Wacky, bloody, and filled with laughs, DPBM3 is an unexpected classic

Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 is a thing of utter beauty: an unabashed, endlessly funny and inventive satire of slasher films and so much more than that. The entire movie is just an exercise in how big of a smile it can put on your face, and often has multiple jokes and layers of humor operating at any one time. Simply put, this movie is fucking hilarious, and melts everything from Mel Brooks-style asides and fourth-wall jokes to Tim and Eric’s special brand of public-access lunacy into one big, bloody gooey classic.

I would describe the plot, but so many jokes are worked into the way it unfolds that I can’t in good conscience. Just know that the movie never takes itself anything resembling seriously, and it does wonders for it. The film’s humor harkens back to an older style of comedy, an absurdist* style more in line with Airplane than Anchorman, and it really rewards the audience for paying attention to it. There are plays on every teenage party-movie trope, from the bond of bro-hood, the clingy girlfriend who all the guys hate, the one pledge who gets endlessly hazed, and even a John Belushi-style character that’s just as crazy and loveable as Bluto from Animal House in Turbeaux (and yes, that’s pronounced Turbo).

DBPM3 is the result of a ridiculously successful Kickstarter campaign by the guys and gals over at 5 Second Films, and it’s immediately obvious they didn’t waste a cent. Every element of the movie works perfectly. DBPM3 is presented as if the last surviving copy of the movie had just been recovered, and that copy is a late-night cable TV movie that a teenage kid recorded on his VCR. The whole thing is in VCR quality and aspect ratio, which is funny in itself to see in our HD age. The movie is punctuated with commercials that serve as 5 Second Films that get thrown into the larger movie, and they always come at the right time to serve up a great laugh.

The best part of DBPM3 is that it’s just extremely well-made. The film’s pacing, comedic timing, and sense of visual comedy are some of the best I’ve seen in a comedy this century. If you get up or look at your phone during this one, you’re going to miss a great gag in the background. The film really rewards laughing at it on every level, and it’s one of the few horror-comedies to maintain its sense of fun and level of humor for every minute of its nearly 100-minute run time. This movie also has a crazy high jokes-per-minute ratio, which makes sense given that its creators are used to stuffing multiple jokes into 5 second clips.

Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 is a wholly unexpected and wholly welcome entry into the teen party movie canon, and that’s because it’s one of the best entries in the genre ever. There’s enough brazen bro-ness and frattiness in this movie for it to be played in frat houses for decades to come, and the jokes are so wide-ranging that anyone can enjoy this movie. The kills range from utterly ridiculous to even more ridiculous, and they never stop getting better. (I will provide one spoiler: a kid gets electrocuted by grabbing a breast. You’ll laugh your ass off.) Grab all of your friends, a few cases of Natty Light, put on DBPM3, and you’ll have one of the best times ever. An instant classic.

*Literally absurdist: there’s a reference to Tom Stoppard’s classic Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, an intellectual nod which underlines the film’s ridiculous nature.

Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 poster image