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Monday, August 15, 2011

Club Dread

Well, Tourist Trap had a nervous breakdown in my laptop, so I'm going with the other slasher flick Netflix mailed out this week, Club Dread. Maybe a working copy of Tourist Trap will get to me, but I'm not going to hold my breath--heck, one of the reviewers on Netflix claimed that they sent him 3 bad discs! How does that happen 3 times in a row? But it doesn't matter. So sit back, relax, and drink a pina colada while I SPOIL the crap out of Club Dread!

The movie takes place in Costa Rica, on the oddly-named Pleasure Island. There's a lot of screaming as the camera gets closer, but it's a couple looking for a secluded make-out spot. Rolo, the male, is busy mocking Putman. one of the resort's employees, while his girlfriend, Stacy, takes off her top. I like this one already...

Rolo shows Stacy a bag of weed(which he calls Costa Rica Freaka), and lights up. As the pair start making out, Stacy sees an ominous figure wandering nearby. Rolo just wants her to twiddle his nipples(I shit you not...), but he agrees to take Stacy to a different area that is even more secluded.

Rolo's more secluded area turns out to be a graveyard. Even Stacy has enough common sense to question the decency of what they're about to do, but her objections are halted by the reappearance of the wandering stalker from before. Before Stacy can stop him, Rolo decides to confront the guy. He grabs a heavy tree branch, walks up to the dark figure, and realizes that it's a tiki statue. Rolo knocks the head off, and is surprised by a tiny primate that leaps up from out of nowhere.

As the monkey wanders away, an attractive blonde pops up to scare the couple next. She's holding a tray of tropical drinks though, so I tend to doubt that she's a killer. The horny trio decide to duck into a mausoleum for their sexcapades. The interior looks lived in, with newspaper clippings, a machete, lanterns....seriously, these 3 are dumber than a sack of doorknobs if they stay. Hilariously, one of the girls finds a well-endowed idol, and tells Rolo that they no longer need him. The girls begin to kiss each other, and the chamber is plunged into complete, utter darkness.

They quickly get the door open, start to remove their clothes, and pleasure one another. The blonde hears the machete sliding over stone and sees a figure moving behind Rolo. As she and Stacy back away, an oblivious Rolo gets his shoulder severed by the sharp blade.

The girls run through the jungle screaming, and split up when there's a fork in the path. The blonde runs until she nearly falls over a cliff. She reaches behind her for a branch or rock to grab onto, and cuts a nasty cut when her fingers clench the killer's machete. She gasps at the pain, then slips over the cliff into the ocean. Hey, maybe she survived....but probably not.

Stacy hears her screams, and finds a footbridge that leads to the resort's pool. She sees a number of guests in the distance and relaxes slightly, giving the killer time to behead her. As her body falls to the ground and convulses, the titles zooms onto her dying torso. Cool.

Then the movie takes us back to, as the screen says, ONE HOUR EARLIER. A ship called Princess Yelapa is pulling up to Pleasure Island. The island and resort are owned by Coconut Pete(played by Bill Paxton), a sort of poor man's version of Jimmy Buffet. His musical claim to fame is a ditty called "Pina Coladaburg".

Anyway, this scene introduces us to our many, many victims. There's Jenny, the cute-as-Hell aerobics instructor; Juan, in charge of watersports(and probably the funniest character in the film; Putman, a prissy British tennis pro; Dave the Deejay(and drug supplier); Sam, the Fun Police; Yu, a pretty Asian employee; Kelly, a somewhat cute waitress; and Lars Brunckhorst, a portly Zen and massage expert who has been trying to tell the others that he's an employee, not a guest. Oh, and Penelope, a guest who Jenny finds wandering around lost in the jungle.

As the guests are enjoying free drinks by the pool, Stacy shows up, only to be murdered. Really? That short introduction and the drinks at the pool were a full 2 hours? Okay movie, if you say so. Anyway, there's a short, funny bit with 2 guys checking out all of the hot chicks by the pool. Through them, we learn that Jenny is a minor celebrity: she stars on an early-morning aerobics show, where an odd series of deaths helped her to get promoted. Hmmmm....

Lars shows up to meet Jenny and Penelope, and we learn just how good a masseuse he really is. He places his hands on their shoulders, and gives both women instant orgasms. Then Sam grabs Jenny for a "human Limbo" stick, and she asks Lars to meet up with her later. As everyone parties the day away, we get a final look at Stacy's corpse, not that far away.

That evening, the resort throws the mother of all parties. Coconut Pete meets Lars, who we discover is pretty obsessed with every aspect of Pete's life. Oh, and we meet yet another character: Hank, who is Pete's bodyguard. While he distracts Lars, Juan ushers Pete away to meet a female fan. After Juan feeds Pete some specific info about a concert she attended, Pete pretends to remember her from said concert. Smooth operator, that Coconut Pete.

Putman tries to woo Jenny, who looks pretty damn bored. Luckily, Putman is cock-blocked by a short, annoying loudmouth, giving Jenny time to slip away unnoticed. Then we get my favorite couple in the movie, Penelope and Juan. Sam hooks them up, and Juan introduces himself as a "dive master". Then he sees her name tag, and decides that it's pronounced "Pee-Nah-Lope". I love this friggin' movie...I don't know why, but I just do. Anyway, she tells him that she attends Oral Roberts, and he mistakes the college for a sexual position, like Dirty Sanchez.

The movie decides to go outside for a bit, where we catch up with a guy named Carlos taking a smoke break. He approaches an activity board, where a contest is prominently on display. The contest asks the guests to guess which Coconut Pete song a series of lyrics are from. The lyrics, which seem extremely ominous, are as follows:

"3 amigos took an undersea trip/And never were seen again"

Weird, huh?

So Carlos reads the board, then hears a strange noise. He chalks it up to monkeys, and does what every 1-scene victim does in every slasher flick--he takes a walk in the dark jungle, instead of staying in a well-lit, occupied, active area. As he crouches down on the ground next to some garbage cans, someone approaches from behind, holding a large butcher knife...

Oh, it's only Yu. She asks him when he's going to wash all of the dirty dishes and utensils, and Carlos promises to get to it all in the morning. Yu leaves, and Carlos starts to follow, but one of the trash bins begins to shake. As Carlos goes back to examine it, the killer looms behind him and kills Carlos off-screen.

Coconut Pete and Lars have both grabbed guitars, and they lead a group of partygoers in a singalong around a campfire. A drunk chick yells out a request for "Margaritaville", and proceeds to get Pete pretty pissed off. Pete tells her that his claim to fame was the song "Pina Coladaburg", but she keeps insisting that he play the Jimmy Buffet song instead. Pete goes off on a rant, claiming that his song was written and released more than 7 years before the other song was even conceived. As he starts swearing and mumbling, Hank shows up to escort Pete back to the resort.

Lars sees Jenny at the bar, and briefly touches her shoulder to get her attention, which causes her jaw muscles to loosen up. She drools her drink all over herself, and Lars apologizes, explaining that he thought she looked "tight". When she responds that she's tight in all the right places, Lars does a spit-take all over himself and her. He mentions her starring role on the aerobics show, and Jenny reveals that the gig will give her the income she needs to quit working at Pleasure Island. She picks up a tray of crab meat appetizers, does a sexy little shimmy, and walks away.

Back to the campfire. Dave has taken it upon himself to tell the guests a scary story about the island's very own urban legend, The Machete Maniac. According to Dave, a guy named Phil worked at the resort 15 years ago. One night, Phil was propositioned by an attractive woman, who asked him to go with her to a quiet, deserted spot on the island. The further away from the resort that they get, the woman asks Phil questions that get progressively stranger: Do you believe in voodoo? Do you believe in zombies?

Phil shrugs off the weird questions, and they start to have sex, but Phil gets a strange vibe. A flash of lightning reveals that Phil has been lured out to an ancient burial ground, that the other resort guests have been watching him, and that he's been having sex with a corpse that was dug up from one of the graves.

Anyway, Phil allegedly walked back to the resort, and made his way to the groundskeerper's shack. Once he was inside, Phil picked up a machete, then went back to find the staff members, and murdered them all. Then the legend states that Phil used the machete to cut off his own penis, before running into the jungle, where he supposedly still lurks. And thus, Machete Phil became a legend.

At the conclusion of the tale, Dave claims that Machete Phil can often be heard searching for his penis.(that part seems kind of stupid, given that he cut it off himself, but I guess I'll just go with it...) When Dave finishes the story, Putman stands up, drops his pants, and reveals that he tucked his penis between his legs, to give the group a quick scare and a cheap laugh. After the group leaves, Dave stands up, revealing that he wanted to be the one with the tucked-in penis.

Later that night, Coconut Pete meets up with the staff. He mentions that Rolo, Stacy and Kelly have vanished, and asks if anyone else can run the next evening's luau-themed party. Dave volunteers to do it, but Pete asks Sam to take care of it instead.

The next day, we get a montage of typical resort activities...cliff diving, tennis lessons, beach aerobics, and some kind of game that involves guys having balloons stuck to their butts, so that their female partners can pop them with their vaginae. Uhhh, wouldn't that be more fun the other way ar....never mind. I'll let that one go, too.

The final activity they show is a drinking game similar to Pac-Man. The players run through a maze, looking for bowls fill with tropical drinks, allowing them to chase bikini-clad women through the maze, and staff members dressed up in giant fruit costumes. The guy playing as Pac-Man grabs one of the girls, then sees Putman dressed as a banana, and tackles him to the ground.

Juan, dressed up as the pretzel is summoned to the maze, but is a no-show. Dave goes investigating, and finds Juan screwing a chick dressed as a watermelon. Dave tells him to get out to the maze, then shuts the door again. Lucky for Dave, a guy in a pear costume(and eating a pear...) shows up, so Dave tells him that he needs to go in the maze next.

The pear, who was on his break, isn't too happy to be in the maze. As he's trudging around, Machete Phil grabs the pineapple costume, and slips it on. The pear has a collision with one of the girls in the maze, then sees Machete Phil watching him. Pear also notices the machete, and realizes that the pineapple isn't an employee.

Pear walks in the other direction, but the killer gets ahead of him. Actually afraid now, Pear starts running through the maze. He comes to a dead end, and Machete Phil throws a pear at him, which Pear was seen eating before he entered the maze. The killer waits for Pear to turn around, then slices a deep gash into his stomach. The camera gives us an overhead view of the maze, which shows that Machete Phil and his victim are one wall away from the players, who remain oblivious to what has just transpired.

Near the beach, Jenny is taking a walk and watching someone who has gone para sailing. She hears something that sounds like a blade being unsheathed, and nearly gets her face sliced off by Lars, who is doing some martial arts exercises with a sword in each hand. They start chatting, only to be interrupted by a girl riding piggyback on a blindfolded guy. Lars briefly touches the nape of the girl's neck, and she passes out. The blindfolded guy is also briefly touched, and wets himself. Alone again, Lars makes Jenny orgasm again my touching her mouth. Then the person para sailing crashes down in front of them.

It turns out that the killer hooked Carlos up to the sail after killing him the previous night, and also carved NAUGHTY CARLOS onto his chest. As they ponder what it means, they watch the boat speed away from the island, unmanned.

Back in the maze, Juan tells Dave that he had never heard of Pac-Man in Nicaragua. Putman, dressed as a banana, interrupts their conversation, and they follow him to Pear's corpse, which is being examined by Fun Policeman Sam. His name turns out to be Cliff, which I deduced after seeing NAUGHTY CLIFF carved into his chest. As they wonder if he's dead, the loudspeaker plays the sound effect for when Pac-Man loses a life.

The employees and Pete have a meeting about the killings...right in front of the not-too-swift guests at the pool. Juan offers up the theory that the killer is Machete Phil, but the others shoot down the idea as ridiculous. Sam rushes over to announce that the killer has struck again....but not in the way you think.

The killer altered Sam's activity board, so that it now keeps track of which people have been murdered. Also, in the box where the "guess the song" contest had been, the killer has left them a message: DO YOUR JOBS AND LIVE. TELL THE GUESTS AND DIE. 'CAUSE EVERYBODY'S LOOKING TO FIND THEIR OWN PARADISE...

Frightened more than ever, they decide to evacuate the resort, and get themselves and the guests back to civilization. It's not as easy as it sounds though: Machete Phil has set the boats loose, stranding everyone at the resort. He also destroyed the phones and radio communication.

Coconut Pete holds another meeting, this time at the indoor bar/nightclub. He tells his staff that they have no choice but to pretend that nothing's wrong in front of the tourists, just as the message on the scoreboard implied. They all demand a better plan of action from Pete, but he defers to his bodyguard, Hank. Hank, it turns out, is actually a retired FBI agent, with a specialty in tracking down serial killers.

At first, no one wants to trust Hank, mostly because he has a history of heavy drinking and seems like a bumbling idiot under pressure. It turns out that it was all an act, meant to put people at ease around him. He tells them to continue acting as normal as possible around the guests, so that he can try to set a trap for the killer. He promises them that his expertise is the best weapon they have at the moment.

Later that night, the staff get several bonfires started on the beach, spelling out SOS. A pinata is also set up, so that Hank can watch how each person attacks the target, and also to see which guests are left-handed, as one of the stab wounds was made with the killer holding his machete in his left hand. As the guests party on the beach, Lars and Jenny search their rooms for any incriminating clues in regards to the identity of the killer. Lars tells Jenny that the lyrics on the activity board reminded him of something, but he's not exactly sure what it might be.

Juan is mingling with the guests when Penelope pops up looking for him. She gives a leaf-hat that she made, and asks him to go to a secluded, dark area of the beach, so that they can make out. Juan pretends to agree, then escapes from her clutches to rejoin the crowded beach party.

Hank gets an update about the search from Jenny and Lars, who found nothing in any of the guest rooms. Other than one guest's wooden bible, nothing seemed weird about any of the guests. Hank asks Jenny to talk with Yu, because she's getting agitated. He also assigns Lars guard duty at the bonfire, so that Hank can get away to search the island in a more thorough manner.

At the deejay table, Putman noses around the albums, and finds a mysterious message on one of Coconut Pete's album covers: "Dave, So sorry about your parents. Wish I could've done more. Uncle Pete" Inside the album there's a newspaper clipping about Dave's parents.

So Dave not only works for Coconut Pete, but is also his nephew!

Before we get any in-depth details about this curious development, the movie switches us over to Jenny and Yu. Yu wants to tell the guests about the killer, but Jenny advises her to do as the killer suggested, and act like nothing's wrong. Yu stomps away, and finds 2 stoned guys in the jungle. She asks them to go back to the bonfire, and takes off again.

Yu hears a twig snap behind her, and finds herself facing Machete Phil. She screams and runs the opposite way, getting further away from the bonfire with every step. Yu turns to see if the killer is close, and collides with Hank, who was apparently expecting the killer on that path. Hank holds a large tree branch like a club and taunts the killer. As he's busy yelling at Machete Phil, the killer simply raises his blade and kills Hank in one stroke.

Yu screams again, and runs away. She spots a golf kart nearby, and decides to use it as her getaway vehicle. In one of the film's best sight gags, the kart goes about a mile an hour, allowing the killer to casually stroll next to it. Yu screams, and that's the last we see of her.

Jenny catches a few seconds of herself on the aerobics show, then hears a boat out on the water. She starts to head out to investigate further, but another sound closer to her room convinces Jenny to stay inside and lock her doors.

The next morning, Dave leads a group of guests in what I can only describe as "Craberobics". Jenny tells Sam and Pete about hearing the boat, and they all agree that finding it is a priority. Then Lars arrives to tell them that he knows why the lyrics on the board were so familiar to him....they were from one of Coconut Pete's songs. Uh.....duh? The contest was to identify the Coconut Pete song by knowing the lyric. So what? Oh, okay. The song was called "Naughty Cal", which is similar to what was carved in the chests of the victims.

Okay, so they all decide to find the album and listen to it for clues. The scene is more or less nonsense, but if you pause the screen as they look at the album, you'll laugh your ass off at some of the crazy song titles...my personal favorites were "I'd Tell Ya, But Then I'd Have Tequila", and "High Balls and Low Blows". I'd totally buy this album.

Well, it turns out that the song does seem connected to the murders. One lyric is about a character flying and then crashing, like Carlos. Another lyric seems very specific about Cliff, since it mentions being lost in a maze. In another inspired bit, Dave tries playing the next part backwards, which would be great if the next part wasn't "La la la la la". I'm tellin' ya, this movie's a hoot.

After listening to the song, Pete is told by Juan, "Yu and Hank are dead," which of course sounds like a threat. After a few more misunderstandings, Juan just gives up and tells them to follow him to the latest corpses. Amusingly, the message carved into Hank's chest is DON'T LET THIS BE YU.

To distract the guests, the staff holds a fashion show. As Lars models a poncho for the crowd, Sam and Putman remark that there were no killings until Lars was hired. That gets Jenny mad, and she quickly defends Lars. Of course, as each person steps onto the stage, they all fall under scrutiny.

After the fashion show, it's decided that someone should search for the boats. When it looks like Jenny is a part of the search party, Putman volunteers, but he gets stuck with Lars instead. They head out to explore, as Jenny, Sam and Juan watch. Coconut Pete is briefly shown, teaching his cooking staff how to make coconut paella.

Pete starts getting angry again, asd Jenny and Juan observe him from a distance, only to be interrupted by Penelope. She stuffs a huge portion of calamari into Juan's mouth, and he freaks out because of the octopus reference in the song. When Penelope wanders away, Juan and Jenny decide that there's only 1 way to be sure that she's not the killer: Juan must sleep with her.

Dave, Jenny and Sam are hiding in Juan's closet, ready to jump out if he's in any sort of danger. He looks pretty terrified, as Penelope straddles him. She removes her top and does several somersaults, before landing on top of Juan again. And that's when Penelope reveals the secret she alluded to earlier: she's a world-class gymnast, and she wants to shed her innocent, pristine image, so she can sow some wild oats. Juan and Penelope then proceed to have a sexathon, forcing the trio in the closet to sit through the entire experience. When she goes to the bathroom, Juan even opens the closet door to announce that he's ready for more when she returns.

On the beach, Lars is being given the 3rd degree from a very jealous Putman. Putman frightens him with a large plastic bundle, but it turns out to be a hairnet for Putman's enormous hairdo. Lars breathes a sigh olf relief, and both he and Putman get to sleep. Before Putman falls asleep, though, he examines a news article he found, one that reveals that Lars lost his parents at one of Pete's concerts.

Sam and Dave go through the stuff Lars brought with him, including his swords. They also find a shrine to Coconut Pete that indicates that Lars is obsessed with Pete. Yikes! Is there anyone in this film who isn't crazy?

That's actually a pretty good segue back to the beach. Putman wakes up in the middle of the night and finds both the campfire extinguished and Lars missing. He hears a sword being unsheathed, and sees Machete Phil coming his way. Putman tries to run, but his stupid hairnet gets caught on several plants and trees. The killer catches him, and the mask comes off, revealing Dave as the killer. Then HE gets stabbed from behind by the real killer. The killer removeshis mask, revealing the killer as...Putman? He moves in to kiss...himself, I guess, and it's all revealed as a dream. Lars is trying to wake him up, and a disoriented Putman scurries away into the jungle.

The next morning, Lars brings back one of the missing boats. He shows them the propeller hanging from his neck, and explains that the motor was sabotaged. Sam notes that Lars returned without Putman, and accuses him of being the killer. As Lars continues to deny being the killer, the rest of the employees decide to lock him up.

Jenny finds a group of stoned swimmers in the pool, and decides that it's safe to go for a quick dip. As soon as she dives underwater, a naked dude runs past the pool, [proclaiming free drinks for anyone who catches him. The tipsy swimmers leave the pool, and pursue him.

Jenny surfaces, and gets scared when she finds herself alone in the pool. There's a splash behind her, and Jenny tries to swim to the edge of the pool, but is pulled under the water. After a short struggle, she sees that the other swimmer is the young annoying guy who's been pissing off Putman. As he tries yet again to woo Jenny, a hand grabs him underwater, and yanks him below the surface. It turns out to be a crude joke, but Jenny actually sees the killer behind him, preparing to throw a television into the water. Playing on the screen is an episode of Amy Aerobics.

Jenny gets out of the pool in time, but the young asshole isn't as lucky. He fries like an egg on the sidewalk in August. Sadly, that also knocks out the power around the resort. Jenny sees the killer approaching her again, and starts running.

The good news is that Jenny finds another survivor. The bad news? It's Putman. He creeps out Jenny by asking how badly the kid(whose name, mentioned in this scene, is Dirk) died. Then Sam shows up to break the tension. He leads them to the drunk tank, which is apparently where Lars was confined. When they unlock the door, they find an empty room.

Down the hall, though, a door is rattling. The nervous trio walk toward it, and Juan comes out of hiding to join them. As they reach the door and fling it open, they find Dave on the other side, dancing and weaving a flashlight all over the place.

As they try to figure out where to hide from Lars(even though they still can't be sure that he's the killer), Sam finds a letter stating that Juan has spent time in prison. They gang up on Juan, and he stumbles into a chair that has a cord tied to it. As the cord unravels, the chairs spins wildly, and Coconut Pete's corpse falls into the room, the victim of hanging.

As everyone starts to accuse Juan of the murders, he decides to tell them why he was in prison. He screwed a goat. Yup. Moving on...

Dave is the next guy to be fingered as the killer. His motive? Well, it turns out that Dave's parents were trampled to death at one of Pete's concerts(seen briefly in a newspaper clipping earlier), so maybe he had a grudge. It turns out that everyone already knew about Dave's parents, but not everyone knew that Dave already owned the island. Pete gave it to him because he was going back on tour.

Then Lars appears. When he sees Pete's corpse he starts to cry, and Sam tells him he doesn't buy it. As everyone fights and shouts, Jenny proves to be the voice of reason. She proposes that they gather the guests, wait in one of the main buildings for the rescue ship to arrive in the morning, and leave as a group. That lasts about 1 scene, then they all argue and start to go off in different directions again.

Dave locks himself in the dance area, and proceeds to "get down" with the stereo system. Lars and Jenny head to Lars' room, and find his swords gone. As Jenny complains about the killer always beimng a step ahead of them, Lars shushes her. Annoyed at first, Jenny finally figures out what point Lars was making: if the power went out, how is Dave able to play his music so loud?

They hurry to the club, and Jenny discovers Dave's severed head spinning on the turntable. Lars and Jenny hurry back to her bungalow, and spot the killer heading in their direction. As they try to find a good place to hide, Lars convinces Jenny to hide under the bed. Then he lies down on the floor and begins this goofy chant. As the person outside gets closer, the chant gets faster, until the muscles in Lars' stomach contract, allowing him to get under the bed with Jenny.

Just in time, too...the mystery figure enters the room right after they hide. They watch his feet move around the room, then Lars uses a pair of handcuffs he found under the bed to keep the mystery person attached to the bed. They emerge from under the bed, and find that they've captured Putman. He was stealing a pair of her panties.

Sadly for Putman, the actual killer is outside, and they can't locate the key for the handcuffs. Also, the door can't be locked, because the lock is broken. Putman asks for his racquet and balls, and uses them to hit the killer with as Lars and Jenny make their escape. One tennis ball hits the killer's crotch with a metallic sound, leading them to believe that it is, indeed, Machete Phil. When Putman runs out of projectiles, the killer throws his machete at him, impaling Putman.

Jenny and Lars hide in the bathroom, and listen to Putman's murder. He almost names the killer, but not quite. The killer then enters the bathroom to clean himself up. While Lars uses pantomime to try to give Jenny a plan to fight the killer, a towel covered in blood flies over the shower curtain and smacks him in the face. Jenny gently removes the towel from his face, and Lars requests the soap.

They hurry back to the guest area, where everyone who's left is partying. The killer planned on this, and a quick look around the room reveals most of the corpses have been used to decorate the rafters. The crowd forms a frightened mob, and they all rush outside.

Jenny sees Penelope and asks about Juan, but the other girl has no idea where he could be. Juan appears a moment later, but is covered in blood and gripping a machete. Lars asks him about his appearance and the weapon, but Jenny stops the questioning to point out Sam banging on a window and screaming. As a group, they run over to rescue him.

The small hut Sam was in turns out to be a mud bath area. Worried that the killerv might be hiding in one of the mud beds, Lars plunges his hands into the first one. Nope, it's empty. He puts his hands into the second one, and pulls Sam's lifeless body to the surface. That leaves only one mud bath to search.

Lars gets the machete from Juan, and plunges it swiftly into the mud. As he softly instructs the others to exit the building, Sam's eyes snap open. He leaps out of the mud and attacks Lars, pulling the machete up to the massage expert's throat. He then cackles and brags about how long he can hold his breath.

When asked about his motive, Sam tells them about how, at the start of the film, Rolo wouldn't share his weed. Then he reconsiders, and decides that his real motive was that he was pissed when Pete gave Dave the resort. Before he can say much more, Lars grabs his wrist, sending am into an instant, paralytic orgasm. Then Lars tells them to escape, because he can only keep Sam in that state of mind for so long.

The group manages to escape, and decide to hide in the club, because it's incredibly secure(because it's where the booze is stored....). On their way past screaming guests, a guy grabs Penelope and throws her over his shoulder, then runs away. Also, they see Sam approaching, and he looks pretty pissed off.

After Juan and Jenny lock themselves into the nightclub, Jenny screams. Somehow Sam has trapped Penelope in the fish tank, and she's drowning right in front of them while Sam watches thnem to see what they do. Juan finds a fire axe, and smashes the tank to save Jenny.

Jenny gets Penelope off the wet floor, and urges Juan to hurry as well, before Sam recovers. Sam gets up first, though, and grabs the axe. As he prepares to resume his killing spree, a knife emerges from Sam's chest. It's one of the swords that Lars owns, and he is very much alive. He and the other 3 open the gate, and leave the club.

As they wander past the chaotic partygoers, they see Sam lurching in their direction again. Juan tells the others that he can lose sam in the jungle, so they follow his lead. He leads them to a cliff that faces the ocean, and encourages them all to jump. Also, he advises them to clench their butt cheeks together, because the impact of the water going up their asses can pulverize their intestines.

Penelope dives first, and shows off her skill as a gymnast. Then Juan dives, followed by Jenny and Lars. As they all resurface, Jenny complains about her asshole hurting. Lars tells the others that he saw the second boat on the ocean floor. Juan volunteers to get the engine from that boat, so that they can attach it to the boat Sam didn't sink. While he's doing that, the rest will swim to the intact boat, and keep an eye out for Sam.

Alas, Sam dives into the water behind Juan while he's distracted by his work on the intact propeller. Lars, Jenny and Penelope climb into the boat, and worry when Juan doesn't show up. Juan pops up next to the boat a moment later, holding up the intact propeller. As Lars dives in to attach the new propeller, Juan reveals that Sam gave him a severe wound across his torso. Before he dies, he tells Penelope how much he loves her...and that he'd love to see Jenny and Penelope kiss before he dies.

Seconds after Juan disappears beneath the surface, Sam bursts out of the ocean, and climbs aboard the small boat. He knocks out Jenny and begins to strangle Penelope, only to be nterrupted by Lars. They scuffle, and Sam gets entangled in the rope used to moor the boat to the dock.

Steering the boat around in wide arcs, Lars manages to bind Sam to the dock, pulling the rope ever tighter around his waist. When Sam tries to leap at them, Lars pilots the boat away, cutting Sam in half.Sam's top half sees his bottom half sink into the ocean, and he collapses into the water.

Then, in true slasher movie fashion, Sam's top half leaps into the boat and attacks Penelope. Lars comes to her rescue, swings Sam around several times, then throws him like a frisbee out into the ocean. After Lars and Jenny kiss, they ask Penelope to start driving, and the boat takes off. Behind them, Sam's legs are trying to swim and follow the boat. THE END

I love the Broken Lizard movies, and Club Dread especially. It works well, not just as a stoner comedy, but also as an impressively bloody slasher flick. It gets 4-and-a-half killer trees out of 5. I hope they get another theatrical release someday, considering that their stuff nowadays seems be direct-to-DVD fare.

And what did Club Dread teach me?

-Everything is better with topless chicks.
-Jimmy Buffet has competition.
-I find endless amusement in hearing "Penelope" pronounced "Pee Nah Lope". I'm easily amused...

Next up: Something called Sam's Lake. I hope it's good. TTFN!