Written by: PBF
Coconut Pete is without a doubt, the best role Bill Paxton has ever played.
Club Dread is the 3rd film by Broken Lizard, following Super Troopers. There is a resort called Coconut Pete’s Pleasure Island, in Costa Rica. It is your basic hedonistic paradise; lots of naked people, booze, drugs, etc. Coconut Pete is a former rock star in the vein of Jimmy Buffet who will be quick to remind you that his hit Pina Coladaburg was written 7 years before Margaritaville. On this island is the fun police, live Pac Man games (in which you might see the fruit from the game having sex with each other) and the legend of Machete Pete. Machete Pete supposedly killed a bunch of staff and castrated himself and ran off in to the woods never to be seen again. Soon after this story is told (around a campfire ala Friday the 13th Part 2) dead bodies start being found with cryptic clues carved in to them. With no way off the island, the staff must figure out which one of them is the killer.
I purposely watched all other Lizards films before Super Troopers. I did this, because it had been a while since I had seen some of the others, and there were a couple I had not seen at all, and I wanted to know if Super Troopers would still be the best after viewing them all. While I still think it is, Club Dread is a very close second (and Beerfest is not that far off, either). The reason that it is second, is only because it is not as consistently funny as Troopers. However, when it is funny, it is hysterical. Bill Paxton is just superbly funny as Pete, who is drunk all of the time and cannot remember most things he did, including making entire albums. This is especially funny as the killer quotes his lyrics and uses his one of his songs as a sort of victim blueprint, but Pete cannot offer any assistance as to what the song actually means. The film also has some of the weirdest/funniest lines of any of their films: “This guy’s gonna be picking his teeth outta my dump!” and “You get a fun fucking warrant!” Sometimes, however, the jokes are not funny and provide an uneven feel.
What also works well in this film, is the horror genre spoof. It’s not as obvious as “What’s your favorite scary movie?” but it has all the elements of classic horror films. Young people having sex and getting wasted then getting killed. Cheap scares, the “killer legend” story that is told. But it also does a good job of being a half decent real horror picture as well. The movie gives everyone a motive early on and will keep you guessing who the killer is. It is a good slasher horror, that not only does a great job of parodying the genre, but makes it funny for the most part, while being both tongue in cheek and clever. Not saying it’s the first film to do this, but one of the better ones. In fact, it actually kind of stands apart from the other Lizard films as an almost serious attempt to make a film that is not just humorous, but one that demonstrates the troupes film/film making knowledge. It has slick timing and is just a very well directed film.
When I say that Dread is second to Troopers, I mean by a very small margin. Aesthetically it is superior, but its continued misses in humor (humor being one half of the film), just knock it down to that second spot. Troopers, which is a straight comedy, is mostly comedy hits and thus solidifies it as the more even, and more effective of the two.
Best shot of the film: decapitation from the head’s point of view. It watches the body it was separated from flop around for a minute.
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