Club Dread on DVD
It seems so commonplace now that a group of people vacationing on a paradise
island will inevitably end up being chopped to bits by a homicidal maniac.
Broken Lizards Club Dread does what Scary Movie did: its best to make
a parody of the whole slasher movie phenomenon. But it ends up being a mildly
amusing disappointment.
After Broken Lizard released Super Troopers,
a hilarious low-budget comedy, expectations were high for Club Dread. But Broken
Lizard appears to be a one-hit wonder, having already run dry of good ideas.
Club Dread seems more of an excuse for the troupe to fly to a tropical location
and have beautiful women strolling around in revealing outfits.
Not that theres anything wrong with that.
Were sure you already know the story: Coconut Petes Pleasure Island
is a great place to have a great time, but when people start turning up dead,
its up to the employees to find out who the killer is and stop him before
he kills them all.
Upon discovering that Broken Lizards next project would be a slasher
spoof, fans got a little insecure. It had been done before, and not been done
well. But the Broken Lizard team seemed as if they could handle the task.
Apparently not.
Club Dread offers very few laughs, and the laughs that are available are more
like moderate chuckles. Too much time is spent trying to make us jump and not
enough time is spent trying to make us laugh. It seems the director wanted a
project in which he could show off his chops a little more.
The running gag takes horror spoofing to the next level. In other movies, there
are a bunch of fake jumps that entail a character running from the
bad guy and being grabbed by someone, only to discover its another good
guy. Club Dread has it happening up to three times in a row, over and over throughout
the movie. If thats all the goods they had, they should have made a different
movie.
On the plus side, theres a lot of good scenery in the film. Beautiful
women in bikinis are all over the place, and theyre never shy. But there
isn't enough blatant, gratuitous nudity to make it worth watching (though in
all fairness there is a little).
Club Dread is an unfortunate failure all the way around. The potential was
there, with a potentially great comedy team behind it, but once again it was
done all wrong. Recommended only for those trying to settle their curiosity.
Super Troopers was a surprise hit a few years ago, raking in over $20 million
on a budget of $6 million. Club Dread was a bomb even by Fox Searchlight standards.
The DVD features both widescreen and full screen versions, Dolby Digital 5.1,
and an audio commentary by the crew. Color and detail are done pretty well,
and theres not much grain. Theres an abundance of skin in the movie,
and fortunately the fleshtones are good as well. A few scenes look a little
washed out and muddy, but overall its pretty good.
The audio is okay, but as is typical of this kind of film, the surrounds arent
given much to do and the rest of the speakers are just doing what they do as
well as they can. Dialogue, score and sound effects try to share the front channels,
and for the most part do a good job, except during some of the more intense
scenes, where the dialogue is a little muffled.
The audio commentary by the Broken Lizard team is more amusing than the movie,
but gets tiresome pretty quickly.
Club Dread, from Fox Searchlight Pictures
104 minutes, anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) 16x9 enhanced & 1.33:1 full
screen, Dolby Digital 5.1
Starring Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske,
Brittany Daniel and Bill Paxton
Produced by Richard Perello
Written by Broken Lizard, directed by Jay Chandrasekhar
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