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CLUB DREAD
by Peter Sobczynski

February 27, 2004

1/2 (out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written by Broken Lizard. Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar. Starring Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Brittany Daniel, Jordan Ladd and Bill Paxton.

Like Monty Python, the group that they are most often compared to, the Broken Lizard comedy troupe specializes in the kind of humor that is smart, funny and yet almost impossible to describe to someone else without making it sound silly and pointless. (If there is a Python fan out there who believes that what I have just said smacks of heresy, try finding someone who has never heard of them before and try to explain the legendary "Dead Parrot" sketch to them sometime.) Much of the laughs that they get come not from the jokes themselves but from the approach that is taken to them. In their previous film, the cult hit "Super Troopers", there was one scene in which several guys, out of sheer boredom, decide to pepper every sentence they say with the word "shenanigans". This doesn’t sound very funny, I realize, and if someone I knew tried it, I might have to slap them. In the context of the film, however, it was so inexplicably hysterical that I actually had to step out of the screening room for a couple of minutes after the scene because I couldn’t stop laughing.

Their latest film, the horror-comedy "Club Dread" is more of the same and presents the same problems for anyone trying to recommend it to someone. Because it is a spoof of the Grand Guignol slasher films of the early 1980’s, many will simply dismiss it as just another grossout clone of "Scream" or "Scary Movie" (or, if they have longer memories, the 1981 satire "Student Bodies"). Yet there is genuine intelligence and wit behind the jokes-a blessed relief after the idiocies of "50 First Dates" and "Eurotrip"-as well as the sense that the group is playing up to the viewer’s intellect rather than playing down to their baser instincts. There is a joke in the film, for example, in which it is revealed that a character once engaged in an improper relationship with a goat. By itself, the joke is not particularly funny or shocking. (You would be surprised-or maybe you wouldn’t-to discover how often such things come up on the movie beat.) However, what would have been the low-comedy "highlight" of a typical movie instead is handled with unexpected restraint-which, of course, is merely the build-up for a punchline that is both subtle (so subtle that some viewers might not even register it) and hilarious. (That’s right-a subtle and hilarious joke about a guy sleeping with a goat.)

Like most slasher movies, "Club Dread" takes a bunch of attractive people, isolates them and then picks them off one by one in creatively gory fashion. The locale this time is Pleasure Island, a resort off of Costa Rica that is owner and operated by seedy rock star Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton) to allow his fans to live the hedonistic lifestyle he has promoted in dozens and dozens of albums. Before long, the staff begins to be killed off one by one and the survivors are warned that they must continue to run the resort without warning the guests or they will be the next to die. There is, inevitably, a large number of potential suspects. For example, the killings coincided with the arrival of Lars (Kevin Heffernan), the resort’s new masseuse. There is Penelope (Jordan Ladd), the seemingly innocent tourist who seems to be harboring a secret. There is Jenny (Brittany Daniel), the aerobics instructor who was just hired for a TV show after the original host died mysteriously. Even Coconut Pete could be the killer-he seems to be finally cracking under the pressure of a lifetime pursuit of pleasure. ("You think Eddie Money puts up with this s---?") Any one of them, not to mention the other staff and guests, could be the fabled "Machete Maniac" that supposedly haunts the island.

The funniest character of the bunch is Coconut Pete and he best exemplifies the Broken Lizard approach to comedy. Obviously, the character is meant to be a spoof of Jimmy Buffett (right down to the sound-alike songs that we hear on the soundtrack) and in most comedies, the mere fact that he is supposed to be Buffet would be the entire joke. "Club Dread" spins the joke off in an unexpected direction by acknowledging this-a partygoer drunkenly requests "Margaritaville" and Pete launches into a bitter screed that he was there first (with his hit song "Pina Coladasburg") and that Buffett ("that son-of-a-son-of-a-bitch") is the imitator. (If you like Jimmy Buffett, you will like the film but if you hate him, I suspect that you will love it.)

One of the reasons why "Club Dread" is so funny is that it doesn’t try to club us over the head with its outrageousness. Instead, the group plays things relatively straight and then gives the material just the right angle to push it into comedy without ever going over-the-top in the manner of "Scary Movie". In fact, if you were somehow watching

the film without the soundtrack, it would pretty much play like one of the second-tier slasher movies that came in the wake of "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th". Director Jay Chandrasekhar (who also plays the resort’s tennis instructor) includes many of the visual tropes of the genre-such as numerous "it was all a dream" moments designed solely to temporarily up the body count and weirdly unmotivated POV shots-without ever calling overt attention to them and because he doesn’t rub the viewers face in them, they become even funnier. (Another priceless gag is the inevitable bit where a door shuts and someone matter-of-factly remarks "It must have been the wind"-to explain why this is funny would be to spoil the joke.)

Adding to the conceit of the film is the fact that it is surprisingly gory and violent-just as much as the films that are being spoofed. The actual killings are fairly straightforward and bloody (one is genuinely wince-inducing) and I could easily picture them in the pages of an old issue of "Fangoria" magazine. At the same time, though, there is always just enough humor to keep the killings from becoming overly unpleasant. Those who haven’t seen a true gore film in a long time might be put off by the carnage but for longtime fans of the genre, the goriness will come as a pleasant surprise.

"Club Dread" isn’t perfect-like most comedies, it starts running out of steam towards the end and at least one potentially great gag (a live-action version of Pac-Man) is set up so badly that it never quite pays off-but when it is funny, it is really, really funny. You don’t need to be a fan of slasher movies to appreciate the humor of the film. However, you do need to be of the mindset that contemporary film humor doesn’t need to be stupid to be funny and that genuine wit is far more valuable in the long run than the sight of a vomiting walrus.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.