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Assault of the Party Nerds 2: The Heavy Petting Detective

Vanguard // R // July 29, 2003
List Price: $19.95 [Buy now and save at Amazon]

Review by Don Houston | posted August 31, 2003 | E-mail the Author
Movie: If you're not a fan of low-grade independent movies, you can probably skip this review right now. Personally, I enjoy such movies on a regular basis although I'll be the first to admit most of them are aesthetically challenged in more ways than one. Having watched a few real gems in the recent past, I take chances with such movies so that you, my friends and confidants, don't have to. That said, I saw what amounts to a classic grade Z movie this week, Assault Of The Party Nerds 1. The movie centered on a handful of nerds who were about to graduate from college. In most ways, it was knockoff of the mainstream movie, Revenge of the Nerds. Even so, it had some quirky charm all its own. In the sequel, set five years later, Heavy Petting Detective, the nerds are back and making waves again.

The movie is a lot more coherent this time and centered on Ritchie (played by director Gabai) being hired by a corporate bigwig (played by Burt Ward) to catch his son-in-law who's up to no good. That the son-in-law is Ritchie's old enemy Bud makes it all the sweeter for the budding young detective who is determined to get the goods on Bud. The movie started with a prologue that explained the events of the previous movie so this is as stand alone a movie as you'll get. To keep the fraternity theme here, there was also a subplot about saving the frat house from being taken over with Arte Johnson (Laugh-In) but that was fairly disposable and seemed to be more an excuse to get Arte into the movie.

The movie this time seemed a lot more coherent than the first one. There was a bit of a plot and it followed a linear path. Yes, it was still ultra low budget but fans of the genre expect that. If Gabai had a couple of million bucks to work with, his fans would likely not know what to do. In any case, there was some gratuitous nudity, although not enough for my tastes, and a lot of silly humor with bad acting. Shlocky humor is a staple of this type of movie and those who enjoy watching them will know what I mean when I say they are an acquired taste. There was enough goofy stuff going on here that I feel comfortable rating it as a Rent It. Tane, a very attractive gal who also participated on the commentary track, was worth the rental alone for me but Linnea and Michelle were no slackers either.

Picture: The picture was presented in 1.33:1 ratio full frame color. It was grainy and had a very soft focus with lots of artifacts (compression and motion) and mosquito noise. To be fair, the movie looked better than Assault Of The Party Nerds 1 but it was still obviously a low budget flick.

Sound: The sound was in Dolby Digital English but I didn't hear any separation between the channels. It was also better than the first movie but had a long way to go before being considered good. The music was improved as were the vocals but we're still talking "room for improvement" here.

Extras: The director's commentary was again a fun extra here. There was also several interviews, one each with Gabai, Quigley, Bauer, and Burt Ward, as well as another group interview (with all of them except Ward). This time, they seemed to focus more on their individual careers but each had some interesting moments. There was a music video, a paper insert, trailer to the movie, a slide show, a featurette called "Tane McClure Sings", and a Behind the Scenes featurette with Linnea.

Final Thoughts: Okay, if you like weird movies made by guys who basically do it all (the director took on almost all the production tasks here as well as played the lead), this may be worth checking out for you. It was bizarre but in a good way if you're comfortable watching this type of movie. It's not going to win any awards and it rates a rental only as a guilty pleasure but the overall package wasn't bad.

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