Low budget comedies are a hit and miss affair. In this indie effort set in the world of LARPing, it might not just be the characters shouting ‘hit’ or ‘miss’.
Three friends, in typical student fashion, have failed to fulfil their course requirements, so they find themselves needing to beg for mercy from their college Professor. ‘Lloyd’ (Evan Williams), ‘Patrick’ (Jesse Reid) and ‘Oswald’ (Scott Patey), discover that their professor, Derek (Mike Smith), is also known as ‘Derek the Unholy’ in the local ‘Live Action Role-playing’ fraternity and is desperate to win a record number of Grand Championships in the imaginary world of ‘Demons & Dwarves’. This year, however, there are not enough entrants to allow the contest to occur, so ‘Derek’ strikes a bargain with the trio that they enter to make up the numbers, thus giving him the opportunity to succeed. The friends however, end up being coached by a white wizard ‘Andy’, enlisting the help of ‘Lloyds’ crush, ‘Cassandra’ (Tegan Moss), along the way which leaves the way open to the forces of light to potentially defeat the dark hordes…
While this is a threadbare plot, there have been remarkably successful films with similarly slim plots, so this didn’t particularly worry me going in. If anything, it was nice to see someone taking on this world, as it can be described as somewhat niche!
Generally, the characters fit into their world well, but I did think that some of them are not drawn or developed as well as they might be and there was too much reliance on stereotypes for some key characters. There was also at times a tendency to fall back on very low brow humour when more could have been done in the script. This is especially true of the ‘Patrick’ character, who is at times used poorly. This problem of characterisation and comedy level is inherent in the script itself and could maybe have done with some more work before the film was made. The actors seem to be doing a good job with what they’re given, especially Tegan Moss, Scott Patey and Mike Smith, but unfortunately what they’ve been given is a little bit two-dimensional and maybe lacking enough mainstream appeal to get across the humour to non-LARPers.
There is some good stuff here with some nice touches along the way. As someone who has participated very minimally in LARPing a very long time ago, it rang true to what I remembered. This could well be its biggest problem in that it may well require knowledge of the genre of gaming to hit most successfully. Without that knowledge, some aspects may just appear surreal or stupid and not come across as intended. To a certain extent, it feels that the low brow humour may be a partial effort to chase the ‘frat boy’ comedy market, while it probably would have been better to cater squarely for one area rather than be ‘something for everyone’.
Clearly, the film has been created by fans of LARPing and it is not meant to mock it in any way, which it doesn’t, but its take on this world doesn’t have enough bite or richness of character. It definitely feels a little bit as if the idea of the film was more important than the execution, as it is just a little bit too light and lacking depth. Technically, they have done well on a very low budget and the costumes, sets, etc. are appropriate and realistic.
As it is a low budget indie film, I don’t want to be to harsh as they have made what is a watchable comedy, but I do feel that more time at the script stage would have added extra value to this as a comedy, as well as giving it a better focus as either a niche effort or one with a broader appeal.
Ultimately, the tagline for the film, which is “In our heads this is friggin’ epic!”, is a little more accurate than they might have wished and in actual fact it is merely ok.
