DVD Reviews

Club Dread

From the comedic minds who brought us Super Troopers comes the slasher/horror spoof Club Dread.  A movie about Coconut Pete's Coconut Beach Resort, a hedonistic island paradise for swingers, and a serial killer out to kill all the resort staff.  The staff has to unite to stop the killer, or at least keep it under wraps while trying to stay alive at the same time.

As you can probably imagine, Broken Lizard spare no expense when coming up with new jokes.  They run the gamut from boobs to brains, from brawn to booze and from blood to blondes and back again.  The dialogue is so bad and cheesy that you just have to laugh sometimes.  Lines are delivered perfectly and are absolutely to die for.  Though some would say this outing isn't quite up to Super Troopers standards, I beg to differ.

Club Dread includes both an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen presentation and a full-frame version on opposite sides of the disc. The full-frame version seems to lose information on the sides but adds a bit on the top and bottom of the frame. The film is sharp and colourful, with only a few small specks and a small amount of artifacting present throughout.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is nicely active. The surrounds help give off a sense of the jungle and the dialogue, music, and the brilliant Jimmy Buffett spoofs Bill Paxton performs all come through well. The lower frequencies aren't used much other then for the music and a few good sequences.  The DVD also offers French and Spanish stereo, which are comparable to the 5.1 track minus the surrounds.  Otherwise, they also make good audio presentations.  For the hearing or language impaired, subtitles are available in English and Spanish, and closed captioned.

The widescreen side of the disc includes two commentary tracks with the members of Broken Lizard. They're divided the same way as on the Super Troopers DVD.  The first has Jay Chandrasekhar and Erik Stolhankse, and the second commentary features Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, and Paul Soter. The first track is more laid back, with a lot of pauses between Chandrasekhar and Stolhankse pointing out friends, homage, and little gags in the background.  The other commentary is more energetic and covers such things as working with an entire cast of seasick extras, the disappointment of go-go dancers and their bikinis and a variety of other comical tidbits.  The only other extra is a thirty-second plug for the soundtrack.

This is the kind of film that fans of Revenge of the Nerds, Scary Movie, Super Troopers, Hotshots, Loaded Weapon and any of the Police Academy movies would probably enjoy.  I know I had a riot watching it.  Though the DVD lacks a large amount of extras, the commentaries are good and it does have a good audio and video presentation.  If the idea of a live action game of Pac-Man gets your mouth watering or you just want to see lots of boobs, this is a movie you want to get.  But if that’s not quite your cup of tea, a rental is at least mandatory.

Review By Rob Harding