Stoner ’70s singer Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton) should’ve been bigger than Jimmy Buffett. After all, it was Pete’s song — “Piña Colada Burg” — that that Parrot freak ripped off for his mega-mega-hit. Now Pete owns a spring-break drink-and-screw resort called Paradise Island, which would be just fine if that damned machete-wielding maniac wasn’t “killing the dick out of everybody.” In the followup to their cult hit Super Troopers — the Citizen Kane of idiotic pothead comedies — the wacky comedians from the Broken Lizard troupe, helmed as before by Jay Chandrasekhar, spoof spring-break movies, teen slasher flicks, Jimmy Buffett and the righteous herb. It must’ve been fun to make — island setting, Trojan Records reggae soundtrack, loads of hot chicks in bikinis (and less). Yet despite an inspired Paxton, Lizard Kevin Heffernan’s hilarious songs, and a brilliant live-action Pac-Man game, somehow Club Dread never seems to find its comedic sea legs. Classic in spots, slow in others — moreso even than Super Troopers — this film requires a bad-comedy cult fan to truly love it — and maybe an eighth. Two cameras

This article appears in Mar 4-10, 2004.

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