Some nerds don’t get any respect. Specifically, I refer to the “LARPers,” or the Live Action Role-players, which in the echelons of nerdiness, are considered even by nerds to be embarrassingly nerdy. Once when I was at a nerdy convention that celebrated video games primarily, the LARPers were relegated to one distant room and every time they snuck out, everyone else wanted them to tone it down. That’s right, the people dressed as Steampunk Mario or with shirts about obscure YouTube video game players looked down on these LARPers.

But if we’re being honest, it seems like LARPing is really just sort of an extension of kids playing as warriors and wizards, now with referees and rules to emulate the pen and paper role playing games. It’s even used primarily as jokes in popular entertainment, as I recall from the decent comedy Role Models. But the very concept of LARPing does seem to lend itself to a fictionalized version, a way to combine the play-acting and magic actually being involved. Or it may be used for a horror comedy that really doesn’t quite work.

Knights of Badassdom has had a troubled history; first filmed in 2010, it had serious post-production delays and then had difficulty finding a distributor for years. Finally it came out on demand and in limited release this year, and we got to see whether or not all that time managed to output anything good. The movie from director Joe Lynch is about a large convention of LARPers from all over, although following the group of our own archetypes: The staid boring Joe (Ryan Kwanten from True Blood), wacky Eric (Steve Zahn), sex object Gwen (Summer Glau), and quiet, drunkard badass Hung (Peter Dinklage). Peter Dinklage of course would move on from this movie to acclaim in Game of Thrones, and Summer Glau has been in many different nerdy properties. So it seems like the perfect recipe for nerdy success, right? As the team gets ready to fake battle the other teams, another group has somehow gotten their hands on a book of real magic and accidentally summoned a demonic succubus. Now people are actually getting killed and the heroes must figure out a way to survive and maybe even defeat the beast.

The movie is kind of a mess, seemingly missing crucial segments where we’d get the choice to connect with and care about the protagonists. As it is, only Peter Dinklage manages enough sheer charisma to make the audience actually want to see what happens to him, and the other performances range from utterly dull (Joe as the ostensible lead), blandly kickass (Glau), and silly (Zahn). Various other actors like Community‘s Danny Pudi and Michael Gladis from Mad Men have “blink and you’ll miss it” cameos, but it’s nothing too interesting. The horror aspect is kind of fun, watching the succubus (Margarita Levieva) vamp and overact her way through a campier version of this movie, and the effects are mostly decent in that B-movie way. There are some CGI-created elements later on that cross the line from “cheesy” to “that just looks stupid,” but that’s where the other serious problem comes in. For a so-called horror comedy, this movie just isn’t that funny.

A few jokes are written in the script, but the vast majority of comedy seems to be desired from situational silliness. For a horror comedy, I want to see some self-aware, witty dialogue, and that just wasn’t here. The movie was kind of fun to watch, but ultimately it seems like it missed the mark. The editing is jumbled, with various scenes and cameos seemingly shoehorned in, and the primary plotline is confusingly executed. This is not the nerdy triumph LARPers have been waiting for, so they’ll have to wait a while longer.

The Blu-Ray has a few features, although it has no director commentary:

• Peter Dinklage Interview (1:19) – Pretty low quality, barely scratching the surface, and mostly clips of the movie.
• Summer Glau Hottie Montage (1:59) – Same as above. Even for a “montage,” I wouldn’t say there’s much of anything, let alone sexy moments.
• Steve Zahn Interview (1:05) – A bland interview with this actor.
• Horror-o-medy 1 – (1:11) – A few random snippets of other castmates.
• Horror-o-medy 2 (1:05) – A few more random snippets of other castmates.
• Director Joe Lynch (7:12) – A decent length interview from the director that sheds some light into his interest in the subject of LARPing.
• San Diego Comic-Con Panel (48:34) – Anthony Breznican (a writer for Entertainment Weekly) moderates in Hall H (the big one at Comic-Con), with a panel including director Joe Lynch, Ryan Kwanten, Jimmi Simpson, Danny Pudi (barely in the movie), Michael Gladis (essentially cameos in movie), Margarita Levieva, Summer Glau, and Peter Dinklage. There are some interesting behind the scenes tidbits, including how real LARPers were involved in the filming.

 Knights of Badassdom is now available on demand and on Blu-Ray and was provided to CliqueClack for review.

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