I’m a huge fan of Deadpool. When I first saw the trailer for President’s Day, it reminded me of one of my favorite Deadpool stories – the one where the deceased presidents are resurrected by a Shield Agent who also happens to be a necromancer. Deadpool is then tasked with returning the presidents to their graves before they kill everyone. In President’s Day, the dead presidents return to life to kill off a group of teens. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiyWcOKRG-Y&t=6s
President’s Day was directed by David Zuckerman (The Vigilante 2016) from a script he wrote with Benjamin Goodwin and Jud Zumwalt. The film stars Monica Ricketts, Dax Hill, Benjamin Goodwin, Brittany Faith Rosoff, Chelsea Taylor Leech, David Zuckerman, Jud Zumwalt, Matthew Broussard, Mike Ostrowski, Michael Minto and Jordan Leach.
On Presidents Day weekend, a group of teenagers venture to a remote cabin
in the woods. Through a series of random events, they accidentally curse
themselves and awaken the former Presidents of the United States of
America. The undead Presidents soon attack and begin killing them off one
by one. To survive the night, they must band together and use their
knowledge of American history and horror movies to once again make our
forefathers a thing of the past.
Featuring Presidents such as George Washington, John F. Kennedy, Theodore
Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, William Howard Taft, and James K. Polk,
Presidents Day pokes fun at horror movie tropes and American history
alike.
I loved the hell out of this movie. It was nothing but over the top, cheesy fun. The cast of characters were completely ridiculous and hilarious and the actors were fantastic. My favorite characters were Brett, played by Jud Zumwalt, and Ashley, played Brittany Faith Rosoff. Jud Zumwalt’s performance comes off like a cross between a dumb meathead and Andrew W.K. on speed. The character is a complete dumbass but he is obnoxiously funny. Brittany Faith Rosoff was extremely funny and oddly sexy as Ashley, Brett’s oversexed girlfriend who tries to seduce every man in the movie and even gets freaky with a zombie.
The film features tons of meta humor, playing with the tropes of horror films and racial stereotypes and also making several references and puns in relation to the presidents’ respective histories. The kills are awesomely gory and include an impalement via an american flag, an axing that ends with the injured party getting torn in half, an arrow to the eye, and a decapitation.
As much I loved the film, there was a few minor things that I didn’t really care for. The strongest and funniest characters all died fairly early. This lead to the film losing some of its humor as it went along, even as the events got more and more ridiculous. President’s Day makes it fairly obvious that Abraham Lincoln is the leader of the presidents, but he receives very little screen time and even less character development. The presidents, for being creatures that were resurrected supernaturally, were strangely easy to kill. Their motives felt underdeveloped. I watched the film twice and I’m still not sure why they were killing the kids and what they hoped to gain from it.
Final Thoughts
President’s Day is a hilarious and entertaining horror comedy that pokes fun at horror tropes, stereotypes and American history. If you are in the mood for a goofy, over the top horror comedy, than I highly recommend you give
President’s Day a watch.
President’s Day hits VOD June 6th.
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