Fox Home Entertainment presents

Club Dread: The Unrated Edition (2004)

"Ok. Juan Castillo... went to jail... for having sex with a goat. Ok? Is that what you wanted to hear? We lived on a farm! And I got lonely! We were just a couple of crazy kids!"- Juan (Steve Lemme)

Stars: Jay Chandrasekhar, Steve Lemme, Kevin Hefferman, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhansk, Brittany Daniel, Bill Paxton, Jordan Ladd
Other Stars: Lindsay Price, M.C. Gainey, Samm Levine, Elena Lyons
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar

Manufacturer: DVCC
MPAA Rating: Not Rated for violence, language,nudity, sexual situations, drug use, gore
Run Time: 01h:59m:14s
Release Date: 2004-09-28
Genre: comedy

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
B+	C+	B	A-	B-

 

DVD Review

It would be wrong to expect the members of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe to make another comedy as non-stop funny as their film Super Troopers, but their most recent effort, Club Dread, is a worthy attempt. Now it has been released in an unrated extended edition that adds fifteen minutes back into the original theatrical version. The term unrated is a bit of a misnomer, considering that the majority of reinserted material adds only a tad more gore and two new supporting characters, but the end result is a funnier and slightly more entertaining effort.

Coconut Pete's (Paxton) Pleasure Island is an island resort that has become a haven for young men and women who wish to play adult party games and bask in the soothing sounds of Pete's music, including his biggest hit Pina Colada-Burg. But something is happening on the island; bodies are beginning to pile up and the guests are getting scared. Soon the employees are prime suspects and the population of the island is on the decline.

Like Super Troopers, Club Dread offers some truly large laughs and likable characters but the biggest difference between the two is consistency. Club Dread has a lot of downtime where the film just isn't very interesting. Sure, we watch knowing that soon something exciting or funny will happen, but at times the waiting takes its toll. As an entry into the horror-comedy genre the film is more than successful, but as a coherent and smoothly flowing film it suffers.

The film seems schizophrenic, as it never can decide what exactly it wants to be. Is it a straight comedy, a horror film, or a parody of all of the 1980's slasher films that came before it? If it is the parody aspect, the members of Broken Lizard seem to have a good time with it, including several false scares and even the unkillable villain, and the film is most successful in these scenes. But nevertheless the film never sticks with one idea for too long, and the attempts to blend the the horror and the comedy sometimes work, but for the most part seem rather stale.

There are some truly clever lines of dialogue (Pete's rant against Jimmy Buffet had me laughing so hard I had to pause the movie) and some rather tongue in cheek moments, including the opening sequence where two lovers wander off into the woods with expected results. In the end, Club Dread is a tough film to critique as it is certainly successful at being a comedy but only mildly successful in every other area. I suppose that if you are looking for a good laugh you could do a lot worse than Club Dread, but if you want to see a more complete and uproariously funny motion picture check out Super Troopers. The added footage consists of several scene extensions that never really add anything to the overall plot. There is some added gore in spots, including a slight extension of the severed head that appears on the DJ table. The largest amount of new material comes in the form of two mainland cops who arrive on the island to investigate the murders, but one has to wonder just how the two cops found out about the murders when all communications have been cut off by the killer.

Whether or not the new edition of Club Dread is a worthy purchase, especially if you already own the original edition, is a matter of opinion. The additional material that is included is an added plus, but whether or not it actually helps the film is in the eye of the beholder.

Rating for Style: B+
Rating for Substance: C+

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	2.35:1 - Widescreen
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	yes

Image Transfer Review: The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer for Club Dread: Unrated is impressive, but considering that the original release was a flipper with the extra material on side B, this new release may actually be a tad worse in terms of quality. Colors are vibrant, with the bright sand and ocean water coming off very nicely with no bleeding and terrific vibrancy. The nighttime scenes (of which there are several) come off looking fine with only a slight bit of grain evident. There are several compression errors throughout with some slight pixelation.

Image Transfer Grade: B
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
Dolby Digital 5.1	English	yes

Audio Transfer Review: The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix for Club Dread: Unrated is absolutely terrific in nearly every respect. Directionality is crisp, with some nice ambient sounds and some great music cues in the scarier moments. Dialogue is crisp and clear with no distortion or drop outs, while the .1 LFE track offers up some truly tremendous bass.

Audio Transfer Grade: A- 

Disc Extras

Full Motion menu with music
Scene Access with 36 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English, Spanish with remote access
1 Original Trailer(s)
22 Deleted Scenes
2 Feature/Episode commentaries by actors/writer/director Jay Chandrasekhar, actors/writers Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stholhanske
Packaging: Amaray
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: RSDL

Extras Review: Two feature length commentary tracks are offered, the first featuring Jay Chandrasekhar and Erik Stolhanske and the second with Kevin Heffernanm, Steve Lemme,and Paul Soter. Each track is very humorous, with some interesting behind the scenes stories and some backstory as to how the film came about. The second track is by far the more entertaining of the two, with Heffernan, Soter, and Lemme offering up one of the liveliest commentaries I have heard in quite some time. The most entertaining aspect of the track is that the trio clearly dislike some of the scenes included in the film, and they often express their dislike at length.

The only remaining extra feature, save for the original theatrical trailer, is a collection of twenty two deleted and extended scenes with optional commentary by Chandrasekhar and Stolhanske. None of these scenes really add much to the film, nor are they very funny. There are several throwaway lines, as well as several that are included in the unrated cut of the film.

Extras Grade: B-
 

Final Comments

Club Dread fails to live up to Super Troopers, but it is a fun effort that works more often than it doesn't, and that, sometimes, is enough.

Kevin Clemons 2005-01-06