A septet of teens - airheaded party boy Brett (Jud Zumwalt), his equally air-headed but hot girlfriend Ahsley (Trittany Faith Rosoff), his sophisticated but weird sister Max (Chelsea Taylor Leech), his nerd "slave" who's writing his history report (Benjamin Goodwin), token black guy Clarence (Dax Hill), good girl Lilly (Monica Ricketts), and her too-cool-for-school ex Jake (David Zuckerman) - are going to a cabin in the woods for President's Day for some wild partying. Thing is, in this neck of the woods, on President's Day, the dead presidents (all but Ronald Reagan, who'd have to be paid SAG-rates) come back to life to slaughter the living. And they don't come back as zombies as such but as evil versions of themselves. So soon, our teens start to fall like flies - but then not all presidents are actually evil, James K. Polk for example feels left out by the others for his relative lack of accomplishments and ultimately falls in love with Ashley (and vice versa). In the meantime though, Lilly and Jake figure to help them kill the presidents they have to summon someone who has some experience in this - Lincoln's (Jordan Leach) killer John Wilkes Booth (Michael Minto). That said, it's more than questionable how long he'll fight on the side of what's good and right ...

Basically, Presidents Day is of course a slasher movie - but it's doubtful whether die-hard slasher fans are the key target audience for this movie ... which I mean in the best possible way though. Basically, the film is as goofy as it reads, maybe even more so - and let's face it, who doesn't think an axe-wielding Abe Lincoln as the lead bad guy isn't worth a chuckle is either to stuck up or has no humour at all -, and while there's certainly plenty of blood and guts in this, it comes alive more through its silly oneliners, stupid puns and outbursts of slapstick than through its actual killings. Sure, not all jokes are great or so (intentionally) bad they're good, and not all the performances are always spot on, but the laughs clearly outdo the film's shortcomings, and the humour of the film is pretty infectuous overall. All this makes the film maybe no masterpiece in the narrower sence of the word, but a near-perfect party movie at least!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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