In an entirely predictable turn of events, Joe Lynch’s Knights of Badassdom has spent the last decade cultivating a reputation as an unsung cult classic, which was always going to happen given the sum of its parts.
We’re talking about a horror comedy with fantasy and supernatural elements that finds a bumbling band of LARPers accidentally summon a real-live succubus into their midst after reading an incantation from a “prop” book that turned out to be all too real, plunging them into a genuine battle for survival that leaves the battlefield stained with blood – never mind the fact the geek-friendly cast contains Peter Dinklage, Firefly and Serenity favorite Summer Glau, Steve Zahn, Danny Pudi, and more.
Knights of Badassdom certainly has plenty of supporters, then, but director Lynch definitely isn’t one of them. In fact, he probably hates it more than anybody else, seeing as he hasn’t been shy in blasting the decision to remove great swathes of the scarier and gorier elements in post-production in favor of leaning harder into the comedy, which wasn’t the filmmaker’s intention.
Regardless, the theatrical cut despised by the person who shot it has rolled the dice on streaming, and come up trumps. The overzealous adventure has made a newfound return to prominence on streaming, which is paying off handsomely after FlixPatrol named Knights of Badassdom as one of the biggest hits on ViaPlay.
There’s plenty of fun to be had as it is, though, but #ReleaseTheLynchCut did spent a hot moment in the sun of trending topics, which goes to show the longevity of the bonkers ode to the pitfalls of LARPing colliding with genuine creatures of myth and legend.