“Who chose this garbage?”

Story: Ángela and her friends are college students in Madrid, longing to be professional writers. But when creepy Professor Cruzado tries to SA Ángela, her friends decide to pull a prank on the creep. But when the creep accidentally fall to his death? Our Gang pulls a “let us never speak of this” pact. And we all know how well those turn out. *killer clown enters the chat*

Scares: Only for someone who’s new, or really trying to feel some scares.
Splat Factor: Effective practical FX. CGI blood that’s more silly than scary.

Subgenre: College Crew Kill-fest
Year Released: 2023
Remake, Sequel or OG (Original Ghoul)?: Original film based on slasher tropes.

Trick or Treat?: Club started out promising. While it had a clichéd opening – holy Suicide Squad, Batman – I actually like that whole neon title cards as introduction thing. However, what started out as a single “homage” to another film, turned into a cut-and-paste job from so many horror movies y’all. Seriously, you’d get alcohol poisoning if you tried to drink every time you noticed one. Heck, you’d get soda poisoning if you tried.

Not that Club doesn’t have moments I enjoyed. I like the group chat messages that have a chapter by chapter death count. I liked the strange mask the killer uses, and how (like Scream IV) it’s so readily accessible everyone’s got one on in one festival scene. I even thought the weapon of choice was cool. Our Gang uses horror tropes and social media to try to figure out who the killer is…and the killer messes with them using the same ideas. A poll for randos to choose who dies next? Not new, but fits well with this story.

But this film ground me down with the nonstop hark-backs to other films. Please don’t get me wrong; I love a good homage. But Club doesn’t do homages. It does straight up story point theft. What’s the difference? For me, when it’s subtle and I think “oh wait – that was from [film], nice job”? Homage. When it’s in-my-face and I think “oh man, don’t they have an original thought to shoe-horn into this story”? It’s theft. And it’s egregious here.

Which is a pity, as the cast seems game for the story, even though they get very, very little to sink their teeth into. Each character is painted as a boilerplate, which seems to be how the Big Bad paints them. But did the screenwriter have to do the same thing? They could have been more than their stereotypes…pity one of the bits this film didn’t nab was that particular twist in Cabin in the Woods.

Club is a Frankenstein’s monster of slasher film tidbits, complete with a sequel-bait final scene that’s yet another ripoff, and hopefully pointless. If you must watch – hey, support foreign horror y’all – put it on in the background. You’ll miss nothing.

Score: 2 out of 5 pumpkins.