Laughter is not an option for ‘Club Dread’ visitors

The comedy group Broken Lizard had a modest hit two years ago with its first film, “Super Troopers,” about some inept Vermont state troopers who stumble on a drug ring, but if the group strikes gold at the box office with its new picture, “Broken Lizard’s Club Dread,” it will be more for the seemingly surefire combination of extreme violence and extreme raunch rather than for anything resembling comic inspiration.

For locale, the group has chosen an old island paradise that may be plagued by zombies and the like. It’s the setting for a resort: Coconut Pete’s Pleasure Island, Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton) being a bleary, hard-living former rock star. No sooner does a fresh load of vacationers arrive primed for sex and surf than Coconut Pete’s staffers start being eliminated, one by one, in hideous fashion. (The party-hearty visitors scarcely notice.) Has some evil, revenge-consumed creature risen from the grave? Or is there a homicidal maniac on the loose? There is absolutely no reason to care.

Broken Lizard is composed of Jay Chandrasekhar, Steve Lemme, Kevin Heffernan, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske; they all act and write, and Chandrasekhar directs. Heffernan has some amusing moments as a masseur with a magic touch, and Lemme is funny as a sleek, heavily accented Latin lover, but they and everyone else are overwhelmed by incessant savagery and crassness, which is more soul-withering than silly because it is so excessive. Considering the circumstances, Brittany Daniel and Jordan Ladd are indeed game and resilient as the film’s leading ladies. But “Broken Lizard’s Club Dread” is pretty dreadful.

*

‘Broken Lizard’s Club Dread’

MPAA rating: R, for violence/gore, sexual content, language and drug use

Times guidelines: Extreme violence plus extreme crassness; entirely inappropriate for children

Kevin Heffernan...Lars

Steve Lemme...Juan

Jay Chandrasekhar...Putman

Paul Soter...Dave

Erik Stolhanske...Sam

Bill Paxton...Coconut Pete

A Fox Searchlight presentation of a Cataland Films production of a Broken Lizard film. Director Jay Chandrasekhar. Producer Richard Perello. Executive producers Lance Hool, Peter E. Lengyel. Screenplay by the Broken Lizard. Cinematographer Lawrence

Sher. Editor Ryan Folsey. Music Nathan Barr. Costumes Melissa Bruning. Production designer Benjamin Conable. Art director Theresa Wachter. Set decorator Hermelindo Hinojosa. Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes.

In general release.