The goofs from 5-Second Films stretch out their micro-humor into a late-night throwback
The best part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse, their 2007 winking tribute to retro cinema, wasn’t the featured double-bill but rather the handful of parody trailers that came with the theatrical screening. Werewolf Women of the SS, Don’t, Thanksgiving, and Danny Trejo’s vengeful hitman Machete were improbable and extreme concepts, hilarious to even consider their getting the studio greenlight. Their “trailers” were funny precisely because Eli Roth understood that stretching out a turkey-based horror teaser to 90 minutes would probably be a terrible idea.
Well, the guys in 5-Second Films don’t seem to agree. The absurdist comedy troupe, first started up by Brian Firenzi at USC in 2005, has made good on their name, producing dozens of five-second micro-shorts that usually land somewhere between irreverence and nonsense. Quality can vary with such a restricting premise, so it makes sense that the group would want to move onto something a little longer. Enter Dude Bro Party Massacre III, the group’s foray into longer-form comedy and one of this weekend’s late night screenings in WUD’s Marquee Film Festival.
Don’t worry about the “III” in the title either. Co-directors Jon Salmon, Tomm Jacobsen, and Michael Rousselet stay true to their roots, creating a faux-sequel to a faux-sequel in a series that prior to 2015, never existed. Framed inside of a “lost VHS tape,” Dude Bro begins on the highest note possible. A montage of kills and grainy backstories (directed separately by Joey Scoma) spews out a fake mythology of the previous films at a blinding speed, spelling out the legend of serial killer “Motherface,” a horribly-burned sorority mother hellbent on slaughtering the town of East Chino’s coeds. When Brock (Alex Owen) falls victim to a killer carrying out Motherface’s legacy, his meek twin Brent (also Owen) decides to infiltrate his brother’s old fraternity and get to the bottom of his murder.
East Chino University’s Delta Bi frat bros spend much of pledge weekend getting slaughtered at a cabin. Just don’t take anything too seriously. Littered with snippets from commercial interruptions (also directed by Scoma), the DNA of 5-Second Films is all over: Tone that shifts on a dime, unexplained flashbacks, over-explained asides, and all manner of cultural references (a dig at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is particularly great). Fans of the web series will also appreciate the involvement of Patton Oswalt, who’s popped up in stuff like You Got Mail and The Final Battle. Here, he’s an unhinged chief of police with a penchant for witchcraft. There’s also adult film icon Nina Hartley as East Chico’s college dean and Andrew WK, another series semi-regular, as a “legacy” frat brother.
Along with its over-the-top kills, Dude Bro‘s familiar faces are welcome moments in what’s more or less the same formula for 100 minutes: 1) Something random happens, 2) someone dies in outrageous fashion, and 3) the killer says something cheesy. The whole experience becomes exhausting, a feeling Robert Rodriguez and his two Machete films know all too well. Yes, the genius of Grindhouse’s hilarious trailers seems to have been lost on one of its own heralds, who tried writing a ballad off of a one-note premise. Dude Bro has a few more notes to its tune, but in either case, you might be better off with the short stuff.
- WUD Film presents Dude Bro Party Massacre III Fri, Nov 13 at 11:30p. It’s part of the Marquee Film Festival in Union South, which we’re covering with Madison Film Forum. FREE.