Gore and giggles combine in 'Club Dread'

By Mark Caro
Chicago Tribune

CLUB DREAD Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar; written by Broken Lizard; photographed by Lawrence Sher; edited by Ryan Folsey; production designed by Benjamin Conable; music by Nathan Barr; produced by Richard Perello. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release. Running time: 1:43. MPAA rating: R (violence/gore, sexual content, language and drug use).

Even if you've seen these movies, you'd be hard-pressed to pinpoint the five Broken Lizard guys' individual comic strengths. Whereas Monty Python represented a brilliant melding of distinct sensibilities — Michael Palin's free-associating genius vs. John Cleese's cerebral wordplay, for instance — Broken Lizard is more of a club for the like-minded.

The upside is that they're likable and play well together, showing little strain as they take turns portraying the heartthrob or the heavy or the goofus from movie to movie. The downside is that they're all still communicating roughly the same message, which lies somewhere between a wink and a nudge.

With "Club Dread" they try to mix the deadpan of Wes Anderson's "Bottle Rocket" with the lewd anarchy of National Lampoon's "Animal House," as they take the slasher movie to the beach. The setting is Pleasure Island, where an over-the-hill Jimmy Buffett type named Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton with hair extensions) hosts Club Med-style getaways for the hard-bodied and party-hearty.

But this particular outing is marred by, yes, a killer on the loose, who starts picking off the staffers one by one while leaving clues that quote Pete's songs. Among those staffers are the Lizard guys: the doughy Kevin Heffernan as Zen masseur Lars; Erik Stolhanske as Sam, the aggressive leader of the island's Fun Police; Paul Soter as Pete's screwed-up nephew Dave; Steve Lemme as the Latin lover-boy dive master Juan Castillo; and Jay Chandrasekhar, who also directed, as pompous British tennis pro Putnam, who, like Lars, has the hots for the cast's token leggy blond, Brittany Daniel as Jenny.

The movie's tongue being firmly in cheek — when it's not halfway down a tequila bottle or somebody's throat — "Club Dread" doesn't generate much suspense over its mystery. It's not too fresh on the comedy end, either.

Horror movies already have received the post-modern parody treatment in the "Scream" series, with another layer of spoof added with the "Scary Movie" movies. What's left? Not much that the Broken Lizard folks find, even if they do draw some laughs with an opening that plays with the genre's various audience-scaring conventions — though the trump card is a would-be stud whose idea of a seduction line is "How 'bout you lick my chest?"

There are a few inspired throwaway moments, such as a beach game that amounts to Pac-Man in a bush maze, or Pete crooning such shaggy songs as "Pina Coladaburg." (He gets steamed when a guest keeps requesting "Margaritaville.")

But mostly "Club Dread" is club dead — gore and sexjinks presented by guys who seem smarter than their material and more amused than they give us reason to be. Outrageous comedy isn't meant to be this safe.