tek's rating: ½

Knights of Badassdom (R)
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streaming sites: Amazon (Prime); Google Play; Vudu; YouTube

This is basically a comedy, and it kind of reminds me of My Name Is Bruce. Both movies I originally listed under "scary movies," but thought I could just as easily list them under "comedy" or "weird" or "supernatural." I kind of wish I could list this movie under "badass" (because the title), but I can't. But when I later created a category for B-movies, I moved the review there. Anyway, it has a decent cast. Most important to me is Summer Glau. Also there's Peter Dinklage. And there's Danny Pudi, whom I know from Community. And Brian Posehn has a small role. Other actors may be familiar to some people, but not to me. (The name Steve Zahn is vaguely familiar, and I've probably seen him in something else, but I don't remember him at all.)

So... there's this spellbook that was written hundreds of years ago, intended to summon angels, but instead summons demons. And it was lost for generations. But it was bought on eBay or something by this guy named Eric (Zahn), who had no idea it was a real spellbook. (He assumed the Enochian in which it's written was just gibberish.) He's a LARPer, who plays a wizard. He has a couple of best friends, including Hung (Dinklage) and Joe. Hung is also a LARPer, but Joe has never joined in any LARPs, even though he used to play RPGs with them. Anyway, early in the movie, Joe gets dumped by his girlfriend, Beth. So Eric and Hung get him high, and when he's unconscious, they take him to a massive LARP with a bunch of other players. At first Joe doesn't want to participate, but finally he agrees. Their team also includes a warrior woman named Gwen (Glau), who becomes a potential romantic interest for Joe, though mainly she's... pretty tough, in game. And she's looking after her cousin, Gunther, who is always in character. Another member of the team is Lando (Pudi), but he's actually not that important. And... the guy overseeing the whole LARP is Ronnie, who has a bit of a grudge against Joe, over something that happened in an RPG a long time ago.

Anyway... Eric reads a spell from the book, and unwittingly summons a succubus, who takes the form of Beth. While everyone's wandering around playing the LARP, the succubus wanders around killing random LARPers. Eventually the main characters find out that people are being killed, and a bit later find out what is killing them. So... they have to try to stop the demon. Meanwhile, there are still a ton of LARPers who have no idea that any of this is going on. Also there are some redneck paintballer assholes who play a very minor and totally unnecessary role in everything. And... I don't really want to say anything else about the plot. I will say I found the whole thing reasonably amusing, but it probably helped that I was having a few beers at the time. It's kind of... obviously low budget. Some of the effects were decent, and some were laughable. The story itself was redonkulous, but it's supposed to be. And I think that's a good thing. I just really enjoyed it.


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