The Last Laugh

Not Rated

Written and Directed by Jeremy Berg

VOD/Digital starting September 5 (Amazon, iTunes, Google Play…)

High Octane Pictures

Before we jump in, let’s have the synopsis, shall we?

Synopsis (courtesy of October Coast PR):

A stand-up comedian on the verge of breakout success must make a terrible choice when he discovers a murderer on the loose in the theater where he’s about to perform his biggest show.

The best thing about The Last Laugh is how much fun it is. That’s a weird thing to say about a movie where a serial killing is running rampant through a theater, isn’t it?

Well, too bad, my friends; it’s fun.

Poor Myles, a comedian suffering through severe anxiety due to a personal tragedy a few years back, is struggling to return to the form which got him on the comedy radar after a stellar show in Seattle.

His agent is doing all he can, booking him wherever he can, but wherever he can is now mostly little comedy clubs drawing little to no crowd.

But finally, a chance to open for once-legendary comedian Reggie Ray, who is perceived to have sold out to make crappy family-friendly movies of increasingly poor quality, gives Myles the chance to return to form.

If he can just stop taking his medication long enough to become the asshole he used to be.

Now, the bad parts of The Last Laugh are that none of the decisions actually make sense. Myles will find a dead body, flip out, tell someone, they’ll laugh it off as a comedian messing with them, and then he’ll go back to getting ready for the show, until another dead body shows up.

Rinse and repeat.

Not that it ruins the movie. Not at all.

Then the movie starts to feel like a live-action Scooby-Doo episode, with our hero running from place to place, simultaneously determined to catch and/or escape from the killer, or to put on an opening act that destroys Reggie Ray…

Who is a complete and total dickhead.

At the end, as all films of this kind must, Myles encounters and cannot escape from the masked killer, who finally removes their mask to reveal….

No spoilers.

The post-script to Myles career is a bit sad, but overall, The Last Laugh is just a pretty low-threat way to spend an hour and change, kind of like something hosted by the Crypt-Keeper.

The performances are good, with Vanderzee’s Myles convincingly neurotic, and Meranda Long as Bethany, the easy-going, yet convinced there’s a ghost in the theater, stage hand, and the film is paced well enough to not drag, but move from murder to murder.

The Last Laugh stars Steve Vanderzee, Eric Stone, Angela DiMarco, Lowell Deo, Meranda Long, Marcus Leppard and Jeffrey Arrington.

My Grade: B

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