Stan Helsing is written and directed by Bo Zenga, an executive producer of
Scary Movie, a producer of
Turistas and the writer of
Soul Plane, which is a list of credits that may not inspire much in the way of qualitative expectation. But, somewhat surprisingly and definitely pleasantly,
his well cast comedy lampoons contemporary film audiences' familiarity with the horror genre without ever stooping to senselessly overloaded referential gags, like
Disaster Movie or
Superhero Movie. Coming off a brief theatrical engagement in select cities, and now out on DVD, the movie stands as a perfectly acceptable Halloween weekend treat for those who like their spook-season entertainment vacuumed mostly free of fright.
The film centers around the misadventures of hapless, hands-off video store clerk Stan Helsing (Steve Howey) and his three pals — ex-girlfriend Nadine (
Diora Baird), Teddy (
Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson) and dim bulb massage therapist Mia (an exuberant Desi Lydic). During what should be a routine delivery before heading out to a Halloween evening party, Stan and company find themselves stranded in a mysterious residential development known as Stormy Night Estates. There, Stan learns of his true destiny as a descendant of the legendary monster hunter Abraham Van Helsing, and engages in
a battle against evil in the form of character parodies of a half dozen movie monster icons — Jason,
Leatherface, Freddy,
Michael Myers, Pinhead and
Chucky. The big dramatic wrap-up involves double entendres, mock-dream endings, a karaoke showdown... and comedy legend Leslie Nielsen in a small role as a waitress. Yes, a
waitress.
Zenga elicits winning performances from his main cast, but also smartly divvies up lines so that the burden of this most
excellent adventure is shared, with everyone having a stake in its harebrainedness. Some amusing if inessential early sight gags and jokes rooted in familiar stereotypes of ethnicity (video store customers returning copies of
The Ring all drop dead in a pile, while African-Americans dissect
The Blair Witch Project and hypothesize this is why black people don't go camping) eventually give way to comedy of a slightly higher degree of difficulty. Yes, this movie features three bathroom sequences, and some foley fart work, but
its dialogue is also funny and, more importantly, consistently true to character. When Terry talks about the phenomenon of "urban mirages," or when Mia queries a hitchhiker who claims to have been wrongfully incarcerated, "So, how is it that you got invited to prison in the first place?," it stems reliably from their own warped worldviews. That matters,
giving the movie a sense of rooted sincerity that not many of its spoof brethren can match. And it doesn't hurt, certainly, that Baird spends the entire film in a skimpy Indian costume, while Lydic cycles through three different sexy costumes, for reasons poked fun at within the story.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover,
Stan Helsing comes presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH subtitles. Bonus features are anchored by a feature-length audio commentary track with Zenga and actors Thompson and Lydic, in which the trio discuss the movie's Vancouver night shoot, Thompson's driving skills and penchant for improvisation, as well as
Baird's prodigious rack ("We all wanted to touch them," says Lydic). There's
an 11-minute making-of featurette in which Howey rails in mock-anger against Zenga for his wig-and-bandana combination (which Baird points out
makes him look like Bret Michaels, "which isn't a good thing"), while
a half dozen extended, alternate and excised scenes — including, yes, "deleted doll rape" — run a total of eight minutes. The movie's theatrical trailer and a clutch of photographic stills and storyboards, in two separate scrollable galleries, are also included, along with
five minutes of outtakes in which the cast members accidentally destroy a wooden four-post bed that their characters are meant to simply push out of frame. To purchase the DVD via Amazon,
click here.
B- (Movie) B (Disc) 
