Steve Lemme, left, Bill Paxton, and Jay Chandrasekhar star in 'Broken Lizard's Club Dread.'
A Fox Searchlight Pictures release of a Cataland Films production. Produced by Richard Perello. Executive producers, Lance Hool, Peter E. Lengyel. Co-producer, Conrad Hool. Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar. Screenplay, Broken Lizard.
Coconut Pete - Bill Paxton
Putman Livingston - Jay Chandrasekhar
Lars - Kevin Heffernan
Juan Castillo - Steve Lemme
Dave - Paul Soter
Sam - Erik Stolhanske
Jenny - Brittany Daniel
Hank - MC Gainey
Penelope - Jordan Ladd
Yu - Lindsay Price
Roy - Michael Weaver
Manny - Nat Faxon
Dirk - Samm Levine
Rolo - Dan Montgomery Jr.
Stacy - Elena Lyons
Kellie - Tanja Reichert
There is no excuse for "Broken Lizard's Club Dread," a stunningly unfunny farce that makes the worst of a stale concept. Fox Searchlight earned a tidy profit with pick-up of "Super Troopers," an appreciably funnier 2002 low-budgeter written and performed by Broken Lizard comedy troupe. But even ancillary biz should be puny for quintet's latest farrago, a slasher-thriller spoof filled with lame jokes, stock characters and T&A gags that are way past their expiration date.
Body count mounts on Pleasure Island, a Caribbean resort owned and operated by Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton), a blissfully burnt-out pop star whose musical oeuvre suggests the work of a tone-deaf, brain-dead Jimmy Buffett. Party-hearty visitors and staffers are only gradually distracted from hedonistic activities -- casual sex, recreational drugs, live-action Pac-Man games -- by the murderous spree of a machete-wielding killer.
Chief among the likely suspects are characters essayed by five Broken Lizard troupers: Brit tennis instructor Putman Livingston (helmer Jay Chandrasekhar, who also directed "Super Troopers"); beefy masseur Lars (Kevin Heffernan); dive master Juan Castillo (Steve Lemme); disc jockey Dave (Paul Soter); and "fun police" enforcer Sam (Erik Stolhanske).
Other potential killers include non-Lizard co-stars: Brittany Daniel as a perky fitness instructor, MC Gainey as a grizzled security chief, Jordan Ladd as an extremely flexible gymnast and Lindsay Price as a doomed resort staffer.
Except for Paxton, who saunters through most of pic with the disengaged geniality of a variety show guest host, Lizards and non-Lizards alike overplay aggressively. As pic progresses at a plodding pace, there's an unmistakable air of mounting desperation to all the frat-house prankishness and leering lasciviousness.
"Super Troopers" was such a wildly uneven hit-and-miss enterprise, you couldn't help suspecting that it was improvised on a day-to-day basis during production. "Club Dread" is even more slapdash, and much less amusing. Pic is so bereft of comic invention that, for painfully long stretches, it plays more like a third-rate "Friday the 13th" knockoff than a parody of same.
Occasionally, some curvy female co-star bares her breasts or simulates sexual activity to liven things up. But it's doubtful that even hard-core hanky-panky could dispel the heavy air of mind-numbing tedium.
Tech values for filmed-in-Mexico pic are no better than they have to be.
Camera (Deluxe color), Lawrence Sher; editor, Ryan Folsey; music, Nathan Barr; music supervisors, Christopher Covert, Barry Cole; production designer, Benjamin Conable; art director, Theresa Wachter; costume designer, Melissa Bruning; sound (Dolby), David Alvarez; assistant director, Fernando Altschul; second unit directors, Lance Hool, Ernie Orsatti; second unit camera, Robert Barocci, Leo Napolitano; casting, John Papsidera. Reviewed at Cinemark Tinseltown Westchase Theater, Houston, Feb. 23, 2004. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 103 MIN.
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Date in print: Fri., Feb. 27, 2004