Club Dread  (2004)

Starring: Bill Paxton, Kevin Heffernen, Steve Lemme
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar

Rating: R

Studio: Fox Searchlight

Release Date: 02.27.04

Review Posted: 03.03.04

Spoilers: None

By Gregory L. Amato

Broken and Beyond Repair

The lucky thing about most horror/slasher/monster movies is that even if they’re really bad, you can sit back and enjoy them as each character dies, knowing you are that much closer to the end of the film. Too bad that’s also a useful strategy to adopt while sitting through Broken Lizard’s Club Dread, which is supposed to be a comedy.

Just a little bit more might be expected from the Broken Lizard Comedy Troupe, the players responsible for Super Troopers. In Club Dread, a new boatload of partygoers arrive at Coconut Pete’s Pleasure Island just in time for the staff members to start being killed off by a masked assailant demanding that they tell none of the guests. Is the killer one of their own, one of the guests, or a campfire story character come to life?

It’s not that Club Dread is devoid of humor—far from it. The problem is that you could find funnier jokes by watching reruns of Beavis and Butthead. Almost every “funny” line is an unmemorable, clichéd reference to either sex or drugs. It’s almost as if the Troupe took an ascetic vow to avoid wit at all costs. Everyone seems to sleep with everyone else, a pretzel has sex with a watermelon (at least this idea was original), and one character hides a secret past of having his way with a goat.

Even worse, Bill Paxton sings.

Club Dread has on hand all the makings of cheesy horror films of the past: The killer moves in perfect silence and can appear out of nowhere, knows exactly where you are and where you’re going to run to, is virtually indestructible, etc. But the characters and the story are such caricatures (Bill Paxton in particular, as the washed-out Jimmy Buffet wannabe “Coconut Pete”) that the film almost seems to go the route of the vastly overrated “horror spoof” genre. Caught somewhere in between the two, Club Dread doesn’t do very well at either, and the lame humor just isn’t enough to sustain it. Who is the killer? By the time you find out, will you care?

Club Dread undoubtedly has its audience. If you liked Baywatch but wanted cruder humor, gore, and bare breasts, this movie is for you. To that end, the film was a success. If you’re looking for even an inkling of the sick, smart-alecky humor of last year’s Bad Santa or Buffalo Soldiers, your expectations have a long way to drop.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 5)

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