Bachelor Party in Bungalow of The Damned

Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned (Brian Thomson, 2008)

When correctly mixed, comedy and horror go together like peanut butter and cheddar. (Well, okay, so my daughter tells me.) Just ask Dan O'Bannon or Peter Jackson, the makers of such classic comedy-horror combos as Return of the Living Dead and Dead Alive, both of which are hysterical and horrific. When it doesn't work, on the other hand, you have the cottage industry known as Troma. And, yes, there are wannabe-Tromas out there. One of them is Brain Damage Films, who released this particular movie, which fails at being either funny or scary.

Plot: Sammy (Gregg Aaron Greenberg), the best man at Chuck (Joseph Riker)'s upcoming wedding, has arranged a golf outing for the two of them and their friends Fish (Gelu Dan Rusu) and Paulie (Sean Parker) as a bachelor party. Plans change, of course, without Chuck knowing, and the foursome end up a fivesome when Gordon (Joe Testa), on whom they all picked in high school, offers up the use of his uncle's place in the Hamptons. Sammy arranges for some exotic dancers to come over, and, well, you know what bachelor parties are like. Except there's more to these exotic dancers than meets the eye...

which is good, because very little of these exotic dancers at all meets the eye. Which is bad, because the main exotic dancer is played by Zoe Hunter (by far the most experienced actor in the bunch, save a five-second Lloyd Kaufman cameo), who qualifies as jaw-droppingly hot on the scale of Gillian Anderson or Heather Branch. A bit more nudity would only have been welcome. (And it is, after all, a movie about a bachelor party containing strippers. One expects them to, you know, strip.) Then the comedy, which hasn't been funny at all, changes to horror, which isn't scary at all. Thomson attempts to use the Val Lewton technique of "put it in shadow if you can't afford it", but has nowhere near the lighting skills to pull off Lewton-style effects; things are just murky rather than scary.

Despite all this, however, the biggest problem this movie has, for me, is that first time writer/director Thomson doesn't really understand if he wants this movie to focus on any particular character or whether he wants to use an ensemble-cast approach. Because of this, characters' roles shift in importance throughout the movie, which can be really, really annoying at times; characters who you didn't think you had to expend any mental energy on at all are suddenly in the central role, while others who dominated other parts of the movie are relegated to the background. This is almost always a sign of inexperience and overreaching on the part of the author, and given that this is Thomson's first work, I assume that's the case here. While I have to give him points for aiming for the stars-- an ensemble-cast presentation is a really tough thing to pull off successfully-- I have to take most of those points away for the finished product missing the mark so terribly.

Not awful if you have nothing else to do on a Saturday night, but like all the Brain Damage movies I've seen, don't go out of your way to check this out. * 

Do not waist one minute of your time on this trash. This is the classic bait and switch DVD cover that shows a female on the cover who is not even in the movie.
Why did I not read some of the other reviews before I sat down to watch this turd ?
The story is as bad as the acting and the effects are even worse then that.
The only reason to even think about watching this is to make fun of the "strippers" in this movie, they are the saddest I have ever seen. Pitiful on all levels.

I know a Lloyd Kaufman associated masterpiece when I see one! Even when he cameos as a "hot chick," yikes. This piece of inconsistent, bad acting, lousy lighting junk is exactly what I expected, and just what I needed! It's so bad it's funny, and when you give it half a chance there are actually some pretty funny moments. There is plenty of gratuitous gross-out-gore too, which is another M.O. of these flicks -- like blood farts after being impaled on a fireplace poker.

Sammy (Gregg Aaron Greenberg) plans a bachelor party for his best friend Chuck (Joseph Riker). A couple of friends (Gelu Dan Rusu and Sean Parker -- not the Napster founder Sean Parker) accompany them to a "bungalo" in The Hamptons. Of course they have to bring along the guy who's watching the place while the owners are away. His name is Gordon, (played by Joe Testa, Adam Sandler's stunt double, JK).

Sammy is pretty funny, Chuck isn't. Chuck is fairly lame. The other guys aren't funny either, but they do what they do, and are off'ed in short order anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Actually the fatter guy is funny in a Jack-Black's-bad-actor-cousin kinda way.

Then things get strange. Three party girls (you know what I mean) show up to entertain the boys. A little soft petting, dim the lights (oh wait, the scenes were lit bad in the first place) and a bloody, gory, gross out session ensues, complete with big flopping boobies courtesy of Zoe Hunter.

Turns out the chicks are vampires, but who's the master vampire? Who does Sammy have to kill to save Chuck and the boys? Chuck's fiancé too! She was pissed that Chuck wasn't returning her phone calls so she drove on out to give him a little what for, and fell right smack dab in the middle of the mayhem.

It's a CG-gore soaked extravaganza at it's worst...You'll howl at the dry floors after a complete blood-letting, and roar with giddy excitement (as you cringe) when you spot the bad thumb splinter gimmick (okay that wasn't CG). You'll guffaw at the sputum and spew that magically fills the air and speckles the camera lens. It's a roaring good time!

How do you give a film a bad rating when the filmmakers accomplished just what they set out to do? The films are intended to be bad. And to be honest, Lloyd Kaufman has made a comfortable living producing films like this. There must be something to the formula. Funny that they need a storyboard artist for a film like this though.

If you watched this film and didn't appreciate it, shame on you. Why would you expect more from a movie with such a title? I know, it was the hot ass on the title photo, right? That's it! Too bad she's not in the film, eh?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 6 reviews  3.2 out of 5 stars