Club Dread
Club Dread (also known as Broken Lizard's Club Dread) is a 2004 American comedy slasher film directed by Jay Chandrasekhar and written by and starring the comedy troupe Broken Lizard—Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske. Brittany Daniel, Bill Paxton, and Jordan Ladd play supporting roles.
| Club Dread | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Jay Chandrasekhar |
| Produced by | Richard Perello |
| Written by | Broken Lizard |
| Starring | Jay Chandrasekhar Kevin Heffernan Steve Lemme Paul Soter Erik Stolhanske Brittany Daniel Bill Paxton |
| Music by | Nathan Barr |
| Cinematography | Lawrence Sher |
| Edited by | Ryan Folsey |
Production company | Broken Lizard Industries Cataland Films |
| Distributed by | Fox Searchlight Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 103 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $8.6 million |
| Box office | $7.6 million[2] |
Though the story is set on an island in Costa Rica, filming took place in Mexico.
Club Dread was released on February 27, 2004, and grossed $7.6 million at the box office on a budget of $8.6 million, becoming a financial failure. The film received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics.
Plot
Pleasure Island is a resort off the coast of Costa Rica, owned by famous musician Coconut Pete. Staff members Rolo, Stacy, and Kelly sneak into the jungle to have sex. They are ambushed by a masked figure, who stabs Rolo to death. The killer chases the girls through the jungle. The killer pushes Kelly off a cliff and decapitates Stacy before she can reach help.
The resort staff remain unaware of the killings until Carlos' body is found behind the kitchen. Dave relates a story about a former employee named Phil Colletti who lost his mind and murdered his fellow staff members, before castrating himself and running away; though Pete insists it is a story made up to scare guests around the campfire, the mounting death toll suggests otherwise. Putman alerts the others when he finds Cliff murdered in a hedge maze. A message left by the killer suggests that he is targeting only the staff. All communication devices and transportation have been stolen or destroyed.
Hank, a former FBI serial killing investigator, convinces the staff to continue with their jobs and allow him to catch the killer. Yu remains intent on warning the guests, despite warnings not to do so from the killer. When she lures the guests to the beach to make the announcement, she is attacked by the killer. Hank intervenes, but the killer slashes his throat and turns on Yu. Their bodies are found the next day.
The staff begins to suspect one of the guests, Penelope. Juan, believing her innocent, tries to eliminate her as a suspect. Putman disappears into the jungle after having a nightmare. Sam and Dave find a shrine of photos of Lars and his friends, in which all of the faces except Lars' have been replaced with Pete's; suspicion turns on Lars and the staff lock Lars in the resort's drunk tank. The killer attempts to kill Jenny by dropping a television into the swimming pool, but Jenny escapes just in time, ultimately killing Dirk, despite Jenny's futile attempts to warn him, and causing a power failure. Putman returns, and he and Jenny deduce that Lars is not the killer, and return to the drunk tank to release him, only to find that he has mysteriously escaped.
When Pete is found dead the staff members turn on each other, following an revelations about Juan being incarcerated for raping a goat, as well as Dave's parents being trampled to death years ago at a Coconut Pete concert. Partway through the argument, Lars returns and discovers Pete's body. Lars briefly grieves, before proceeding to lunge at Sam for locking him in the drunk tank in the first place. Just as everything escalates rapidly, Jenny calms everyone else down and tries to convince the group that they must work together to survive until the shuttle from the mainland returns for the guests. Juan leaves to seek out Penelope, Sam leaves out of mistrust for the group, with Dave following behind him. Putman leaves out of being haunted by dreams he had suffered whilst searching the jungle for clues, which culminated in his newfound reclusiveness. Dave manages to restore the electricity, seconds before the killer, having retrieved his machete, beheads Dave. Jenny and Lars are drawn by distorted music to the electricity hut where they find Dave's severed head. Thinking the killer is coming for them, Lars and Jenny hide under a bed. Jenny places a nearby pair of handcuffs on what she believed to be the killer's feet, only to realize that she handcuffed Putman by mistake. Just as Jenny and Lars come out of hiding, the killer appears and starts moving towards the trio. Putman attempts to fend off the killer by launching tennis balls at him with his racket, but the killer throws his machete at Puttman, fatally stabbing him. With his terminal breath, he tells a guilty Jenny and Lars to hide. They hide in a shower and overhear Putman flippantly taunting the killer, before being repeatedly stabbed, thus ensuring his death.
During a party in the nightclub, Jenny and Lars discover Dave's disembodied head. The killer then reveals the corpses of his previous victims to the guests and a panic ensues. Juan, having discovered the deaths of Dave and Putman, whilst searching for Penelope, returns to join Lars and Jenny, with the killer's machete in his hand. Penelope, Juan, Lars and Jenny find Sam's body in a mud bath. While they consider their next move, Sam leaps from the bath, forcefully snatches his stolen machete from Lars and grabs him.
Sam reveals that although the castration rumor was false, he wanted to kill everyone on the island because Pete had intended to sell the island to the military, but decided to give the island to Dave, and also out of feeling betrayed that Rolo did not give him a bag of marijuana that he had previously loaned to him, instead lying about having none at all and simply sharing it with Stacy and Kelly, both respective events happening at the same time. Jealous and enraged, Sam assumed that Dave would mismanage the resort and destroy it. Lars grabs the machete, allowing the others to escape. Penelope is lost among the party-crazed guests, and Jenny and Juan lock themselves in the nightclub. They see Sam drowning Penelope in a large tank. Juan smashes the tank and rescues Penelope. Sam prepares to kill them, but Lars appears and stabs Sam.
Sam pursues Lars, Jenny, Penelope, and Juan as they escape through the jungle. Cornered on a cliff, they jump to the water below. They find the resort's damaged boats, and try to cobble together enough working parts to leave the island. Sam appears and kills Juan, then attacks Jenny and Penelope. Lars breaks his vow of pacifism and overcomes Sam, and Sam is bisected by a rope attached to the power boat. Just as everything seems to settle down, Sam's upper half emerges and grabs Penelope, but Lars tosses him into the ocean, before they motor away. As they do so, Sam's lower half continues to pursue them despite his fatal wounds.
Cast
- Pleasure Island staff
- Brittany Daniel as Jenny, AKA 'Amy Aerobics', the Pleasure Island aerobics instructor, the host of the fictitious AM Pump up with Amy Aerobics, and Lars' eventual lover.
- Kevin Heffernan as Lars Bronkhorst, a buddhist, pacifist and the recently hired Masseur for the Pleasure Island staff.
- Erik Stolhanske as Sam 'Machete Sam' Colletti, the aptly named "Fun Police", in charge of games and activities on the island. He seems to have an easy-going personality, but this is little more than a deceptive facade for an unscrupulous, sadistic, relentless, and psychotic side, often murdering his victims with an ancient Mayan-made machete.
- Steve Lemme as Juan Castillo, a Nicaraguan athlete, rehabilitated zoophiliac and the staff divemaster.
- Jay Chandrasekhar as Puttman Livingston, a British tennis player, and tennis instructor for pleasure island.
- Paul Soter as Dave 'DJ Dave' Conable, the disk jockey for the club in Pleasure island/drug provider, and Coconut Pete's nephew.
- Bill Paxton as Pete 'Coconut Pete' Wabash, a washed-up folk singer, owner of Pleasure Island, and Dave's uncle.
- M.C. Gainey as Hank, a southern-accented former director of the FBI Homicide Department, acting as Coconut Pete's bodyguard and best friend.
- Lindsay Price as Yu, a Japanese-American waitress who serves drinks on Pleasure Island.
- Julio Bekhor as Carlos, the groundskeeper for Pleasure Island.
- Dan Montgomery, Jr. as Rollo, an obnoxious polygamist and staff member of Pleasure Island.
- Elena Lyons as Stacy, an assistant to Putman on pleasure Island, and one of Rolo's girlfriends.
- Tanja Reichert as Kellie, an understudy to Yu, who serves drinks on Pleasure Island, and one of Rolo's girlfriends.
- Richard Perello as Cliff, a menial worker on the Pleasure Island Staff.
- Ryan Falkner as Marcel, one of the officials on Pleasure Island.
- Other characters
- Greg Cipes as Trevor, a sexual deviant who is supposedly in an incestuous relationship with his mother.
- Michael Weaver as Roy, a sexual deviant and Manny's best friend, and fan of the fictitious AM Pump-up with Amy Aerobics fitness training films.
- Nat Faxon as Manny, a sexual deviant and Roy's best friend.
- Samm Levine as Dirk, an obnoxious, naive, dim-witted sexual deviant.
- Jordan Ladd as Penelope, an Alaskan gymnast, and Juan's eventual girlfriend. a running gag involves Juan mispronouncing her name as "Peen-a-lope", yet she does not correct him.
- Paco Mauri as mainland detective .
- Tony Amendola as mainland detective's partner.
Soundtrack
On one of the disc's commentary tracks the filmmakers state that they screened the film for Jimmy Buffett, who was so amused that he requested permission to sing some of the film's songs on one of his live tours.
Critical reception
Club Dread has received mixed reviews, scoring 45 on review aggregator site Metacritic based on 28 critics reviews, and 29% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 101 reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the critical consensus reads: "Comedy is too hit-or-miss in this slasher spoof".[3]
Alternate version
In 2005, an unrated edition was released to DVD. This version of the film contains an additional 15 minutes of footage for a 118-minute running time. It features several extended scenes, and also restores a subplot involving two cops that was absent in the theatrical edition. Director Jay Chandrasekhar states in one of the disc's commentary tracks that the original R-rated version is still the director's cut.
References
- "BROKEN LIZARD'S CLUB DREAD (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 2004-03-03. Retrieved 2012-12-19.
- Club Dread at Box Office Mojo
- "Club Dread (2004)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 29 May 2019.