With a name like Dude Bro Party Massacre III, you can pretty much guess what kind of cinematic experience you’re in for right from the start. And while the filmmaking team behind the comedic slasher do an admirable job with their execution for the darkly satirical horror parody, they also end up creating a story that’s uniquely charming with its own off-kilter sensibilities, featuring tons of ambitious and over-the-top gore gags along the way, as well as numerous wickedly fun callbacks to all the great (and terrible) slasher movies of yesteryear. Essentially, Dude Bro Party Massacre III feels like a movie you’d expect from the lovable loonies over at Troma and certainly lives up to the wildly outrageous expectations you’d have going into a film about dudes and bros getting massacred.
Dude Bro Party Massacre III opens with a text crawl explaining how the film was originally banned by President Reagan decades earlier and the only version left in existence is one that was recorded by a fan on his VCR while it aired late one night for a local TV station broadcast. The presentation of this long-lost cult classic is complete with VHS tracking and scan lines as well as snippets from zany advertisements featured during the commercial breaks giving it a great old-school feel. The story follows nice guy Brent Chirino (Alec Owen) who decides to join the Delta Bi fraternity in an effort to investigate his twin brother Brock’s murder at the hands of Motherface (Olivia Taylor Dudley), a serial killer once believed dead (her backstory is provided through flashback sequences referencing the first two Dude Bro films that don’t actually exist) who has returned from the grave to enact her blood-soaked revenge on all the brothers of Delta Bi.
There’s also a side story involving a satanic police chief (Patton Oswalt) who sets up the dim-witted Officer Sminkle (Brian Firenzi) as a virgin sacrifice for the murderous Motherface with the help of one of his co-workers (Maria Del Carmen). In the end though, most fans won’t really be into Dude Bro Party Massacre III for its expansive narrative—what they’re looking for is off-color absurdity, raunchy innuendo and blood by the bucketfuls, and the directing trio of Tomm Jacobsen, Michael Rousselet and Jon Salmon all certainly deliver the goods here.
In DBPMIII, the humor flies at viewers pretty consistently throughout, with a decent amount of punchlines sticking the landing. The film is also chock-full of visual gags which fare much better than some of the verbal jokes (due to the hugely talented cast who truly go all out in this indie horror comedy). All the intricate details put into the film (down to each and every commercial segment) make Dude Bro Party Massacre III feel like something pretty special, especially if you grew up a genre fan in the ’80s or ’90s.
As mentioned earlier, the film boasts some pretty spectacular practical gore from Jo Holland and the ambitious effects team that pulls off some audacious blood-fueled kills. As far as villains go, Motherface is one helluva foe, complete with one-liners as she offs her victims in some truly creative ways. Dude Bro Party Massacre III also has an interesting array of cameos throughout the film including Larry King, Andrew W.K., John Francis Daley and Greg Sestero, who co-starred in Tommy Wiseau’s infamous cult film, The Room.
While it’s probably not a movie all fans will enjoy, Dude Bro Party Massacre III is certainly a lot of fun if you’re looking for a zany slasher-inspired comedy that cleverly celebrates everything fans enjoy about ’80s-era genre movies that may not necessarily be masterpieces, while also giving the genre a low-fi twist. The film also gives us a truly memorable new visage in horror by way of its wise-cracking killer, Motherface. Overall, Dude Bro Party Massacre III may not be flawless, but it certainly stands out as one of the more unique horror films I’ve seen this year.
Movie Rating: 3/5
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
