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Club Dread
IMDB entry

The thing that I came out of this movie wanting the most is a cd of Coconut Pete songs. I don't understand why there aren't any on the movie soundtrack. [if anybody finds any .mp3's out there let me know]

Pete [Bill Paxton] is patterned after Jimmy Buffet, but comes off to me as more of Ozzy Osborne crossed with David Lee Roth, spaced out, balding, but still clinging to that rock-star wardrobe. He owns a resort on an island where he and a crew of oh-so-pretty ones take in guests for week long parties, complete with Pete concerts, ghost stories around the campfire and life size pac-man.

Then a machete wielding maniac starts killing them off one by one.

Most of the time movies with a plot like this are unintentionally funny, but the Broken Lizard crew toe the line with a film that works as both a screwball comedy and a bad 80s horror film. Imagine a Police Academy Two crossed with a Friday the 13th, and you get the idea.

This isn't a sight gag comedy, or a gross out comedy, but more of an older style one where there are actually set-ups for jokes and lulls in the comedy and the action, rather than constantly throwing as much crap at the wall just to see what sticks. I imagine the problem lots of online reviewers have had with the film is because they've been conditioned by one too many Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider film to expect every comedy to have to center around a too zany character mugging for the camera and an abundance of reaction shots to said mugging.

There's not really any of that here. What you have are offbeat characters placed in extraordinary circumstances, much like Cabin Fever, but with lower intensity horror [this is a comedy after all].

The story is nicely and simply set up, and works to give pretty much every major character motive and opportunity to be the killer up to their eventual bloody death.

The ensemble cast works great here, with everybody getting in some good lines and no one working to overshadow anyone else. It's obvious that the Broken Lizard guys know each other's strengths and weaknesses.

Good over the top horror spoof. Fans of Super Troopers won't be disappointed.