Written by Evan Purcell, June 28, 2016, at 6:36 a.m.
Every Tuesday, we’ll take a look at another mockbuster from the company that brought you Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, and Alien vs. Hunter. This week, we’re pledging Alpha House.
Alpha House Mockbuster
Frat house comedies aren’t very good. Even the gold standard of the genre—Animal House—is messy and dated. The problem with these films is that viewers are supposed to sympathize with rowdy, idiot main characters who are better than all the buzz-kill supporting characters because they “know how to party, man.” These kinds of people exist in real life, and they’re some of the most insufferable people you will ever remember… unless they slip something in your drink, in which case you won’t remember them at all.
These guys are jerks, and worse than that, they’re always smugly superior to everyone else. Frat comedies exist under the assumption that our heroes are somehow better, more interesting people than the bookish hot chicks who study too much, or the uptight rich kids who want to land internships at major companies.
Perhaps most of the comedy comes from pissing on society’s ideas of good and bad behavior, from watching the people we’re supposed to sympathize with as they say and do outrageous, offensive things. I understand that, and I understand why audiences respond to that, but what it ultimately adds up to is a whole sub-genre of movies that are misogynist, homophobic, anti-intellectual, and kind of gross.
But they’re also (usually) fun. Even as I disagree with a movie’s subtext, I can still enjoy the goofy hijinks on screen. Why is that, exactly? Could it be wish-fulfillment? Could I secretly want to do whatever I want, no matter how dumb, and get away with it? Well, for some audiences, that might be true. For me, though, I think I respond best to the big, comedic set pieces that show our heroes working together.
With movies like these, there’s always some outside force threatening to destroy their party-all-the-time way of life (usually a meddling dean or a rival frat). And despite being total idiots, the main characters have to band together, use their unique skills, and fight The Man.
Most frat comedies (especially the second half of their runtimes) feel like heist movies, like you’re watching a Bizarro-world Ocean’s Eleven. Instead of breaking into a bank, these guys are using their skills to break into a dean’s office to steal a mascot or find incriminating photos. For me, that’s when I have the most fun watching this kind of movie.
A typical frat comedy is built around these kinds of set pieces. Sometimes it’s a breaking-in heist scene. Sometimes it’s a frat-vs-frat battle (think one of the countless “Olympic games” or “battle of the bands” scenes from college movies). Sometimes it’s a getting-away-with-it party, where the frat rebels against some ridiculous new rule by secretly throwing some crazy party that slowly gets out of hand.
I’d give you specific movie examples—Van Wilder, Real Genius, Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds—but I don’t think I need to. This sub-genre is so small and repetitive, that I think you can automatically picture exactly what I’m talking about.
Despite how repetitive these movies can get, there’s still something fun about (most of) them. It’s tough to build a good comedy set piece. The director has to establish the stakes (and the plan) very quickly and clearly. The tension has to slowly build. The plan has to go awry at some point, forcing the main characters to improvise in a way that showcases their unique talents or worldviews. And the set piece has to climax in some madcap (or gross-out) way.
A lot of non-frat comedies are built this way, too. Think of the very specific set pieces in, for example, American Pie or Bridesmaids. Those are two movies that use this structure to build laughs and develop their characters in interesting ways. The set piece is the basic building block of a comedy.
Which brings us to Alpha House, the 2014 mockbuster spoof of Neighbors. What makes Alpha House one of the worst movies that The Asylum has ever churned out is that it’s a frat comedy without set pieces. It has what feels like placeholder set pieces (moments that should provide laughs) but then nothing happens.
Two freshmen—Zack and Cameron—join the biggest party frat on campus. Dean Marshall wants to destroy it for some reason, so he forces the frat to go coed. The brothers and sisters are pitted against each other (and the sisters usually win). In the end, everyone has to band together to take down the dean.
As you can see, this is the most archetypal frat comedy imaginable. It’s very, very basic, which makes it an ideal plot structure on which to hang a bunch of comedy set pieces. Unfortunately, every opportunity is wasted. Let me explain two scenes from the movie to illustrate my point.
Scene #1:
The sorority girls (feminists in short-shorts) invade the frat house. They basically clean it up while the dudes watch in disbelief. “Did she just paint that room pink?” “Look, she put a flower pot on the table!” The house looks slightly nicer, the frat dudes don’t like the new color scheme, and absolutely nothing of importance happens. At all. This scene could’ve gone in a hundred different directions. Sexy paint fight. People falling off ladders. All sorts of physical comedy. Instead: nothing. The scene ends and no one mentions the new decorations again.
Scene #2:
The climax. In order to stop the dean, the guys and girls work together to get video evidence of the dean being a sexual deviant. At first, this feels like a heist scene. The characters even make a blueprint of the dean’s office. But instead of having events build on top of each other, they have one character hack the dean’s email and lure him into a warehouse. Then we have another character—a girl we’ve never seen before—seduce him while wearing a squirrel costume. They get the video evidence and show it to everybody. That’s it. There are no setbacks, no problems in the plan, no slowly mounting craziness. It builds toward nothing at all.
And that is Alpha House in a nutshell. It looks like a frat comedy, and it sounds like a frat comedy, but there is no comedy in it at all. There are no stakes, no surprises, no attempts at jokes. It’s a hollow movie that’s meant to trick audiences into thinking that they’ve actually watched something. It’s an empty copy of Animal House or Van Wilder. But hey, at least it’s misogynist, homophobic, anti-intellectual, and kind of gross.
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Evan Purcell is the headmaster of a tiny private school in Zanzibar. In addition to writing mildly condescending reviews of bad films, he also writes everything from romance novels to horror stories. Check out his blog and Amazon author page. And in the meantime, please stay away from the squirrels!