Night Of The Living Dorks
 Rufus  rates it:    Community rates it: (no ratings yet)
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First there was House of the Dead and then Shaun of the Dead. These two movies made zombie movies quite funny. This is not an easy thing to do. The reason that I had given Shaun of the Dead such high marks is because it walked the line brilliantly but still delivered the bloody goods. From across the pond we now get Night Of The Living Dorks. More in the vein of a raunchy teen comedy than anything horrific, this movie makes the undead zombies themselves funny. The only problem is that there is nothing horrific about this one. All in good fun though, this movie worked great as a stand alone comedy.

Night of the Living Dorks follows said dorks Philip, Wurst and Conrad in your average day in school. Philip of course has the hots for the untouchable rich jock's ice princess who wants nothing to do with him, Wurst is the drug using horn dog and Konrad is the glasses wearing typical sweater vest geek. Cliché 1. A presentation in class on world religions brings an idea to Phillip's head. When his neighbor (a hottie dressed Goth that loves him, but Phillips doesn't realize it. Cliché 2) stands in class with a few goth friends talking about Voodoo and love potions, Phillip decides to join her in a little ritual. With that potion then the hottie prom queen chick would fall madly in love with him. At the cemetery they all watch as the Goth's botch up the ceremony and the scattered ashes used blow into the face of the three nerds. While nothing right away happens, after a car wreck with the three takes place, they find that they are now one of the undead with special powers. While at first using these to their benefit, Phillip soon realizes that they need to find a cure quick and stop Konrad who is taking his new zombie status a Night of the Living Dead flesh eating level.

I thoroughly enjoyed Night of the Living Dorks. I found it to be funny and an overall great time. Like I said, this isn't horrific by any means and all gore effects are used in such a comedic manner, that even the times a bit of blood fly it is tongue in cheek. I mentioned a few of the clichés. Honestly though, the filmmakers used these clichés to their benefit. They ran with references and old clichés (like the neighborly love issue) and made each seem fresh if not still enjoyable.

Again this is a teen comedy with being undead throw in. Being dead means being able to stay underwater in a hot tub forever with a hottie teacher (think about it), it means super strength, but it also means body parts falling off. The parts falling off gag was a running joke throughout the movie that brought many laughs. The characters that are supposed to likable are, and the rich preps of the school (the ones needing hated) fit the "villain" bill right. Think a slightly raunchier John Hughes movie written to deal with being undead as opposed to being just poor or unpopular. Well, they all three are still unpopular but you get my point.

One thing that I will suggest watching this is if you don't speak German, to use the subtitles. I found listening to it dubbed in English had slightly different punchlines and such than what the subtitles were giving me. Frankly I found the subtitles to be more funny than the dubbing. Some of the extras are deleted scenes, behind the scenes, etc. The one extra to definitely watch is the alternate ending. Damn, did this change the mood. Frankly while corny and pretty upbeat, I preferred the ending that they stuck with. The alternate one again changed the complete tone of the movie and seemed too Buffy The Vampire Slayer for me.

Overall Night of the Living Dorks was a good time. It was damn clever, had decent makeup effects when needed and made me laugh. At times it even made me laugh my ass off. If it keeps a smile on my face throughout then it's job is done. I won't say you have to rush out to get this one, but if you are a horror fan that likes to laugh, or just like to laugh in general I can still give this movie a buy rate of 4.

Added:  Monday, February 19, 2007
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