4th of July 2025 Marathoning

I wasn’t planning on writing much if anything, but I’ll briefly mention that I watched “Club Dread” (2004) Thursday night late. It was on and I just laid there, sometimes amused, sometimes titillated and aroused (admittedly, Brittany Daniel in nothing but athletic shorts and short shirts just covering her breasts, tugging them tightly, of course, showing off her impressive physique/figure was probably the highlight; you could tell that woman was proud of her body and not ashamed to show it), often rolling my eyes (you can tell those in the film were playing off each other with all the fratboy vulgarity; there is a mentality that is geared towards the gross-out and aimed often for the sexual), and mostly just giving in to the slasher parody (it’s clear there is an affection and, funnily enough, contempt for this genre). I think the humor shows the stars quite pleased with themselves when tossing at us the quips and gags that follow a “paradise resort” on an island besieged by a killer with a machete, taking aim at the employees working for a Jimmy Buffet wannabe (Bill Paxton is purposely obnoxious and pitiful as the buffoon-ish, past his prime (if he ever had a prime, although he does mention with pride his gold records), gruff, “hanging on to what little fame is left (or he ever had)” host of the “party island paradise”). The tourists are all young and hot, while the staff was well hired to match them in attractiveness. I do admit that the staff running around in a maze dressed in “fruit costumes” has its place in my heart, but the description/critique often assigned to films like this as “hit and miss” is accurate. Machete Phil, the campfire story about a psycho who hacked up his colleagues and lopped off his own dick in the process is an example of noised humor that is hurled at you like a grenade. There is a specific audience this aims at, for sure. I think those who aren’t a fan of slashers, to begin with, just might want to head for the exits immediately, because this film totally devotes its time to commenting on the tropes so pervasive in that genre. At the beginning, three employees find themselves in a cave about to have a ménage à troi, when the killer interrupts…but not before a poop joke and the two girls exposin their breasts, all ready for a good time with the killer having none of it. There’s plenty of violence but most of it is not overtly mean-spirited. The classic “killer keeps coming despite the wounds inflicted on him certainly putting down any human being” finale is turned up to the nth degree (when a human torso with no lower half can lunge at you and actually appear to be on his way to strangling someone it can be a bit ridiculous…which was the intent). The cast is made up of animated faces going for low brow, often-in-the-gutter humor exhaustively, seemingly of the National Lampoon variety. You know if this is for you or not. Jordan Ladd, tweening on cute but possibly crazed, is another inspired piece of casting (and eye candy) who has a particularly memorable bedroom scene involving gymnastics. There's room for the tantric, massage guru whose weight doesn't give him too difficult a time with earning Daniel's attention (he has mastered the art of touching a particular spot, inciting immediate orgasm), Paxton berating his cooking staff for not knowing the constant ingredient for "Coconut Pete's meals", a severed head spinning on a turntable, a Latino Lothario really impressing upon his accent maybe a bit too forcefully to score with female tourists (and uncomfortably coerced into sharing his past conviction involving a goat on his family's farm), the killer not having too hard a time catching Lindsay Price (her name, Yu, often finding itself in one zinger after another explains the level of humor you're dealing with) in her cart which might reach the speed of ten miles an hour, and Steve Lemme taking his time sizing up whether Ladd is the killer or not as Daniel and Erik Stolhanske wait in a closet while they fuck form a basic series of the film's "highlights". I cop to enjoying this but I could understand if others found the film a bit low common denominator for their tastes. Director Jay Chandrasekhar as Putman, with the dreads and Caribbean looks and this heightened scholarly voice, steals his scenes when he appears. I think this would be a summer movie rather than October-centric, so I don't figure I'll give it a spot during Halloween season in the future.