CLUB DREAD

A well-assorted group of young tourists arrives at Pleasure Island, an island owned by Coconut Pete, a seasoned singer now in decline who made his fortune with silly songs in the 1970s. But on the island, a mysterious killer also hides, who soon begins to kill all the staff animators following a delusional song by Coconut Pete himself. The village managers decide to investigate without causing panic among the customers, but the suspicion that the killer is among them is always greater... We are faced with a product on the verge of slapstick comedy, a semi-successful parody of the youth-oriented slasher movie. All the characteristics of the slasher are present: a heterogeneous group of people stationed in an isolated location (here it's an island!); the inability to communicate with the rest of the world to ask for help (the radio contact has been cut off, there is obviously no network for cell phones, and the emergency boats have suddenly disappeared); a parsimonious use of alcohol and drugs; teenagers with raging hormones ready to have sex continuously, and of course a black-clad killer, with a covered face and armed with a machete. The ingredients of the teen comedy also appear punctually: characters who would be called stupid as a compliment; word games with frequent sexual references; a touch of politically incorrect as has been fashionable for a few years now, and of course a love story in the background. The film in question is directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, who also appears in the cast as the eccentric animator with an English accent and Rastafarian hairstyle Putman, author of the screenplay together with Kevin Heffernan (also in the cast as the protagonist), known in the States as the leader of the Broken Lizard (a sort of Monty Python of recent times). Both, moreover, are working (direction and screenplay) on the film based on the cult television series "The Dukes of Hazzard." In the rest of the cast, we can remember Jordan Ladd ("Cabin Fever," "Madhouse"), Brittany Daniel (known for the TV series "Sweet Valley High") and Bill Paxton ("Twister," "Frailty") in the role of Coconut Pete. Naturally, direction and cast (except the likable Paxton) are not the strong points of the film, which stands more on the gags (not even too frequent) and on pleasant splatter scenes (the death of the killer is really well done), which together with the countless nudity scenes, justify the "not suitable for minors" rating that this film has received in almost all countries. In short, summing up, "Vacanze di sangue" is an innocuous summer product to be quickly consumed between beer and popcorn, but which is forgotten just as quickly: a few funny jokes, a handful of good splatter scenes... but nothing more!