Two years ago in Key West, I was dragged to a Jimmy Buffett walking tour. Because if there’s one thing I dislike more than outdoor physical activity in triple-digit temps, it’s the music of “Uncle Jimmy,” as his fervent followers call him. I can’t tell you much about the tour, except I suspect our host trespassed at least once, possibly made things up on the fly, and carried cheaply laminated photos printed from the internet with zero concern for DPI.

All this to say, I’m not the ideal audience for Murdaritaville, Paul Dale’s horror-spoof tribute to Buffett (made before the trop-rock troubadour’s September 2023 passing, lest ye Parrotheads cry “fowl”). But I am the ideal dead meat for its killer, a half-parrot/half-man in skipper’s cap who turns only non-Buffett fans into his own human buffet. In essence, the murderous monster (a dedicated Carter Simoneaux, Dale’s Killer Kites) is like Dexter for the salt-shaker-and-Hawaiian-shirt crowd.

Buffett references aside, I can’t say I dove in to this birdman movie with the unexpected virtue of ignorance, having seen a couple of Dale’s previous pictures in the same comedic vein, most enjoyably Sewer Gators. Among the 50 minutes before the closing credits, too little amuses this time ’round. I enjoyed a throwaway bit with an opera-singing shark (free spin-off idea: Opera Shark) and Dale’s brief return as arrogant TV news reporter Brock Peterson, seen talking to himself while leaving negative feedback for some Uber/DoorDash worker: “Mohammed? One star. That’s for 9/11.”

The movie’s style of humor often veers between the lanes of Abbott and Costello to Airplane! Much of the latter’s influence accounts for fake credits (example: “Armorer: Alec Baldwin”). These gags fall flat not because they run 10 slow-going minutes, but because they botch the spellings of an unforgivable amount of names: Kevorkian, Streisand, Aykroyd, Midler, Friedkin, Epstein, et al. (Hasn’t poor “Hellen” Keller suffered enough?) That sloppiness is indicative of Murdaritaville’s whole, with the major exception of Taylor Fisher’s design of the parrot man.

I think Murdaritaville would land best as a joke trailer, in which the title serves as the punchline. Perhaps those in Buffett’s cult will find more to dig. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

The tagline to Lisa Frankenstein, “Dig up someone special,” perfectly encapsulates this irreverent, Grand Guignol teen rom-com. Written by Diablo Cody and directed by Zelda Williams, the film plays like a spiritual sequel to Cody’s previous supernatural outing, Jennifer’s Body, with its goofy tone, magnificent dialogue and comical gore (even with a PG-13 rating, it goes pretty hard). Overall, the film plays like a mad scientist’s unholy mashup of Heathers and the works of early career Tim Burton. 

The narrative follows Lisa, a social misfit who finds herself living in a nuclear-esque family after her widowed father remarries. She’s haunted by the death of her mother, who was ax-murdered by a home intruder only months prior. Lisa spends much of her time in an abandoned cemetery near her home, where she makes wax-paper rubbings of the various old tombstones. Her favorite is a grave marker for a young, unmarried man with a bust of his Victorian visage on top, with whom she has one-way conversations.

Lisa’s life becomes super-complicated when the young dead man gets reanimated during a freak, mysterious storm, and fairly quickly professes his love for her. Problem is, Lisa is hung up on her school’s lit-mag editor, and doesn’t like her new undead friend that way. Still, she vows to keep him hidden in her room and help him in any way she can — even if that means getting up to some nefarious deeds in the process. 

Williams just happens to be the late Robin Williams’ daughter, and her directorial debut features a dark sense of humor similar to his. The two leads, Kathryn Newton as Lisa and Cole Sprouse as the creature, handle the material as expertly as their newcomer director and veteran screenwriter. Though Lisa Frankenstein clearly is intended for a younger audience, adults will deeply enjoy this film as well, especially if they remember all too well what it’s like to be a misunderstood teenager in a world that seems hellbent against them.—Christopher Shultz

Get it at Amazon.