“These references have gotten out of control.”
Operating as one of the weirdest and funniest love letters in cinema to a recently passed music legend, Murdaritaville sings all the right notes as it goes from crazy to campy and back down to cult. It's soon to be a favorite film of many Hounds of Horror out there, too as it comes from the creators of Killer Kites, one of the craziest flicks out there.
The film opens with a pretty funny situation as a couple picks up a hitchhiker and then proceeds to get in a huge fight over the songs of Jimmy Buffett. The fight leaves one poor guy stranded while the other speeds away with the stranger . . . but she’s in for a bit of a shock as, minutes later, both she and the hitchhiker are attacked and killed.
30 years later . . .
You read that correctly. Bypassing the murders, we hop into a Jimmy Buffett lookalike party and are quickly informed - by a local of the community - to be wary of the sharks, thanks to the shark attack which killed a Tik Tok celebrity, #OperaDaddy, who was out to sing with his fin-friends.
Things get crazier from here on out. You either get with the program or you get out. Seriously.
Written and directed by Paul Dale, and starring Jenna-Francis Duvic, Murdaritaville - complete with off-the-cuff comedic bits and banter which only add to the zany flavor of this comedy - is a loving send up (and send off) of your Dad’s favorite margarita sipping beach crooner, Jimmy Buffett.
Some of the jokes land, some of them fall flat. Yet nothing in Murdaritaville turns you off of its charm. It’s a wild trip and, while full of tired Obama jokes, rests its laurels on a deadly stalker still at large, known as Parrot Head, a killer who goes after fans of Jimmy Buffett who aren’t hardcore enough. 
And one unfortunate group of friends is going to find out the hard way that you shouldn’t mess with Parrot Head. Get the blenders and the beach balls ready for battle!
While it does have some pretty remarkable kill sequences - one specifically is pretty damn cool - this horror comedy is pretty unpolished . . . in all the right ways. It will make you laugh and groan and it doesn’t apologize at all for its overuse of Jimmy Buffett jokes after all, “wrinkles only go where the smiles have been.”
And there are a lot. This is a beer guzzling good time and the fun had in making the movie is perfectly dropped onto the audience’s lap.
Murdaritaville, will be available via amazon and bythehorns.store, on digital, Blu-ray and VHS 3/1.
MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Runtime: 62 mins
Director: Paul Dale
Writer: Paul Dale; Dylan McGovern
Cast: Manon Pages; Austin Naulty; Jenna-Francis Duvic
Genre: Comedy | Horror
Tagline:
Memorable Movie Quote: "That thing down there... ain't right"
Distributor: Amazon; bythehorns.store
Official Site: https://www.bythehorns.store/product/murdaritaville-bluray/13?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false
Release Date: November 18, 2022
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: March 1, 2024 Digital, Blu-ray and VHS 3/1
Synopsis: A group of trop-rock fanatics on their way to an impersonator contest start getting killed off by a half-man, half-bird.
