Sunday, June 6, 2010

KILLER PAD (a review)


A horror-comedy directed by Robert Englund. Yes, the original Freddy Krueger directing a horror-comedy! That's all I needed to know to put this on my must see list!

The story: four guys move into an apartment in Hollywood and throw a giant party hoping to hook up, but when the hot girls turn out to be killing people because one of them is the devil or something then they have to stop him, or her, or else...um...something.

Was it good?

No. But was it so bad it was good? No. There's some American Pie style jokes, but none of them really generate a laugh and the whole trying to get laid but the girls are killing people is okay, but not great. There is one nice beat where an old friend comes to the party but he's now a priest (not it yet), then of course he gets corrupted (not it yet) BUT then the boys realize that the girls are demons/the devil/whatever and the one person who could fight is the priest, but he's been corrupted so they are screwed. That was good.

And it's not that the movie is absolutely horrible, but there just isn't anything really good here either. Englund's directing doesn't really add anything and the choice to play it more as a comedy than a horror movie robs it of any real tension. There is a bunch of easy jokes, but for a movie that tries to be more comedy than horror, the comedy is easy jokes and never digs deeper to get to the good jokes. See even silly comedies like AMERICAN PIE or DATE NIGHT actually are about something. That gives the comedy more oomph. Here, for all the sex-based jokes, the comedy is pretty bland. And of course the other draw in b-movie horror (after beasts and blood, according to Joe Bob Brigs) is breasts and again for a movie with a lot of sex jokes there isn't any skin. So it isn't that it is horrible...just flat.

*** NOT RECOMMENDED ****

So what went wrong? Well, first, while parodies can be fun you have to have a clear sense of what you are parodying and here it isn't clear. Sex comedies? Haunted house? Demon movies? Something else? And if it isn't a parody then you are much better having the movie be ABOUT something. DATE NIGHT has married couple trying to reconnect so they won't get divorced. AMERICAN PIE has four guys trying to get laid, but learning that the girls are actually much more mature about relationships and sex. Here...well, there's just nothing there. The other way to do it would be to make it a horror movie with a lot of comedy, ala SCREAM, but again that wasn't the way they chose to go. Without any dramatic spine, without any point of view, without a sense of what the movie is about, without any jokes that really pop...the whole thing is just kind of empty. You need a point of view. You need something for the movie to be about, even if it's something simple. Even comedies are better when they aren't empty.

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