By Chris Tait
If you had super powers, what power would you want to have? Would you want to fly, looking down the shirts of thousands of women? Would you want to be invisible to sneak into the women’s locker rooms? How about being able to give an orgasm to anyone with a simple touch of your finger to their face? This is just one of the intense philosophical issues discussed in Broken Lizard’s Club Dread.
Welcome to Pleasure Island, a modern-day tropical paradise. The founder, Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton), constantly recovering from his acid days, is a musician whose dozens of records are based solely on three things: sex, drugs and fun. Pleasure Island is also based on these concepts, as is Club Dread–not that that’s the reason you’d wanna see it, right?
On the island, there are several staff members, kind of like camp counsellors, running classes and activities. Tennis Instructor, Diving Expert and Fun Police are just some of the titles these guys and gals get to put on their business cards. The latest addition to the crew is Lars (Kevin Heffernan), the new masseur.
Lars is known for his Tai Chi, his Zen approach to life, and his aforementioned poke-you-in-the-face-with-my-finger orgasm dispensing. I ponder this as I enter my Eastern Religious Studies class…
During his first week on the job, people on the island start dying. Not by overexposure to public nudity, drugs and alcoholism, surprisingly, but by machete. The staff are being singled out one by one. Will Lars regret his new position?
Not bloody likely, as he’s sharing the screen with super-hot Brittany Daniel and Jordan Ladd.
Club Dread is not, despite a crappy trend in Hollywood, a parody of horror flicks, though it does have many things in common with these vile endeavours, such as token minorities.
A recommendation to some of the lesser educated in humanities: if you’re looking for screen TA, then this one is for you.
It’s more like a really funny horror movie, all on its own. It’s like Evil Dead II, but instead of having Bruce Campbell and the cheesy monster effects, we have a Python-esque Broken Lizard comedy troupe putting out a horror movie with more plot-related dead ends than a Kennedy family tree.
Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of satire in the movie, making fun of the new teeny-slasher-of-the-week, but it’s not the film’s sole purpose. The other purpose is obviously to promote eastern religious practices.
The waiting lists for RELS 203 are going to be insane next semester. Suckers.