Decoys starts off with a teenaged boy walking into a sorority house and finding several of his friends frozen to death. After an overacted moment that left me rolling my eyes (“OHMYGOD!! JESUS!!”), something wonderful happened: The opening credits appeared over a punk soundtrack and let me know the movie was not taking itself seriously, and neither should I.

The plot is sci-fi/horror cheese at its best: a group of uber-hot sorority girls turn out to be aliens who have run out of males to mate with on their planet. In order to further the species, they invade Ontario, Canada. Why? Because these aliens thrive in the cold, and “the people here are really nice.”

“North Shore” star Corey Sevier plays Luke, the one guy who knows what’s going on, but can’t get anyone to believe him. Meghan Ory plays his chick-buddy Alex, who’s secretly in love with him, but can’t get him to see how she really feels. And then there’s Luke’s roomie Roger, who just wants to get laid by someone; whether or not she has tentacles is irrelevant.

The cast is, for the most part, terrific. Ory is the incarnate of Sandra Bullock in her full on cute-as-hell-but-still-oozing-sex mode. Sevier keeps pace with her, and apparently patterns his character Luke after Johnny Depp in A Nightmare On Elm Street, which is appropriate because Decoys shares much of its plot points with that film. It also manages to pay obvious homage to Animal House, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and The Stepford Wives. I’m certain there are other references as well, and spotting them is part of the fun.

I don’t understand the backlash against this flick. Some people are genuinely bitter about it, and one poster on another message board angrily refers to it as a “Time-waster”, but that’s the point. Deceptive box art aside, that’s all Decoys aspires to be: a fun way to kill some time. It doesn’t have a ton of gore, but it does have some more traditional effects work, as well as some CGI that ranges from decent to fair. The flick is loads of fun, provided one takes it in the spirit in which it was intended.

Useless Comment: Decoys gained a full ½ point from me by featuring “I Will Love You”, a haunting, heartbreaking song by a then-unsigned band called Fisher. The song was originally intended for a sad scene during the Kevin Costner film Message In A Bottle. It never appeared in that film because the song is so depressing, that people were still crying when the credits rolled, so Costner replaced it with something more upbeat. It's pretty out of place here, but I don't care; it was great to have someone give it some respect.

Pros: Attractive cast. Fun plot. Doesn’t take itself seriously. Fairly tight script some great, funny dialogue. Wisely avoids becoming a "breastfest".
Cons: Becomes a bit uneven toward the end. The ambulance scene goes too far over the top.
Review Rating: 4 out of 5 Belts of O’Fryin’ burning in the midnight sky.

I don't care that much for Decoys. I saw the references and some parts that were actually pretty damn funny. Very few parts, though.

It's like they were pacing themselves, like someone said "we've got 6 good jokes here, that's one every 15 minutes or so... somebody write some filler!"

I enjoyed the funny parts and the rest wasn't terrible, but it was slow. The story was cheesy and the movie was supposed to be a comedy horror, but with comedy horror you really need either more comedy or more horror than this flick has.

Also it starts out like there's gonna be tons of skin, but not really. Had they thrown a bunch in and stuck this on Cinemax in the middle of the night I'd have applauded it as the best softporn ever. Unfortunately, it's not like that.

A little skin, some truly gorgeous babes and a few jokes. Just not enough for me. I'd definitely recommend Broken Lizard's Club Dread if you're looking for a quality comedy/horror-parody, although if you love it, you'll like this one a lot, too. I'm hard on the comedy, you guys know that.

2.6 out of 5 tongues that belong in porn

I liked this flick. It was fun. We had a pretty anonymous cast (at least to me) and they pulled it off pretty good. Nicole Eggert's character was completely superfluous and was merely added for name value. It would have been more believable if she wasn't 40.

I usually don't like movies where it's one person trying to prove something to everybody and nobody ever notices, but like Taco said, this movie isn't too serious, yet it isn't a comedy persay.

The script was iffy at times. You have classic lines as the aformentioned "Belt of O'Fryin'". Then you have the "Baby got backup" dud.

The secondary friends were annoying and not very realistic. Some aspects of the movie were pretty cliche. The ending has a decent sized hole in it. The ambulance scene did seem a bit misplaced also. You did expect to see alot more nudity then what there really was.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie. Good times. Not too serious. Entertaining. I give this 3.75 Belts of O'Fryin'. Man, is that terribly cheesy or what?

Decoys (2004)
95 Minutes; Canada
Rated R for sexuality and nudity.

Starring:
Corey Sevier (Luke)
Stefanie von Pfetten (Lilly)
Kim Poirier (Constance)
Elias Toufexis (Roger)
Meghan Ory (Alex)
Enis Esmer (Gibby)
Directed by: Matthew Hastings
Written by: Tom Berry, Matthew Hastings
Viewing Format: DVD