2013

I needed this movie after the last one. A little lighter. A little sillier. A little more Peter Dinklage.

The movie begins with a story about an ancient book that contained songs that inadvertently summons demons. It says it was lost for centuries, but obviously eBay has the market on evil, atrocious things. Have you ever seen their My Little Pony auctions?{shudder}

The first scene is what appears to be an ancient ritual that involves sacrifice and hoodies. We realize soon enough that it is a bunch of LARPers (Live Action Roll Players) reenacting a ritual in order to…actually, I have no idea what their end game is? Getting dressed up maybe? Either way, their “ritual” is interrupted by a bunch of douche-bag paintballers who are playing in the woods (because I guess there aren’t enough Washington State forest for everyone). The paintballers break up the party and send the LARPers running to their van.

However, on the way, one of the LARPers, Eric (played by Steve Zahn) drops the ancient book we saw in the animation at the beginning of the movie. One of the paintballers pick it up and it immediately attacks his face when he tries to open it. I don’t know why a book would attack a person’s face, but then again I don’t understand how people decide they are going to be a viking witch fairy on the weekends. When the book finally releases itself, it leaves an impression on the paintballer’s face. I’m assuming ancient ink doesn’t come off with lemon and water.

The Demonic Song Book somehow transports itself to Eric’s van while he’s driving. Now this is interesting, but also weird because they never revisit that part of its power ever again. If a book can transport itself, why the hell was it buried under ancient ruins for generations? It could have just leapt out of the ground at any time and into the hands of an evil witch or dictator. But instead it waited until this dude found it on eBay?

Logic aside (as I have started to do with all these films), we are introduced to Eric’s roommate, Joe (who is played by Ryan Kwanten AKA Jason Stackhouse). He is a doom metal loving mechanic musician. And his girlfriend is done with him. So in order to cheer him up, Eric and the other roommate Hung (played amazingly by Peter Dinklage), get him high and drunk and kidnap him to bring him to their weekend LARPing event (er, match? battle? meet-up? Not sure what these costumed sleepovers are called.)

After much coaxing, Eric and Hung convince Joe to stay. In order to “inaugurate” Joe into their pack, they of course put him in the middle of a pentagram and sing him a song. From, still unbeknownst to them, the demon book. So combined with stupidity of trying to pronounce another language you do not know, and the fact that Joe still have a picture of his ex-girlfriend in his pocket, they accidentally summon a demon that looks exactly like the ex. I hope they can get their deposit back.

The demon (sorry, succubus) goes around the forest devouring players until the lead characters finally realize what is happening. They try to sing ANOTHER song, which just makes the succubus into an even stronger, grosser demon, who attacks the rest of the LARPers, basically eviscerating an entire generation of nerds from Washington State.

After many failed attempts to destroy the demon (including cross-bow, shot gun, paintball, fire, and rocks), Joe comes up with the final solution: doom metal. He literally sings the demon to death. This scene is so silly, I almost forgot that hundreds of people don’t have their limbs or heads anymore.

And of course, the typical 6 month epilogue, everything is tied up nicely with Joe having a new LARPer girlfriend. This movie is only 86 minutes long, and I learned from some research that the director “disowned” the movie after he saw all the revisions, redistribution, and reedits. I didn’t even know that you could do this. But even if my movie came out like a giant Golgothan monster of poo, I would still love the little freak.