Slasher spoof is so weak, it redefines "yuckfest."This Pleasure Island's painful
Broken Lizard is a comedy troupe that started at Colgate University in the early '90s - and should've stopped there. Instead, the five alumni moved to New York, plied the stand-up circuit, and cobbled together the cash for a short, "The Tinfoil Monkey Agenda." Then came an indie feature, Puddle Cruiser, and then, in the mysterious ways of the movie biz, a deal was struck for a stoner highway patrol parody called Super Troopers. Now comes Broken Lizard's Club Dread, a slasher spoof of sorts, except that unlike the Scream pics, scant effort seems to have gone into the spoofing aspect of the story. Or the story aspect of the story, for that matter. Like the guests who party hardy on Pleasure Island - a Caribbean resort lorded over by a brain-fried Jimmy Buffett-type (Bill Paxton, mega-slumming) - the writers must have been too blotto to bother with, like, jokes. In Club Dread, a couple dressed in fruit costumes copulating in a shed passes for laff-riot hysteria.
Broken Lizard is a comedy troupe that started at Colgate University in the early '90s - and should've stopped there. Instead, the five alumni moved to New York, plied the stand-up circuit, and cobbled together the cash for a short, "The Tinfoil Monkey Agenda." Then came an indie feature, Puddle Cruiser, and then, in the mysterious ways of the movie biz, a deal was struck for a stoner highway patrol parody called Super Troopers.
Now comes Broken Lizard's Club Dread, a slasher spoof of sorts, except that unlike the Scream pics, scant effort seems to have gone into the spoofing aspect of the story. Or the story aspect of the story, for that matter. Like the guests who party hardy on Pleasure Island - a Caribbean resort lorded over by a brain-fried Jimmy Buffett-type (Bill Paxton, mega-slumming) - the writers must have been too blotto to bother with, like, jokes. In Club Dread, a couple dressed in fruit costumes copulating in a shed passes for laff-riot hysteria.
There's a machete-wielding maniac on the loose in Coconut Pete's (that's Paxton's) hedonist playground, and the killer is pointing his blade at Pleasure Island's staffers. And so, one by one, the trim, top-baring actresses and dopey dudes get sliced and gorged, decapitated and disemboweled - with the help of gory splatter effects.
Broken Lizarder Jay Chandrasekhar gets the directing credit, costarring as a dreadlocked tennis pro with a bad British accent. He and his Lizard colleagues, who each take a role, share screenplay authorship.
And Paxton? Well, his Coconut Pete turns red with rage when one of the guests asks him to play his old hit, "Margaritaville." He breaks into his signature song, penned, he says, seven years before Buffett's. It's called "Pina Colada Burg." That, I guarantee, is Club Dread's wittiest moment.
Contact movie critic Steven Rea
at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.
Broken Lizard's Club Dread * 1/2 (out of four stars)
Written by Broken Lizard, directed by Jay Chandrasekhar. With Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Brittany Daniel and Bill Paxton.
Running time: 1 hour, 43 mins (or too long by half)
Parent's guide: R (violence, nudity, profanity, boozing, drugs)
Playing at: area theaters