Back in 2015, a renegade bunch of comedians and filmmakers dared to prove that horror comedies can be more than the subgenre’s mediocre reputation suggests. Fans of 5-Second Films’ viral videos on Youtube and at 5secondfilms.com probably already know about theirs Crowdfunded fraternity slasher satire Dude Bro Party Massacre III. Those who don’t won’t be feared missing out on any of the previous entries in the franchise – because they don’t exist. Dude Bro Party Massacre III is a faux-three quel presented as if the audience were viewing a stolen VCR copy of a devious Minnesota teenager, captured from a “Midnight Morning Movie” showcase at 4am.
The main characters in this film are guys. They are brothers. They love to party. You are being massacred. It’s all in the title except that the alcohol-soaked tale of Delta Bi Frat is also a brilliant take on well-documented horror tropes, made for an audience that is both obsessively aware and ready for a loving analysis of why these films are ridiculous .
A title like Dude Bro Party Massacre III is easy to write off as a gimmick announcing a movie that will be crammed with shallow horror trope gags like a Scary movie Episode. Horror comedies are often judged tougher than pure horror because so many self-serious horror fans either believe comedy can’t be scary or have suffered through it Stan Helsing Equivalents that do not come from a place of respect and appreciation for the films they are trying to impale. For every loving delivery like Ruben Fleischer’s horror comedy 2009 Zombie land, there is another brain-dead waste like that of 2014 A haunted house 2, apparently built around the question: “What if? Paranormal activity had a poop gag? “
But the knowing humor in Dude Bro Party Massacre III is a signal that the filmmakers themselves are horror fans. Targeting subgenre tropes is a great way to make a good horror comedy. Filmmakers who take these repetitive expectations of plot and expand them to their silliest degree show their deep horror knowledge and willingness to laugh at what they love. Assassination comedies are mindless, but this kind of compassionate comedy takes skill. Dude Bro Party Massacre III
It all starts when Brent Chirino (Alec Owen) enrolls at East Chico University to investigate the murder of his twin brother Brock. After Brent drove past a sunbathing John Francis Daley (one of the many recognizable faces to appear in cameos, from Larry King to Nina Hartley), Brent crashes in front of the solo-cup-strewn Delta Bi brotherhood house, where the muscular alpha leader is Derek (The room Co-star Greg Sestero) greets him as Brock’s legacy brother. Brent announces his interest in pledging Delta Bi to look behind her closed bedroom doors for answers about what happened to Brock.
According to the horror franchise bylaws, this is where the movie’s villain, Motherface (Olivia Taylor Dudley), will start killing again. Motherface is the masked nightmare responsible for all of the dead Delta Bi Broskis from the imaginary previous films in the series. Brent finds a new family in Delta Bi, but he can only save them by defeating Motherface in Brock’s honor.
Most digestible Dude Bro Party Massacre III reverses the sorority house bloodbath setup that the 80s slasher like after work dominates The house on Sorority Row The slumber party massacre, or Killer party. Tickling and temptation are the fuel for Friday the 13th‘S infinite imitators, many of them sacrifice character development in favor of bare breasts and pillow fights. DBPM3 asks, “What if this type of framing was applied to men instead of women?”
Delta Bi’s motto is “No Girls Allowed”, especially during the Delta Bi biannual Bicep Gauntlet. The allied Knuckleheads practice well-known behavior from the film student association, such as dancing topless around stereo systems or nervously confiding in their closest brochachos because they feel urged to have sex by a stubbornly baby-crazy friend. (Kelsey Gunn as Samantha is a star.) There’s no driller killer who hunts pajama hotties with a phallic weapon and no despised ex-boyfriend chasing the woman he sees as his property. The role reversal is weird, but it’s also a secret excuse for all of the objectification that has been imposed on women by decades of bimbo victim stereotypes.
Cut deeper into the hairless flesh Dude Bro Party Massacre III, and the team’s intentions to toast slasher norms are particularly evident in their absurd sequels. Brock’s introductory therapy session sums up the plot from the imaginary first two films through a montage of Delta Bi deaths, with vomit oozing from slashed necks and aquarium tanks spilled with blood, as a commentary on the carnage that shabbier slasher films appreciate over narratives .
Two otherwise nameless characters, “Flannel Bro” and “Turtleneck Bro”, later take up a cursory reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in order to jokingly highlight the horror trope of unimportant minor characters who serve as slaughterhouse. Other horror signatures that show up here: nonsensical plot devices and the flimsy one-liners of Motherface after she executed her victims. They are all intended as odes to the tropics of horror films that were poorly written even for two in the morning and viewed through the tracking fuzz of a VHS tape.
The brilliance of these tropics lies in what they hide. As much as Dude Bro Party Massacre III pleasantly manipulates its brotherhood landscape to remind audiences that bros are able to share emotional connections, the script’s ultimate goal is reflexive – it satirizes its own satire. Take Jimmy Galoshes (Jon Brence), who was electrocuted because he couldn’t help but touch the bare chest of a late Tri Beta runabout – though his rain boots had saved him from such a shocking fate as Motherface two seconds earlier dropped a live wire into the puddle under his and the naked student’s feet. Not only does the film approach the slashers of the 80s from a place of awesome reticence, but it also tries to contextualize the toxic-masculine industry that spawned these baseless gore factories – and dares to venture a different path into the future demand. (The “innocent hornhound” character dies instantly, illustrating what filmmakers think of this trope.)
The nice thing about a horror comedy is that thematic messages are easier to digest when you laugh. In the 1985s The return of the living deadViewers can smile at America’s bureaucratic and military incompetence, even if it’s otherwise deadly serious. Subversions can have larger fluctuations, like 2011 Cottage in the forest rewrites how audiences see horror tropes by blaming a malicious agency for every stupid prototype character choice.
Circles back to DBPM3, and Brent’s level-up as “Final Boy” captures his transformation into an indomitable bodybuilder berserk when the ghosts of his dead brothers invade his body – through his bum. The best visual metaphors hit like a sledgehammer, but outside of this humorous context, such stupidity couldn’t exist. Reevaluating ridiculous tropes by flawlessly reproducing them to laugh at is one way to balance a takedown with an adoring appreciation, proof that the creators know the territory they are walking in.
Dude Bro Party Massacre III is a crazy love letter to the horror genre that shows in its deeply connected nature of spoofer and sincerity. Motherface’s killings are indulgent when she pounds Spike’s (Michael Rousselet) skull instead of a barrel and pours him a bloody homebrew. Indulgence also inspires exaggerated performances, such as how the actor Paul Prado excessively expresses his lines as the die-hard Turbeaux of the Delta Bi when it comes to paddling hopeful promises.
DBPM3 works her way through a library of slasher tropes, from the split-up-the-group plan to Delta Bi’s reliance on dance numbers to help relax in times of argument. The filmmakers generate characters through distillation pork meat and animal shelter-Era stereotypes right down to their skeletal arches. Flannel Bro and Turtleneck Bro break through the fourth wall to indicate a continuity error. It’s comforting that everyone in front of and behind the camera is heroically indulging in both honest satire and outrage. These tropes give viewers a tangible familiarity and a dependable horror frame amid much stranger gags.
What Dude Bro Party Massacre III best makes fun of “outdated” slasher blueprints from a place of obsession and an open heart. The DNA of his source of inspiration flows through tubes filled with corn syrup blood substitute and soupy fake puke. The motifs of the characters in the film are a consistently startling delight, a reaction to the genre flaws that horror fans are used to scoffing at.
Dude Bro Party Massacre III is nothing more than a good time, and watching it promotes a healthier relationship between viewers and the horror genre. Laughing at yourself and the things you love requires a certain humility that the horror genre benefits from when audiences reevaluate trends from bygone eras and movements. By blaming the genre for its mistakes through humor and introspection, we can also value the weaker parts of its story and introduce evolutionary thinking about how filmmakers might draw something like that The slumber party massacre in a current slasher climate. Horror comedies prefer entertainment over horror, but they’re crucial to understanding the weaknesses of past horror films and making the genre grow by bringing it to justice.
The best horror comedies can take advantage of the past, keep the present in check, and laugh at the genre’s worst tropes and enduring stereotypes while still tickling audiences who love the films that are under attack because the filmmakers may still be making those films love more. That’s definitely true Dude Bro Party Massacre IIIWhich turns out to be the funniest horror comedy in the last decade that most people haven’t seen – and perhaps the most insightful.
Dude Bro Party Massacre III streams free on Tubi with ads and can be rented or bought on digital platforms like Amazon.