Matty is swept up by David DeCoteau and Barry Sandler’s whirlwind of catty comments and camp carnage.

As demonstrated by the likes of Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988), Leather Jacket Love Story (1997), the sprawling 1313 series, and, even, a scene-stealing appearance in pal William Butler’s Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust (2008), David DeCoteau has never shied away from honouring his influences and poking fun at his own wares. Riffing on the ‘80s scream queen fad he helped forge, the cult auteur’s entertaining comedy thriller, KNOCK ‘EM DEAD, finds a trio of Bauer, Stevens and Quigley caricatures descending upon an isolated island mansion to make one last trashy horror film, a sequel to the blockbusting frightener that both made and, inevitably, destroyed their careers and friendship. In a nifty neo-blaxploitation twist (a la DeCoteau’s vampire quickie Immortal Kiss: Queen of the Night (2012)), Rae Dawn Chong, Debra Wilson and Anne-Marie Johnson star as the catty threesome — the nice one, the troubled one and the stuck-up one, respectively — and each paint a vivid picture of Baby Jane-esque rivalry as a masked killer starts racking up the body count. Support/cannon fodder comes via Christopher Judge, Phil Morris, a deliciously OTT Jackée Harry, and DeCoteau’s Santa’s Summer House (2012) collaborator Daniel Bernhardt, just before the B-movie bruiser’s big budget reinvention thanks to John Wick (2014).

Written by Barry Sandler, Knock ‘Em Dead sports a rich supply of venomous put downs and is laced with the same ribald patter and sassy interplay that typifies the scripter’s best known work, Crimes of Passion (1984); the classic Ken Russell romp that he and DeCoteau — the latter then but a lowly craft service assistant — first met on. Though Sandler’s stabs at Agatha Christie-style mystery (a mode he has form in, what with him co-penning the 1980 adaptation of The Mirror Crack’d and all) owe more to your average episode of Scooby Doo than the whodunnit titan, they do afford DeCoteau the chance to flex his horror muscles with as much verve as his jocular ones, the two moods punctuated by Harry Manfredini’s appropriately kitschy score. Burning bodies, snakes, landmines — while disappointingly free of the type of squelchy gore FX used in preceding hack-a-thons Dreamaniac (1986) and Murder Weapon (1989) (a symptom of his “keep it clean, keep it exportable” Rapid Heart formula), DeCoteau still proves himself capable of slashing with panache and the economic, Dr. Phibes-tinged set pieces dovetail nicely with the absurd contrivances and winky in-jokes.

Naturally, given Knock ‘Em Dead’s place within DeCoteau’s oeuvre, right in the middle of a run of truly half-arsed, late-in-the-day Rapid Heart flicks (90210 Shark Attack (2014), Sorority Slaughterhouse (2016) et al), the helmer rests on his laurels too often and has the film’s game ensemble aimlessly sashay around the place, marking time. On the whole, however, this lively potboiler is an amusing and engaging number that ranks among the strongest projects of DeCoteau’s frustrating 2010 to 2016 period.

USA ● 2014 ● Comedy, Thriller ● 92mins

Rae Dawn Chong, Debra Wilson, Anne-Marie Johnson ● Dir. David DeCoteau ● Wri. Barry Sandler