Knights of Badassdom (2014)

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Despite being saddled with a really low budget, this movie could still have worked. The concept of live action role playing people forced into doing real sword and sorcery was promising. However, the end results are a real disappointment. I will say that when it comes to special effects, the movie looks quite good despite that low budget. However, it seems that most of the budget was blown on those special effects because the surrounding footage looks extremely cheap and tacky. But I could have lived with that had the REAL problem with the movie not had existed, and that is the weak script. The story has some glaring plot holes (how DID the characters get their hands on that long lost spell book?) and moves in a slow and predictable manner. The characters are not very well written - for the most part they act, think, and speak all alike, and they are uniformly boring to observe. Apart from the nifty low budget special effects, the only other praise I can give the movie is that they cast a little person in one role and refreshingly made not one mention of his short height at any time.

Live-action role players conjure up a demon from Hell by mistake and they must deal with the consequences.Due to meddling from the studio, director Joe Lynch has notoriously distanced himself from this film. Although how his version differs from the cut available on Netflix and in stores is unknown, one must assume Lynch would have given us even more gore. He is, after all, a master of gore.Lynch's reservations notwithstanding, the film is still surprisingly good. The cover looks terrible, but sometimes that old adage about judging a book (or film) by its cover rings true. This is a superb blend of humor and horror with some recognizable faces. While no one is A-list (sorry Steve Zahn and Peter Dinklage), there are many faces that will be known to viewers. Even better if you have a background in role playing games.

From the title and the cover art thumbnail on Netflix I dismissed this immediately as one of these low-budget, low-talent parodies of whatever the most recent popular film is. The kind spawned by the Scary Movie franchise.However when I actually looked at the cover properly and picked out faces I realised it was far from that. With actors from Game of Thrones, Community, Firefly and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia combined with heavy geek humour, metal and a medieval theme it seemed like it was actually made specifically for me.Unfortunately half of this big cast play little more than cameo roles with (spoilers...) Danny Pudi getting killed off without ever having his character properly established or speaking more than about three lines. Peter Dinklage plays a small role (no pun intended) at best and meets a similar fate without really doing much. Slightly disappointing to be honest as they are both great actors who could have done with a little more screen time before their grisly demise. In fact none of the characters are especially well established in either their real world or fantasy personas.Still the storyline was good and since I have always found the subject of LARP rather amusing it was entertaining. However having seen other reviews I think I largely found it funny because I actually know about LARP (without ever having done it) and have messed about in roleplaying servers of online games (which are frankly hilarious). Hence it was the subtleties of the LARP combined with the out of character stuff that made it funny without there needing to be big in your face jokes.For instance giving the car park some crazy fantasy name and pretending it is anything other than a car park when you... do in fact know it is a car park and literally just parked your car there. Just like in RP MMOs when players will pretend that moderators are some kind of god or demon... rather than just being a minimum wage employee sat behind a computer in a massive office. Everyone knows these things but they pretend anyway. It is that level of commitment and surrealness which makes it funny.I appreciate that those who know nothing about RP will probably not find any of that amusing though. It probably could have done with a lot more live action roleplay so people understand what it actually involves... prior to everyone dying. Those who do play LARP are probably going to find a lot of the content kind of offensive because it is just totally at their expense and they are ultimately the butt of every single joke.So given that this film seems to fit a niche specifically for those who understand what RP is but don't actually do it I can understand the bad reviews. I'd probably give it 8/10 in fairness but I feel inclined to be generous as I sincerely believe this film was made for me and me alone.My only complaint really was that the succubus didn't make sense. In pretty much all established lore a succubus is meant to be a demon that takes the form of a woman to seduce men and then ultimately kills or otherwise degrades them. The origins of this are fairly obviously a repressive Christian thing to scare men away from sexual temptation with a horror story. Yet in this film the succubus kills readily and without actually needing the seduction element. The gay guy she tried to kill should have been immune to her, as should Hung as he was seeing her for what she truly was due to the shrooms.As it stands her transforming into some giant demon thing served only to be aesthetic as she was already invulnerable to attack and a savage, superhuman killer. She should have only been able to kill those she seduced prior to the transformation otherwise she could have been a werewolf for all the difference it made.

PlotJoe (Ryan Kwanten) becomes despondent after his girlfriend breaks up with him so his friends Hung (Peter Dinklage) and Eric (Steve Zahn) take him to a medieval role playing camp where he meets Gwen (Summer Glau) and her cousin Gunther (Brett Gipson). Joe is reluctant at first to get into the festivities, but he comes around in the end. Then something goes horribly awry when Eric unknowingly uses black magic to summon a demon who looks like Joe's ex-girlfriend. She goes on a murderous path of destruction and it seems like there is no way to defeat her. Should they run to the hills or should Joe and his teammates band together to stop her before she begins killing the rest of their fellow gamers?Character DevelopmentThere is virtually no character development here. Everyone seemed unaffected by what happened to them and just carries on. Other than Joe getting over his girlfriend nothing really happens. This is not a film of personal growth.ActingThe comic timing seemed to be in sync for the most part. The lead actors did a fine job with what material they were given. Because everything was played for laughs none of the scenes where taken seriously, even when characters were faced with the threat of death. Under these circumstances this was not the realm to test anyone's skills of their acting ability. Yet I don't believe I have ever seen Steve Zahn in a serious acting role, though he always seems at home playing the comedic part.OverviewDespite what appears to be a low budget production that seems to be filmed over a short period of time this movie was very entertaining for the most part. For its comical aspirations don't fall flat. It wasn't a laugh out loud funny, but I believe there was a great amount of humor there even though the antics were a bit sophomoric, yet no worse than other comedies of the recent past. I think the story reached a good mix of horror and lighthearted humor. What the producers set out to do looks like it has been accomplished.