Presidents Day (2016)

This movie was recommended to me by Tim Gross of Gross Movie Reviews. I always want to give him a plug when he points out something that I should have already known about and seen. He said that Presidents Day was awesome and funny, but then again, he loves Spookies… I guess I should still take a look.

What happens when a bunch of College Kids head out into the woods to party hard on Presidents Day? Well if a crazy tollbooth operator tosses an evil book into the car and one of them reads it they might just summon the vengeful zombie presidents back to the land of the living! Not only are they back but they are ready to do some killing as they set their sights on murdering all the kids because you know I mean they are zombie presidents recently risen from the grave. Wouldn’t you expect them to kill and stuff? Makes sense to me.

I’m a history nerd so when I saw some of the obscure jokes in Presidents day it made me positively giddy. For example, when a couple of the survivors lock themselves into the bathroom to hide there is a president waiting for them. As soon as I saw him sitting in the bathtub I was all like, “Is that Taft? Could they be going for such an obscure joke?”. The answer was yes and yes. If the rest of the movie was terrible (it isn’t) I would still have loved Presidents Day for that alone. There is another bit with JFK and the Joe DiMaggio bat made me giggle, yeah I giggled damn it! When they doubled down with the Marilyn Monroe punchline I almost fell out of my chair. Don’t get me wrong there is more obvious presidential humor like FDR falling and not getting up, and some Abraham Lincoln and George Washington jokes that I think most people will get. But I appreciated the filmmakers diving deep. Do they even teach about Taft in history anymore?

The movie also gently pokes fun at the horror genre. There is a funny bit with one of the lovely ladies running thru the woods and the branches tearing off her top and pants. After the latter happens she even looks at the camera and says, “come on!”. Of course, there is one cast member of color, nice way of saying black character. When it hits the fan, the other characters try to explain that it isn’t going to go well for him, well because you know horror movies and minority characters. They also assume he has a gun! This bit pays off really well.

Our non-zombie non-president cast

If you are looking for a huge body count and great gore this isn’t the movie for you. there are some deaths and blood spraying around. We get to see a body severed in half and a head lopped off, but Presidents Day is being played for laughs and not gore. It isn’t that kind of horror movie but is enjoyable in a different way.

Tim was right this movie is awesome. I’ve seen a lot of independent movies as well as big budget studio projects that try to do this and fail miserably. But here the jokes are plentiful and actually funny. The cast of unknowns show some comedic chops delivering their lines with the timing that it takes for them to work. I’m not an actor but I’ve heard those who are say that Drama is hard, but Comedy is harder. That might be why so many horror comedies fail horribly.

I’ve only mentioned a few of the very funny things in Presidents Day. This is the kind of independent movie that we horror fans need to support. There is some real talent here and I can’t wait to see what this director and writers come up with next. It is highly recommended.

© Copyright 2017 John Shatzer

The Mad (2007)

Next up in my Zombie movie marathon is The Mad. You know when people talk about the genius that is actor Billy Zane they invariably spend most of their time on his performance in Titanic. Yeah, I get it he was a heel and took a valuable spot on the lifeboat! But when I think of Mr. Zane I go straight to the Mad. I mean zombies, killer beef patties, and Canadian rednecks! That is genius…

Zane plays Jason Hunt, a man on a road trip with his girlfriend, his daughter, and her boyfriend. They are traveling to a cabin to spend some time together and for Jason to try to get his daughter and potential stepmother to bond. Along the way they stop in a small town just in time to be caught up in a zombie outbreak! Some tainted beef has turned the locals into flesh-eaters which makes it very unfortunate that they are sitting in the diner that is ground zero when the outbreak starts. They quickly lose one of their own, but gain some new allies and barricade themselves in to figure out how to survive.

Damn so I’ve noticed that a lot of the zombie movies I’ve been watching are comedies. I suppose I must be in the mood for some laughs and The Mad has plenty of those. Most of them come from Billy Zane, who I never knew had such a touch for comedy. His performance is the highlight of The Mad and can be best described as deadpan. The character’s response to the crazy zombie situation is funny because he calmly talks to himself while trying to work things out. It almost seems that he has lost touch with reality, but actually has some good ideas so maybe not. He even hallucinates while cutting up his girlfriend to examine her corpse.

There is also a scene later in the movie where he and his daughter are bonding and calmly talking while they are bashing some heads in! The thoughtfulness of the dialogue being delivered doesn’t at all match the action in the scene which gives it an awesome absurdity. It also seems that the daughter’s boyfriend only exists for horrible and funny things to happen to him. He gets his foot bitten off, gets shot by a gun wielding zombie, and eventually loses his head while still getting a chance for one more “touristy” photo! The best part is that even when not eaten the beef is still dangerous as it slithers around waiting for any chance to attach itself to an unsuspecting victim, the boyfriend being one.

The Mad has decent gore effects. The zombies are all fresh so you don’t get too much in the way of featured zombie. Though the girlfriend who is technically not a zombie looks great in the hallucination scene where she and Jason are discussing what dress she wants to wear at the funeral. Most of the zombie’s feasting is off screen, but there is a good throat rip and some pitchfork mayhem. For what looks to be a small budget I was happen with what they put on screen.

Solid gore, decent characters, great lead actor, and a genuinely funny story all add up for a good time. The Mad can be streamed or purchased on DVD on the cheap. I recommend that everyone check it out. I’ve had my old DVD for at least ten years and it never sits more than a few months between viewings.

© Copyright 2017 John Shatzer

Dance of the Dead (2008)

More zombie fun here at the horror dude blog. Here I check out an independent movie from the late 2000s called Dance of the Dead. It came out in the middle of the glut of zombie movies that have flooded the market for the last fifteen years and sort of got lost in the shuffle. While many of those other movies are terrible I’ve always had a soft spot for Dance of the Dead.

Our main characters are Jimmy and Lindsey. Jimmy is a goofball that doesn’t seem to care about anything except making smart ass remarks, while Lindsey is the vice-president of the student council and is planning the Prom. They have a fight after Jimmy makes yet another crack and she dumps him to go with someone else. But she and her new date end up in the cemetery and he gets fresh with Lindsey. Zombies intervene and the poor guys loses his head.

Also at the cemetery are a group of nerds who are ghost hunting. They run into the zombies and end up with Lindsey and they all escape together. One of the nerds is named Steven and he has a crush on a cheerleader named Gwen. Well Gwen is out for a jog because her Prom date ate some bad Spinach. She ends up running into Jimmy who was out delivering pizzas before the Prom. Before that Jimmy had met up with the local bad boy named Kyle, who is armed and dangerous! Both groups end up together and decide to save the Prom from the zombies.

I realized while writing that the synopsis it sounds confusing. But the story is put together well enough that it makes sense while watching the movie. While Dance of the Dead has many of the flaws that I don’t like in newer zombie movies, more on that later, it does have one of the better scripts. The characters are all likeable, even Kyle who is both a bully but sympathetic as well. Our leads Jimmy and Lindsey have actual character arcs, especially Jimmy who finally takes things seriously and realizes what is important to him. There is also an interesting twist where the nerd with a crush on the cheerleader gets his dreams answered… sort of. Someone wrote a script for a zombie movie with actual characters! As a reviewer who has watched a ton of independent zombie flicks this alone makes Dance of the Dead stand out.

Now this one does have some common flaws. We get a lot of CGI kills with bodies being cut in half with the legs wandering off. And dozens of bullet hits that are clearly digital work. I would have liked to seen more practical effects work when it came to the deaths. Some of the zombies that probably should have stayed in the background are obvious masks that border on Halloween costume quality. This was very disappointing because some of the other zombie designs looked great and that makeup was killer. Why give the bad masks a prominent location on the screen?

In spite of my issues with the gore and makeup I’m going to recommend Dance of the Dead. Someone actually made a zombie movie that cared about character development and made the audience care about what happened to those characters. This is why at least once a year Dance makes its way into the DVD player. I recommend it.

© Copyright 2017 John Shatzer