Posted: 03/09/2004

Broken Lizard’s Club Dread

(2004)

by Clint Fletcher

From the really silly people who brought you Super Troopers… Blah, blah, blah.

I must start off by saying that I’m a big fan of the Broken Lizard gang. I loved 2001’s Super Troopers and thought that it was an extremely underrated film. With that in mind, I shall move on to their next comedic epic… or should I say comedic attempt?

Broken Lizard’s Club Dread is a complete waste of an hour and a half.

The whole gang is back and once again playing different characters. This time around, Kevin Hefenan (aka dimwitted Officer Farva) takes the lead role as Lars, a bartender who has recently accepted a job on a vacation resort on an exotic island. But as fast as you can say “this movie blows,” bodies start dropping like flies around the island, and its up to the dumbass staff (no, not the film crew) to figure out who the killer is and hopefully live another day so they can make more films to make up for this one. As many of you can determine just by seeing previews or clips from this film, the BL gang try to recreate those typical horror cliches of 90’s slasher flicks and poke fun at the way most characters react within those films. Come on, guys. I’m quite fond of your little circle, and I’m sure you people are truly funny in reality, but one of you have surely heard of the Scary Movie trilogy…right? The horror spoof has already been run into the ground, so why dig it back up? Why not wait 20 years to dig it up and remake some of those slasher films, like other bad filmmakers do? In a warped way, these guys are actually creating a cliché out of a cliché.

The biggest problem with Club Dread is that since it tries so hard to spoof the horror/slasher genre, it inadvertently becomes the very creation that it’s trying so hard to spoof: a bad horror movie. Instead of laughing more than jumping from cheesy scares, we’re jumping more than laughing. There must be a fine line between comedy and horror, and Club Dread crosses the line. The story finds itself imbalanced between the two genres and in the end, simply exceeds more as a terrible slasher film than a comedy. The “ashamed of yourself” award this time around goes to Bill Paxton, who for some reason after directing and starring in a horror masterpiece (Frailty) decides to follow up his directorial debut with this piece of shit. Stoner Coconut Pete may be a stretch for Paxton, but his character was just downright annoying, and while I’m at it, that goes for EVERYONE else in the film. Other bad casting decisions include minimizing director Jay Chandrasekhar (who typically takes the lead role in the BL films) to a supporting role. Jay’s character was the most humorous of the Super Troopers gang and he is by far the best actor out of the rest of his crew.

Sticking with my theory that any cinematic piece ever created has at least ONE redeeming quality, Club Dread’s redeeming quality is the execution of murder motive within the story… that is, setting up scenarios for a character to have reason to murder another character. The style of this execution is rather humorous. Instead of wasting the first half of the film setting up scenarios, CD covers all of them in about five minutes with a refreshing technique. Whenever someone would insult another, the speed of the film reduces to slow motion as tension music plays, revealing a specific character mouthing curse words behind another’s back, expressing their anger.

Beyond the one redeeming quality, which takes place within the first ten minutes of the film, Club Dread is a waste of film, money and time. Now that I have witnessed how low thie group of comedians can go, I am now DREADing their next picture. Prove me wrong, guys. Oh please prove me wrong…

Clint Fletcher is a Chicago writer and filmmaker.

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