Killer Pad

I watched this film after seeing it was produced by the team that did "Dude where's my car". I know it's not the best reason to watch a film, but what the heck? I had an afternoon to kill.

There are some films that transcend the depths of awfulness and are then actually reborn again as an entertaining must see movie (See Vanilla Ice's classic Cool as Ice). However this film is just truly terrible. The characters are your typical stereotypes and the film just goes from one bad joke to another for 90 minutes. I don't know why but I watched the film to the end, I guess I'm a sucker for punishment. Once it did finish I was just left wishing that I could get the 90 minutes of my life back that I had just wasted. I was left feeling dirty and violated so I then watched Leon to try and cleanse myself once more.

Let me start out by saying that nothing will ever, ever, and I do mean EVER top 'Lesbian Vampire Killers' for hysterical horror satire. But 'Killer Pad' just beat out 'Shaun of the Dead' for second place.

The humor in American horror satire is usually limited to slapstick, sight gags and pop-culture banter. Consequently it quickly becomes dated, and the humor loses its edge, leaving its audience to wander off in search of the next fix. 'Killer Pad' actually bothers with a script. The situational comedy is deftly arranged, so that the running jokes STAY funny, popping up in unexpected ways, and often the excuse to bring the gag up again is a gag in itself. The jokes don't need to be propped up by a backstory only one generation will really get; they're funny on their own. And likely to remain so!

The actors deserve equal credit for the comic success of the film. It's difficult to keep a character consistently, genuinely, believably oblivious for more than an hour, and to make the audience genuinely laugh at their idiocy instead of just rolling their eyes and getting bored. They achieve it, though. It's my favorite thing about this movie.

Those who come to 'Killer Pad' looking for shallow, cheap humor and obvious jokes will be disappointed, but for anyone seeking a fresh, fun spin on the "evil house" theme: you've found it. So sit back and enjoy!

Wow, uh, yeah. What the hell was this. It looks like maybe the people who made this move had fun making it, but this sure was, wow just bad.

The over-the-top acting and stupidity was obviously intentional, which isn't as bad as some movies who don't even realize how bad they are, but it was just as stupid.

There were also lots of weird sexual-homoerotic things going on here. I don't really know what the hell the deal was, maybe Freddy Kruger (Robert Englund, who played Freddy Kruger, directed this masterpiece) is into that. Also, as mentioned by some other reviewers Daniel Franzese, who was in Mean Girls, has his stomach wrapped in cellophane in a hot tub scene. There is no explanation or rhyme or reason to it, its just that the lower half of his torso is wrapped in cellophane for whatever reason. Yea.

The one positive thing this movie has going for it is the death of Joey Lawrence. ANY film the kills Joey Lawrence earns at least a couple stars. But there really isn't anything else positive to say. Andy Milonakis is also in this movie, I think just a handful of people in LA who didn't happen to be working just got together to make this weird movie.

Three stereotypical guys...though in this case all three come off as homosexual airheads...move to L.A. to "start their lives" where they are directed to a mansion by a transsexual realtor. After moving in, it's apparent that the house harbors a gateway to Hell, but they ignore this to throw a party under the persuasion of three stereotypical sluts. What had potential to be a decent, tongue-in-the-cheek parody of horror films quickly turns into a virtually unwatchable, unfunny, horribly acted and scripted take on what America has ignorantly considered to be funny for the last ten years: feces jokes, unrealistically slutty teens, midgets, and token racial characters. It's blatantly obvious why this film went straight to DVD with very little marketing. Englund really should have used the alias "Alan Smithee" instead of taking credit for the direction.

With only his second directorial showing in feature films to date, Robert Englund (best known as Freddy Krueger) brings us 'Killer Pad': the story of three loser friends (Doug, Craig, and Brody) who take up residence in a haunted house (address: 666 Perdition Road) in Hollywood. The house is wicked. Seriously. Coyotes and portals to Hell are included in the price.

The movie includes a couple small cameos (Lin Shaye and Andy Milonakis included), and features a whole host of odd characters (possessed Mexicans, S&M midgets, Joey Lawrence?). If you haven't noticed yet, and I pity you if you haven't, this is a comedy. Is it funny? Eh. There are some good one liners and stupid-funny jokes. But it's pretty much all the same sarcastic humour we've been seeing from better movies with better actors and higher production value over the past few years. I'm actually getting a little bit tired of the unattractive male-centered movies. They're fun on occasion (Knocked Up, Superbad), but they're flooding the comedy market and it only takes one like this to ruin the streak.

There's plenty of hot (and not-so) women, alcohol, partying, and crude humour, but that's about as far as your interest will stretch. It's not UNenjoyable. . . but it's just not very good.

Final verdict: A pathetic 3.5/10.

-AP3-