Sean Parker
It’s not easy getting older, and it’s even more difficult when you’re still chasing your dreams. Many of us have various aspirations in a multitude of fields, like tinkering with computers or cars, writing in our spare time, or dancing without our clothes on. Hey, no judgment. We’ve all done it. Some immensely confident people just have the ability to do it on stage. If you’ve ever seen the ’90s indie comedy The Full Monty and wondered what would happen if those out-of-work steelworkers continued pursuing their stripping dreams into their fifties and then incurred the wrath of a coven of witches, please text me because that is a very specific request, and I think we can be friends. But, also, your dreams have come true with Members Club.
When a group of past-their-prime strippers calling themselves “Wet Dreams” hit rock bottom and accidentally get booked at a child’s birthday party, the headlines catch the eye of an overzealous coven hellbent on revenge against the perverted dancers. They’re invited to perform a private show at an overwhelmingly generous rate that none can afford to turn down, and Wet Dreams heads to a gig in the middle of nowhere, where they quickly catch on that things may not be on the level. When the coven successfully resurrects a powerful sixteenth-century witch from the dead, everyone’s survival depends on the dancers’ ability to literally keep their junk in their pants or risk their “showstoppers” becoming a part of a frightful ritual.
Marc Coleman’s Members Club brings audiences back to stylistic gross-out comedy with extreme viscera designed to disgust and repel at every turn. That is to say, it isn’t for the prudishly faint of heart, either. An inauspicious meeting with an eye-patch-wearing man can quickly turn a stomach, as well as the goopy creature design of the villainous witch. So, in a way, this dance is for all the ladies out there, with plenty of uncomfortable moments for men that will have them crossing their legs and cringing out of empathetic camaraderie. However, with plenty of neon-soaked Evil Dead 2 moments of fun blood, guts, and vomit, I think there are plenty of uncomfortable moments for everyone.
Still, through all the ways the movie will attempt to gross you out, there’s also this sweet, nougaty center of heart. Members Club’s nuclear story involves two families, the biological one and the found family Alan attracts throughout his life. Alan (Dean Kilbey) turned to his friends after losing his wife, alienating his daughter Daisy (Barbara Smith) in the process.
The plot surely has some holes. Alan and Daisy’s entire backstory is more of a generalized gist and feelings than a satisfying account of poor parenting. Reuniting in the most awkward way possible, Daisy’s resentment for her father isn’t just valid. It’s understandable. Her interpretation of events sees an immature man refusing to act his age, someone who probably wasn’t ready for children and, without his partner, just threw his hands up in the air. Still, imagine the shock when Alan and her non-biological uncles discover that it’s her coven who has trapped them in the underground speakeasy.
While there’s more than meets the one-eyed monster in Members Club, it still maintains the buoyant irreverence of an entertaining horror-comedy. Yes, that was a dick joke. The movie is pretty much one big one (hehe), right down to its title. However, like Daisy’s view of her father, immaturity is thematically essential as it links to what the film tries to say. As Alan attempts to repair his relationship with his daughter throughout, his immaturity shines through. It seems clear that he did something reckless while he had a child who needed his care and attention. Even though Alan never comes off as unaffectionate, he is perhaps a little too self-involved. The full arc of this storyline is a little loose in the film, but hey, there’s only so much reconciling one can do with the threat of having appendages chopped off. The film will largely be remembered for its incorporated silliness like watching grass crowns get placed on heads of… well, a different kind.
With that, I have to give it up to the costuming, makeup, and production design teams. Members Club looks incredible, and its little details like the “crowns” that fill the film with laughs. The art design on a charcuterie board hallucination is another example of simply excellent work, as are the coven’s creative flower headdresses.
What’s genuinely fun about Members Club is that it is a little more of the opposing side of what we’re used to in horror films. While revenge-seeking women are certainly on the rise in the genre, scantily clad actresses running in vulnerable states away from chaos or madmen today remains a heavy trope. Scenes like that rarely exist to advance the plot. Members Club subverts that trope to provide a fun twist on horror genre norms, offering an alternative to films like Zombie Strippers, and with aging men nonetheless working as further satire.
Members Club is a sweet little indie horror-comedy for those who have the stomach for it. If you couldn’t do a Terrifier screening, maybe this one won’t be for you either. But for those of us who are immature enough to dig into its gore, guts, and bodily fluids, Members Club is a fun flick to turn your head away from in simultaneous hilarity and disgust. Again, it won’t be for everyone, but it’s a pretty silly ninety minutes of high production value from the director who brought us ManFish.
Members Club is currently available on VOD in the UK.
MEMBERS CLUB Official Trailer (2024) UK Comedy Horror
MEMBERS CLUB is a British comedy horror from director Marc Coleman (ManFish). Outline: MEMBERS CLUB tells the story of ‘Wet Dreams’, a middle aged male stripper group, who take one last gig at a rural working mens club only to discover they are to become sacrifices in a plot to raise a murderous 16th century witch from the dead.
