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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!
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