Horror review: Stan Helsing

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ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, OCT. 21, 2009

In this low-budget, Vancouver- and Surrey-shot parody of the cornball Scary Movie franchise, Steve Howey from TV’s Reba stars as Stan Helsing, a joint-smoking, slacker video-store clerk (is there any other kind?) who’s just finishing up a shift at Schlockbuster and plans on heading to a Halloween bash. But before getting off work, he’s ordered by the weaselly video-store manager (is there any other kind?) to kill a cockroach in the washroom.

Checking out the toilet stalls, he scares away two skanky, costumed babes making out (“I cock-blocked myself!”), finds a freaked-out woman in the throes of a thunderous crap, and discovers a man-sized cockroach that sprays him with insect cum (I think) and then pees on his face. The bathroom sequence sets the tone for the entire film, which makes bodily functions its raison d’etre.

In other words, you have to be a teenaged male or totally baked to appreciate this movie.

Probably both.

After sponging himself dry with feminine pads, Helsing is then ordered by his boss to deliver a bag of DVDs to a customer across town, so he grabs his cowboy hat and hops in a minivan with his pal Teddy (Saturday Night Live’s Kenan Thompson in a Superman outfit), his ex-girlfriend Nadine (Diora Baird as a sexy Pocahontas), and airhead blond Mia (Desi Lydic as a Britney Spears–type cheerleader).

During their quest to drop off the vids and get to the party, they pick up a Charles Manson–like prison escapee and run over an inbred psycho’s rottweiler, but eventually they make it to Stormy Night Estates, a gated community that also houses a karaoke bar run by a snotty waitress (Leslie Nielsen in drag).

This is the setting for a campy showdown between Helsing—an ancestor of fabled vampire killer Abraham Van Helsing—and slightly altered versions of horror villains like Pinhead, Jason, Leatherface, and Chucky. A do-or-die karaoke contest featuring the Village People’s “YMCA” is the centrepiece for this conflict.

’Nuff said.

One thought on “Horror review: Stan Helsing

  1. I thought I saw Lemmy Kilmister wearing a bunch of Freddy pins while the monsters were performing their song. Then I looked into it, turns out it’s not Lemmy, but could be Robert Englund. Looked into that as well, doesn’t look like it either. Seems like it’s just an unknown extra. Still my favorite part of that movie. That and the tits. If it wasn’t for the interesting looking extra and boobs I would have probably regretted watching the whole thing.

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