With fewer major studios pitching product and a lower supply of blockbuster-level movies to be found at Comic-Con this year, a few of the smaller films stepped into the breach. Among them was Live Action Role Playinging/horror comedy Knights of Badassdom, which also delivered the first trailer for the film, available to watch below.
The film finds a group of friends, including experienced players Steve Zahn, Peter Dinklage, Summer Glau and Danny Pudi roping in newbie pal Joe (True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten into their latest Live Action Role Playing campaign in an attempt to help him forget his real-world troubles. But while he expects a lame weekend of foam swords and ridiculous accents, he gets much more than he bargained for, as Zahn’s cleric unwittingly conjures up some real danger, in the shape of demons.
Talking up the tone of the film at the panel, director Joe Lynch compared it to the likes of The Evil Dead crossed with some of the favourite movies of his younger days. “I would call this an adventure film, because that genre combines thrills and spills and chills. Look at The Goonies or Ghostbusters or Excalibur or even Conan has some laughs in there. Adventure films have everything together and that’s what made this film so exciting to me – was everything I grew up with in one film. And heavy metal, which helps.”
And in case you were wondering just who was the best warrior among the cast, there was no competition… “When we got to Spokane, Washington where we shot, we had LARP boot camp and we had everyone learning all the rules and then they went, ‘OK, go play, start sparring.’ Peter Dinklage smote every cast member in one fell swoop, and headed to craft services. He went, ‘Narnia' and walked off." Peter Dinklage: not just a badass in Game of Thrones…