The Upright Citizens Brigade, formerly of the Comedy Central sketch show and currently of NYC and LA improv and sketch theaters and schools, is putting out its first full-length movie. Called Freak Dance, it was written and directed by original UCB member Matt Besser and features the other three original members (Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh) as actors. Here’s the first trailer.
The parody genre has not had a great run for the past decade or so, thanks in part to the tsunami of lowest-common-denominator shit from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Epic Movie, etc.). The only other regular parody-makers of late have been the Wayans brothers, and they haven’t fared much better. In fact, the dance movie parody is somewhere that they’ve recently gone, with 2009’s Dance Flick (17% on Rotten Tomatoes). Can Freak Dance break the trend? Based on this trailer, it looks like it skips past the reference-heavy “humor†that bogs down most modern parodies and gets right to the absurdity, which I’m not going to argue with. We’ll see!
Update: The trailer has been removed as it was apparently uploaded before they wanted it out there. I’ll keep you updated.