09/09/2012: Father's Day [2011]

I was extremely excited the other day when I got my copy of Father's Day in the mail. The film has spent the last year screening at festivals and events, but like any low-budget, "tasteless" and extreme grindhouse films it never received a wide enough theatrical release for me to see it. Tonight I got my chance, as I watched Astron-6 make a movie truly worthy of the grindhouse and with Troma Entertainment behind them there were no limits.

Since 2007 grindhouse style exploitation movies have seen a mild resurgence due mainly to the movie of the same name, Grindhouse. Grindhouse was a double feature that contained Planet Terror from director Robert Rodriquez and Death Proof from director Quentin Tarantino. Both movies were homages to old exploitation films that would have been shown in old grindhouse theaters, and while both are very enjoyable, they were also made to be more mainstream. However, grindhouse theaters existed because exploitation films were never mainstream, and so the Grindhouse double feature was held back by both it's wide target audience and the reputation of the two well known filmmakers.

However, the two did get the ball rolling, for within the Grindhouse double feature were a number of fuax trailers for other exploitation movies. Since then two of them have been made into full feature films, with a third (Thanksgiving) confirmed to be on the way. While Machete remained around the same level of the original Grindhouse movies, and is becoming a trilogy, Hobo With a Shotgun was independently made and would feel right at home amongst most exploitation movies. This showed that well known and mainstream directors were not the best route to go about creating true exploitation movies, and the five guys over at Astron-6 made a much wiser choice when they sent their fake trailer for Father's Day over to the Troma, who are known for over 40 years of reel independence and are just the people to help bring such a movie as Father's Day into the world.

Astron-6 is a group of five then aspiring Canadian (Yah!) filmmakers who had been making short films and the like for a few years. At some point they created a trailer for Father's Day with little intention of making it into a full film and sent the trailer to the guys over at Troma. Well, it turns out Troma loved it, and suddenly, Astron-6 found themselves with $10 000 and a movie to make. The original trailer for Father's Day had never been intended to be a real movie however, and so Astron-6 had to somehow piece together a coherent story from the shear insanity of outrageous ideas and scenes they had spliced together to form a trailer. The end result might be a little bit insane, but bad it is not, and Father's Day is the best, most hilarious, tasteless, over the top, nasty and grindhouse worthy exploitation movie to come out since grindhouse theaters died out in the 80's.

So, how outrageous and tasteless were the ideas in the first Father's Day trailer? Well the end result is this synopsis: "Father’s Day follows the classic story we all grew up with: boy watches father raped and murdered, boy grows into a vengeful one-eyed man, man teams up with a priest and a male prostitute to take down his father’s killer" At the request of Father John Sullivan, Ahab returns from the Canadian wilderness to end the nightmare of rape and murder being perpetrated by the Fuchman and the pair team up with Twink as well as Ahab's sister Chelsea to send the monster to hell. What follows is one hell of a bloody and sleazy journey, featuring rape, murder, maple syrup, and what is literally a trip through Hell.

The opening credits are awesome.

The difference between Father's Day and Grindhouse was that the latter was trying to recapture the old days of the genre by throwing in a lot of blood and semi-outrageous scripts. Father's Day however doens't need to capture or pay homage to the genre because it never left. Aston-6 dived right in and stewed in sleazy cinematic excess; they didn't coat there movie with blood, gore, nudity and humour, they built it out of it. You can notice influences from the likes of Troma, Sam Raimi,  Mario Brava and others as well as clearer references such as Ahab's eyepatch, which is inspired by Thriler: A Cruel Picture or perhaps it is a Snake Plissken reference.To make it feel even more like a grindhouse movie you might watch on late late night T.V., Father's Day feature a well done grainy look that is commonly used in modern grindhouse movies to capture the visual appearance of the old movies. Also however, there is a T.V. channel programing announcement at the beginning and end making you literally think you are watching some random cable program after midnight. Even better though is a commercial break in the middle, for a cheesy and terrible looking sci-fi B-movie called Star Raiders. If you thought that was to obvious, wait for the Father's Day's Jaba the Hut and Slave Leia.

While you might look at the content of Father's Day and think, "dear god, I'm just going to be cringing and vomiting the whole time."  you should and would be wrong. Between the moments of over the top gore and violence, and sometimes during, is a lot of hilarious humour. Unlike a lot of Troma movies, Astron-6 forgoes the standard tongue in cheek humour and takes themselves deadly seriously, which make the jokes, one liners and sight gags all the better. I nearly cried laughing when Father John pointed out to Ahab that they were not maple trees he was tapping. The comedy doesn't let up at all, and it speaks to just how good the guys of Astron-6 are that they can make Father's Day consistently hilarious.

The DVD menu.

One of the reasons for that is that the five guys; Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Steven Kostanski and Conor Sweeney, that make up Astron-6 have been working together for years. While Father's Day is their first full length feature films they have made dozens of smaller projects, and are very familiar with each other. So, in case you didn't notice, those five guys directed, wrote, and starred in Father's Day as well as doing the stunts and make-up and all the rest of themselves, because $10 000 doesn't buy much of a film crew. However, this being something they really wanted to do, as well as knowing exactly what they wanted and being able to do it on every level let them create one fun movie. As well Amy Groening does a great job as the stripper sister, Ahab looks badass and acts it too, Father John and Twink play out their stereotypes, and even Lloyd Kaufman makes one hell of a cameo.

It looks like Canadians are currently the best contributors to the grindhouse with Astron-6 joining in amongst the creators of Hobo with a Shotgun and Dead Hooker in a Trunk. Let's hope they continue to turn out some more grindhouse masterpieces. The exploitation genre is not for everyone, and it isn't something you can just recommend to anyone off the street. Father's Day is even harder to recommend without knowing that someone is already familiar with the works of Troma or at least what they are in for when you hand them a Troma movie. However, if you are familiar with of these, get out there watch and Father's Day, you won't be disappointed. I was very worried it wouldn't live up to the hype as I got around to watching it, but even with my praise, I'm sure it will meet and exceed anyone's expectations. As long as they know what to expect.

Links:
Father's Day 4-Disc Edition @ Troma Store