WFG RATING: B

By the Horns present a Paul Dale Films production. Directed, lensed, and edited by Paul Dale. Produced by Carter Simoneaux. Written by Paul Dale and Dylan McGovern. 

Stars Jenna-Francis Duvic, Austin Naulty, Carter Simoneaux, Heather Campos, Dylan McGovern, Pierre Simoneaux, Dustin Simoneaux, Manon Pages, and Charles Early. 

A group of friends readying for a drunken weekend are about to find a terror like no other in Paul Dale’s latest horror-comedy.

Thirty years ago, a couple heading home from a Jimmy Buffett concert picks up a hitchhiker along the way. However, they get into an argument and they pull over. However, the couple soon find themselves victimized by some creature. Flash forward thirty years later and a group of friends are heading off near the same area where they are en route to a Buffett impersonation contest. 

As there is time before the contest, they decide to have a house party at one of the friends’ houses. One of the partygoers decides to steal beer from the drunken local, Jeep. However, the friends’ party is about to be cut short as the creature who attacked thirty years ago has reappeared and it is a were-parrot!!! 

If you take Paul Dale’s films seriously, then you’re really missing out. His penchant for making such ridiculous horror comedies should be appreciated for one simple reason: Dale and crew love making movies. Are they looking for Academy Awards? No. They do it because they love just having fun and doing what they do? With titles like Silent But Deadly, Sewer Gators, and Killer Kites, Dale decides to up the ante and make the first “were-parrot” movie while paying tribute to the legendary Jimmy Buffett. 

If you’ve seen Dale’s films before, you can expect his usual cast of characters appear in the film in prominent roles, especially Manon Pages, who appears in the opening flashback sequence. However, a newcomer in Jenna-Francis Duvic gets initiated in the lead role of the film as a young woman whose friends find themselves terrified. When you have a character who is willing to track down the “parrot man” as they say by touching and licking bird poop, it’s shows both how strong the character is while also tending to gross us out, as with Austin Naulty’s character reacts to the event. 

As expected, the special effects are quite hilarious. Without revealing who exactly the “parrot-man” is, it is quite shocking to learn the identity, but this comes after an underwater fight between Duvic and the parrot-man only to be interrupted by (and I kid you not!) an opera-singing shark! And that’s not even the end of the film which runs at 62 minutes. Also look for a blink and you’ll miss it cameo from one Brock Peterson, Dale’s residential news reporter. 

Murdaritaville is all out fun and chaos…if you want to see a “were-parrot” for the first time, then this is it, no matter how ridiculous the film is because one thing is for sure. Paul Dale and company absolutely love making these films and I for one, had a good time (singing) watching their lives just fade in Murdaritaville.

The film will be released on Digital, Blu-Ray, and Limited Edition VHS on March 1.