Director: Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matt Kennedy, Steven Kostanski, Conor Sweeney
Cast: Adam Brooks, Matt Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Amy Groening, Mackenzie Murdock, Meredith Sweeney
Screenplay: Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matt Kennedy, Steven Kostanski, Conor Sweeney
99 mins. Not Rated.
Well, it’s October again, my favorite time of year. Do you find that you wait all year for a certain time? I know I do. A time of Pumpkin Spice Lattes and multicolor leaves…and the horror. My God, the horror! Well, let’s get started with a throwback grindhousian B-movie from a team of five writer/directors called Father’s Day.
The plot here is more than convoluted, so let me try my best. A serial killer named Chris Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdock, Manborg, Peelers) raped and murdered ten fathers thirty years ago but got off on a technicality, and since that time there have been multiple other rape/murders of fathers, including the father of Ahab (Adam Brooks) and Chelsea (Amy Groening, Goon, Halloween Party). Ahab went out looking for vengeance and ended up in prison. His sister became a stripper. Now, out of prison, Ahab discovers that his history with Fuchman is far from over, and the rape/murders are starting up again, and he may be the only one who can stop it.
There’s a respectable level of lunacy to Father’s Day. The film knows exactly what it wants to be, and as you all know, that’s the most important part of my reviews. Father’s Day wants to be a send-up/homage to B-movie/Grindhouse films, and in that way, I think it completely misses the mark for me. It feels like it’s heading in the right direction several times, but its overly-complicated story and choppy editing lead it down a path to ruin. The film jumps around so much that you don’t have time to really connect to any of the characters and appreciate the B-level attempt. You can argue and say that’s what makes it a B-movie, and I would argue back that it still needs to be a good movie to be a good movie, regardless of style.
Adam Brooks is a very unlikable lead, but then again, there’s no one character that is interesting or likable, and that’s probably what really took me away. Let’s compare this aspect of Father’s Day to the ultimate send-up B-movies, Grindhouse and Machete. In Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino’s half of Grindhouse, pretty much all of the main ladies are enjoyable enough or interesting enough to follow. Even Stuntman Mike is interesting as much as he is unlikable. In Machete, our title character is an asshole, but he has a code, and that’s very clear from early on. Ahab is boorish and full of assholery. Fuchman is not a villain who I ever want to spend time watching; he’s disgusting and awful and purely unwatchable. Chelsea is initially introduced with an element of at least connective likability, but all that goes out the window pretty quick.
Where the film wins is its style, and while I don’t think it’s edited together very well (there’s so much jumping around that I had trouble sticking to any semblance of a story), I think there’s a lot of stylistic choices that make this film feel like it was taped on a VCR from some midnight-movie channel. There are advertisements for films playing on the station later on in the night, and the movie plays as though it has fallen into public domain and no company has come along to restore the negative, like all the cheap or free copies of Night of the Living Dead you can find in the bargain bin (but please just go get the Criterion). The film is dirty and torn and put back together and oozes with a level of cheapness, which works because it was distributed by Troma, so it fits nicely in that catalogue. Using this style allows the film’s later crazier elements to work better, especially the creature design effects for the finale.
Yeah, Father’s Day was a bust, and it’s too bad because on the surface I really thought this one would appeal to me, but as it went on, I noticed an over-reliance on gross-out humor, virtually zero character development, and a choppy story structure that just couldn’t keep my interest. I may be in the wrong, though, as the film has garnered some positive reviews. You can easily find it online for cheap or free, so maybe give it a try on your own. For me, this was a complete misfire.
1.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe
For more 31 Days of Horror, click here.
For my review of Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski’s The Void, click here.
For my review of the anthology film ABCs of Death 2, click here.
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