'Dude Bro Party Massacre III' is a 2015 American satirical slasher created by the comedy troupe '5 second films'. And whilst the title would suggest that this is the 3rd installment in the 'Dude Bro Party Massacre' franchise, this is in fact the first and only movie to come out under this title. Directed by Jon Salmon, Michael Rousselet, and Tomm Jacobsen, created with the intention of parodying the overly saturated teen based 'Massacre' movies released throughout the 80's. With that era of genre movies unintentionally becoming a parody of themselves by the time they had reached their peak, a project like this should be a fairly easy task for the writers.
As someone who is a big fan of terrible sleazy B level horror movies, I found the humour and on the nose references to bad slashers of 80's era to be hilarious. And considering my disdain for parody movies in general, such as 'Scary Movie', 'Not Another Teen Movie' and all the other endless list of lazy spoofs from the early 00's, 'Dude Bro Party Massacre 3' seemed much more accessible to me than anything else that falls into this niche horror subgenre. I guess that is more than likely down to this utilising a more relatable source material for me as a genre fan. Having things that I personally enjoy on an "it's so bad, it's good" level brought to the forefront of this movie and mocked with hilarious results was something that never became tiresome.
It's hard to really judge this movie based on its direction and cinematography, as it is clear this is purposefully filmed with the intention of replicating the poorer quality closely associated with the B-movie slasher subgenre. Using a grind house format, complete with interjected advertisements and random drop-outs of frame quality intentionally, 'Dude Bro Party Massacre III' feels very much like a product of the time it is referencing. This is also filmed using VHS aesthetic overlays and shot on a 4.3 aspect ratio to really give it that 80's feel to its production. I will say though, aside from being fan service, I don't think this style of filming is going to appeal to a wider audience, especially those who grew up in a post VHS era.
Along with the filming style, it's difficult to judge the cast one their performances. And whilst everyone involved do a great job of carrying the film and landing their comedic moments rather flawlessly, this again has intentionally bad and unconvincing performances. In a way, I guess it maybe takes more skill as an actor to deliver an overly bad performance, than it does to play these rolls in a more convincing and natural manner. One thing I did find rather surprising however, were the cameos from high profile names such as Patton Oswalt, Larry King and Andrew W.K.
Whilst I can appreciate the effort used to replicate the aesthetics of 80's slashers and the laughs that it provided along the way, it just ran its course rather early on for me. With a run time of 1 hour and 40 minutes, I feel there is a large amount of content that could have been condensed in order to make this have a much tighter pacing. It's an ambitious project that unfortunately, I feel only appeals to a small percentage of horror fans. So with that in mind, if sleazy late 80's to early 90's B-movie slashers aren't really your thing, 'Dude Bro Party Massacre III' is only likely to lead to confusion and disappointment.
💀💀1/2
Comments