Micro-budget Review: PRESIDENT'S DAY

For a time when ever I received a film produced on a "Micro-Budget" to review, the first thing that came to mind as I scoffed and tossed my screener on the DVD pile, was either fan films featuring Star Wars or Star Trek characters that never existed in the original stories; or some over excited film enthusiast with a digital camera shooting a not so epic fight scene in their backyard. The growing popularity of social networking and streaming sites opened the door to many would be filmmakers who would otherwise have no outlet for their work. This can be thought of as both a good and bad thing. It's great that there is a place where anyone can post a short film, artwork, or a movie review and consider themselves a filmmaker, artist or writer (Lazlo's Closet is no exception). The downside being, there are no standards to get your work posted on the web, so the sheer volume of videos flooding the internet vying for your attention is staggering and there is no filter to weed out the crap.

In that sea of micro-budget madness it's very hard to stand out and be noticed, so most distributors resort to outrageous covers for their DVD releases. Most times however the content of the DVD is absolutely nothing like the over- done cover illustrations leaving you a victim of a DVD bait and switch. When I saw the cover art for "President's Day" I didn't think it was anything special. It's pretty basic and gets the point across, but at the same time it stuck with me and I kept thinking back to it. I really wanted to see that movie. So with the Presidents Day holiday happening this week, I thought what better time to watch, and I am glad I did.
I'm not going to go into the story of President's Day, as I think you should just watch and enjoy. You know where this ride is going. The characters are all pretty self explanatory. Like all high school settings you have your bitchy rich girl, Cheerleader, Nerds, Jocks, etc... We get just barely deep enough into the main character to care whether he lives or dies, and everyone else is a pretty standard character that you would see in any American High School...Well with the exception of the axe wielding maniac dressed as Abe Lincoln and the Electric Bass playing Principal.

Hail to the Chief...Baby.

President's Day is exactly what I hoped it would be, It's a slasher film of the old school variety. Gory and sexy with a "whodunit" plot. It's The Breakfast Club goes to Sleep away Camp, and if Director Chris LaMartina was able to shoot on film as opposed to digital it would have given the movie a retro feel that would bring old school horror fans to an oasis in the desert of modern day horror films which have become nothing more than plotless torture porn.

Shawn C. Phillips is finally killed by his giant teetering stack of DVDs

LaMartina, a twenty five year old independent filmmaker from Baltimore, already has a few features under his belt. Two of which will be available as a double feature DVD through Camp Motion Pictures titled "Book Of Lore / Grave Mistakes Horror Double Feature" (coming in May)He also pays homage to Zombie films in the faux trailers section of the "Stephen Romano Presents Shock Festival" DVD set available as of last week from Bloody Earth Films.
Chris shows real potential and I feel he is definitely one to watch as he grows as a filmmaker developing his own style. Though I think he may go on record for taking the last Holiday for use as a movie title... unless...Arbor Day? hmmmmmm.
The premiere was held tonight (President's Day 2010) in Baltimore. I hope the turn out was good considering the weather, More snow, people connected to Chris via Facebook had received a message from President Lincoln himself telling them not to be such whimps and not to let the bad weather stop them from coming to the show. How can you argue with that kind of presidential backing.