Well, here's what it looks like when Pauly Shore tries to play a serial killer

There’s a school of thought—one supported by careers like those of Robin Williams, Bill Murray, and even Adam Sandler—that says that any great comic actor has all the tools to be a great dramatic actor already at their disposal. But does the opposite hold true? Is a terrible comedy star doomed to be equally inept when they try their hand at going dark?

All of which is, in a roundabout way, meant to lay the groundwork for the above clip, a sneak peek at Pauly Shore’s new short film “Sin City Psycho.” As the name implies, the short sees the former Bio-Dome star attempting to portray a murderous psychopath, approaching it with all the seriousness and verisimilitude he once brought to the roles of Encino Man’s Stoney Brown or Son In Law’s Crawl.

And look: It gives us no great pleasure to speak ill of Pauly Shore, who seems to be a reasonably affable person (going off of his various self-mocking appearances in TV and film over the years, or the blandly awkward interview he recently did with the short’s co-star, actress Sharon Gardner). But the sneak peek still manages to be pretty terrible, even by the standards set by the phrase “Pauly Shore serial killer film.” The teaser reaches its nadir when Shore’s character starts yelling about a decade-old slogan for Las Vegas, then fumblingly gives himself nitrous with the apparent air of a man who a) once caught a five-minute, edited-for-TV snippet of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet and b) wants to make it as hard as possible for us to finish this post without making some reference to him “wheezing the juice.”

“Sin City Psycho” debuts in full tomorrow afternoon.