Dude Bro Party Massacre III is the best horror-comedy movie nobody’s watched

Back in 2015, a renegade troupe of comedians and filmmakers dared to prove that horror-comedies can be more than the subgenre’s middling reputation suggests. Fans of 5-Second Films’ viral videos on YouTube and at 5secondfilms.com probably already know about their crowdfunded fraternity-slasher satire Dude Bro Party Massacre 3. Those who don’t won’t be hazed for missing either of the previous entries in the franchise — because they don’t exist. Dude Bro Party Massacre III is a faux-threequel that’s presented as if the audience is watching some sneaky Minnesota teen’s bootlegged VCR copy, recorded off a 4 a.m. “Midnight Morning Movie” showcase.

These are the main characters of this movie. They’re bros. They enjoy partying. They are often killed. It’s all in the title, except the way the Delta Bi frat’s booze-drenched story is also a brilliant take on well-documented horror tropes, made for an audience that’s both obsessively aware of sorority-house slashers, and ready for a loving analysis of why those movies are ridiculous.

Such a title Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 is easy to write off as a gimmick, heralding a movie that’s going to be crammed with shallow horror-trope gags, like a Scary Moviesequel. Horror-comedies are often judged more harshly than straight horror, because so many self-serious horror fans either believe comedy can’t be scary, or have suffered through Stan Helsing equivalents that don’t seem to come from a place of respect and appreciation for the films they’re attempting to skewer. For every loving sendup like Ruben Fleischer’s 2009 horror-comedy Zombieland, there’s another braindead waste like 2014’s A Haunted House 2, seemingly built around the question, “What if Parasitic Activity had poop gags?”

Image from 5 Second Films

However, the knowing humor in Dude Bro Party Massacre 3It is usually a sign that the directors are avid horror enthusiasts. It is possible to create a great horror comedy by targeting certain subgenres. Filmmakers who accept these predictable plot expectation and expand them to the absurd are displaying their horror knowledge and willingness to have fun with it. This kind of compassionate comedy requires skill, while assassination comedy can be thoughtless. Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 is the rare horror satire that’s both funny and intensely studied, with its slasher sendup filtered through buff brotherhood, beer bongs, and the lifesaving power of blatantly homoerotic friendships.

All this begins when Brent Chirino, Alec Owen, enrolls at East Chico University in order to investigate the death of Brock Chirino. Brent crashed in front the Solo-cup-littered Delta Bi fraternity home, where Derek, the alpha, is seated. After skating past the sunbathing John Francis Daley, Brent crashes into the Delta Bi fraternity hall.The Room co-star Greg Sestero) welcomes him as Brock’s legacy brother. Brent announces that he is interested in Delta Bi and offers to pledge his support. This will be a disguise for him to sneak behind the closed bedrooms of their homes in order to search for answers regarding Brock.

By horror-franchise bylaws, this is the point where the film’s villain, Motherface (Olivia Taylor Dudley) will start killing once more. Motherface is the mask-wearing nightmare that killed all of the Delta Bi broskis in the previous movie. Brent finds a new family at Delta Bi, but he can only save them by defeating Motherface in Brock’s honor.

At its most digestible, Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 inverts the sorority-house-bloodbath setup that dominates after-hours ’80s slashers like The House on Sorority Row The Slumber Party MassacreOr Killer PartyYou can read more. Titillation or temptation can be the fuel. Friday, the 13th’s Infinite copycatsMany of these sacrifice character development for bare breasts or pillow fights. DBPM3 asks, “What if this kind of framing was applied to men instead of women?”

Photo by 5 Second Films

The Delta Bi motto is “No Girls Allowed,” especially during the Delta Bi Biannual Bicep Gauntlet. These frat knuckleheads do the same sorority movie behaviors as their baby-crazy friends, including dancing naked around stereos and confiding in brochachos how they felt pressured to have sex. Kelsey Gunn plays Samantha. There’s no Driller Killer hunting pajama hotties with a phallic weapon, and no scorned ex-boyfriend stalking the woman he sees as his property. The role reversal is comic, but it’s also a stealth apology for all the objectification forced on women through decades of bimbo victim stereotypes.

The hairless flesh is easier to cut into Dude Bro Party Massacre 3, and the writing team’s intentions to roast slasher norms become apparent, especially in their sendup of absurd sequels. Brock’s introductory therapy session recaps the action from the imaginary first two films, through a montage of Delta Bi deaths that ooze vomit from sliced-open necks and spill aquarium tanks worth of blood as a commentary on the body-count carnage that seedier slasher films value over narratives.

Two otherwise unnamed characters, “Flannel Bro” and “Turtleneck Bro,” later make a passing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern reference to jokingly highlight the horror trope of unimportant supporting characters who serve as slaughter-fodder. Other horror signatures that surface here: nonsensical plot devices, and Motherface’s punny one-liners after she executes her victims. They’re all meant as odes to the tropes of horror movies that were poorly written even by 2 a.m. standards, watched through the tracking fuzz of a VHS tape.

These tropes are brilliant because of what they conceal. It’s as simple as Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 pleasantly manipulates its fraternity landscape to remind audiences that bros are capable of sharing emotional connections, the screenplay’s ultimate target is reflexive — it’s satirizing its own satire. Take Jimmy Galoshes (Jon Brence), who’s electrocuted because he can’t help but touch a deceased Tri Beta streaker’s bare breast — even though his rain boots spared him such a shocking fate two seconds prior, when Motherface drops a live wire into the puddle beneath his and the nude coed’s feet. The film doesn’t just approach ’80s slashers from a place of reverent throwback warmth, it tries to contextualize the toxically masculine industry that cranked out these gratuitous gore factories — and dares to demand a different path moving forward. (The “innocent horndog” character dies instantly, illustrating what the filmmakers think of that trope.)

The beauty of a horror-comedy is that thematic messages are easier to digest when we’re laughing. In 1985’s The Return Of The Living Dead, viewers can chuckle at America’s bureaucratic and military incompetence, even though it’s otherwise deadly serious. Subversions can take more significant swings, like the way 2011’s Cabin in the WoodsThis rewrites horror tropes for audiences by placing blame on a malevolent agency every stupid prototype-character selection.

Rejoin us! DBPM3, and Brent’s level-up as a “Final Boy” captures his transformation into an untamable bodybuilder berserker when the ghosts of his dead bros enter his body — through his butt. Visual metaphors that hit like sledgehammers are the best, but without this humor, such daffiness would not last. Reassessing ridiculous tropes by flawlessly reproducing them in order to laugh at them is a way to balance a takedown with an adoring acknowledgment, a proof that the creators know the territory they’re walking.

Dude Bro Party Massacre 3This is a hilarious love letter to horror. Its deeply connected style of spoofery and sincerity make it a hilarious comedy. Indulgence reigns supreme in Motherface’s kills, as she taps Spike’s (Michael Rousselet) skull instead of a keg, and pours him a bloody home brew. Indulgence also inspires over-the-top performances, like how actor Paul Prado excessively enunciates his lines as the Delta Bi’s resident hardass Turbeaux when it comes time to paddle hopeful pledges.

DBPM3 works through an entire library of slasher tropes, from the “split up the group” plan to Delta Bi’s reliance on dance numbers to relax in times of strife. Filmmakers create characters through distillation Porky’sAnd Animal HouseThese stereotypes were distilled down to their bones by Turtleneck Bro and Flannel Bro. To point out an error in continuity, Turtleneck Bro and Flannel Bro smash the fourth wall. It’s a reassurance that everyone on and behind the camera is heroically committed to both honest satire and outrageousness. These are the basic tropes that give viewers an easy-to-understand horror context and provide a foundation for other gags.

Photo by 5 Second Films

What Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 does best is poke fun at “outdated” slasher blueprints from a place of obsession, and with an open heart. Tubes filled with soupy fake urine and corn syrup blood substitute carry the DNA from its sources. The film’s character motivations are a continually dumbfounding delight, a reaction to the genre flaws horror fans have become accustomed to scoffing at.

Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 It is a great time and promotes better relationships between horror fans and viewers. The horror genre can benefit from audiences looking back at trends and past movements by laughing at themselves and others. Through humor and introspection we can make the horror genre more humane and appreciate its past. We also have the opportunity to think about the evolutionary possibilities for how filmmakers might use it. The Slumber Party Massacre into a current slasher climate. Horror-comedies favor entertainment over frights, but they’re crucial to understanding the weaknesses of past horror movies, and pushing the genre to grow by putting it on trial.

The best horror comedies can exploit the past, keep the present in check, and laugh over the genre’s worst tropes and most enduring clichés, while still tickling audiences who love the films that are under fire, because the filmmakers might love those movies even more. Certainly that’s true of Dude Bro Party Massacre 3, which winds up being the funniest horror-comedy of the last decade that most people haven’t seen — and maybe the most insightful.

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