Review by CJ

Director:
Bo Zenga

Starring:
Steve Howey, Kenan Thompson, Diora Baird, Desi Lydic

Other notable appearances:
Leslie Nielsen, Ben Cotton

Running time:
108 minutes

Watch this if you liked:
Scary Movie 3, Superhero Movie, Disaster Movie, Epic Movie

Stan Helsing (Howey) is a deadbeat and selfish video store clerk heading out to a Halloween party with three friends. They need to make a detour and deliver some videos to the store owner’s mother on the way. What ensues is an unfortunate series of horror-related events that derail their plans. It falls to Stan and his friends to save themselves, each other and the town cursed by some of horror’s greatest villains’ b-grade knock-offs.

There’s no getting around it. This movie is really stupid. Like most parody films, the humour is sophomoric, it’s offensive, the acting is awful, the plot is shaky and there are more sex jokes than you can shake a hockey stick at. I went in fully expecting to hate it and think it was a complete waste of time. I was mostly right. Mostly.

Despite everything awful about Stan Helsing and its offensiveness to good taste, the plot is entertaining. The bad jokes and shoddy dialogue do a good job of trying to hide it, but there is something there. It even has a handful of funny moments if you like silly, Scary Movie style humour. One of my favourite moments is a karaoke style battle between the monsters and the heroes.

Unless you really love horror parodies or terrible comedies, Stan Helsing won’t be for you at all. It is rude, crude, inexcusably offensive to good taste and the viewer needs to really look for the silver linings.

Rating:

“1428 Elm Street. The last house on the left.”