) and yet I was having a grand ol’ home entertainment time watching it.

“I love indie filmmaking and Death By Fruitcake represents my tenth production, starting with Mommy and Mommy’s Day,”, Max explains, “continuing on through Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market, Shades of Noir, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, my two documentaries (V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop and Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane), and more recently Encore for Murder and Blue Christmas.”

“Filmmaking is definitely a sideline for me, at least as a writer/director. I’ve had several of my scripts produced beyond this – The Expert and recently Cap City. And I was lucky enough to land a bigtime, eventually Academy Award-winning production of Road to Perdition, as well as one season of an HBO series based on Quarry.”

“But I am definitely a regional director, usually operating on what would best be described as micro-budgets (the Mommy movies sported budgets that were solid for the video store era, where they saw considerable success). I am grateful to those of you who follow my novel-writing career with the support you’ve shown for these efforts.”

“And remember – what would the coming holiday season be without a slice of fruitcake!”

Official Trailer