Re-Elected
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
This had all the soul, passion, grit, and individuality of a made for TV afternoon special meant to air as filler on a Tuesday. Yes, at some point in the making of this movie, original ideas were noted down in a sequence of events, but when it came time to capture the re-enactment of these scenes on camera equipment and using live actors, mistakes began to become evident within the planning and execution processes. I know I’m pounding a corpse with a 6lb hammer, but there is no redeeming reason to watch this. There’s some interesting nods to US history, a lot of bad jokes, some decent gore; but there’s no reason you can’t find that elsewhere without wasting so much time watching the dork be obnoxious. His one contribution- the brother- was to push the fact that he got an acting role in your face the way a dog is taught not to go indoors. I’m willing to even go so far as to say I would watch a remake of this if it had Corey Haim in the brother role, as well as the rest of the Lost Boys cast. They could have made a movie out of this. But this result is more of a series of sketches or scenes that theoretically link together if you’re a rat in a maze. When the camera gets cute and starts jumping scene mid-sentence, when the title repeatedly splashed the screen, it was all things done before and better, and even if Max RonWell or whatever his name is claims that it’s Homage, it’s Homage the way Gallagher’s twin brother ripped off his act and then went on tour through all the B-level clubs. Simply repeating something you saw done is called copying it. And that’s the painful truth here- aside from the wacky declaration of independence summoning dead presidents with global ambitions being an original idea, everything else here is something else that the director cut and pasted into this movie instead of taking the time to be creative. Avoid this like the fucking plague. I suggest you watch the Nicholas Cage masterpieces that are the National Treasures movies, and then Lost Boys, and then Zombeavers. German only translations of any of those would be preferable to this.
Ok, re-reading my watching notes, there’s some funny moments in this. Not enough that I’d suggest watching it, but I did get a couple good laughs. A couple.
Note: After waking up the next morning and thinking about trying to explain this movie to my wife, I realized that it’s essentially Evil Dead that’s been constitution-fried, like a mad-libs where the person wrote ‘MERICA in for every blank, even the verbs.
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Amy Winehouse gets her arm ripped off
- Everyone starts drinking and doing generic Cabin in the Woods things
- The dork is using the 4th of July to get blackout and people disagree
- The movie loses it’s identity and wanders around through genres for a while
- So much screaming and incoherent camera work
- The zombies and the humans talk things over and the humans prevail
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
They’re not really zombies. There- I said it. I don’t care if they’re dead and now they’re running around killing people, they just weren’t zombies. That’s a lazy classification for whatever conglomeration of “scary” bullshit they cobbled together to make whichever scene work in context, but this isn’t a zombie movie. Or if it is, Zombies now think, talk, reason, use firearms, have eyes that change color based on discussion topic, and who, when pursuing a human through the forest, lope along shaking random trees like gorillas. I can’t really remember, but I’m pretty sure one cracked a joke, too. And they have the power to heal or regenerate or whatever. When we first met George, he was all jacked up, but by the end of the movie he’s pretty hale again. They’re not focused on eating people, we don’t even know if their bite turns you. But they seem more interested in killing people in order to accomplish their world domination goals more than they do for the love of eating brains. Also, there’s only 3 of them, and none of them were anything resembling the historical characters they were. At least, I didn’t think so.
Where the money went
Where the money went
Uh… just on general crap. Snacks for the crew, probably. Maybe this was a tax scheme whose whole purpose was to lose money. Nothing really stood out in this movie. It didn’t appear to be a shoe-string budget project, but there wasn’t a lot of extra glitter or anything anywhere. Everything was constant in it’s mediocracy. None of them could act, the special effects were decent but limited and the fake head was fake. There wasn’t much in terms of sets or anything. I think we’ve got someone with a good camera and way too much spare time. Too bad they didn’t spend that spare time working on an interesting script. Packing the movie with witty one-liners and one or two off “weirdness” (Andrew Jackson hallucinations, anyone?) doesn’t cost all that much and adds even less. Overall, it felt like a tv show’s level of production values, or even less, actually, as there were a couple scenes that were way too dark. As in, I couldn’t see shit to tell what was happening, not “too dark” as in “good humor”.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
I can’t give the humans much credit for fighting back here. We start off with a dismemberment and it goes downhill for the cast from there. Andrew Jackson’s Wig got lit on fire or something, but I think that was just because the actor looked nothing like him and they wanted an excuse to cover his face with prosthetics. No zombie was dispatched, so I kinda have to say that no weapon counted as best. Bringing in the chainsaw with no gas and the shotgun with no shells? Someone else in a different movie could have done great things with that, if they haven’t already. But by the time this rolled around I was so tired of that fucking grin the actor just couldn’t hide that, fuck it. Forget it. I need to. Can I just point out that say what you want about it as a whole, Abraham Lincoln vs. Vampires had a lot of good axe fighting, right? There was Abraham Lincoln in this, there was an axe in this, you just can’t do the fucking math correctly.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
This is a hard one to write. I feel attacked and mocked, yet disgusted and disappointed. Yes, there was hand-breach. I think they showed the same one over and over again, but there were multiple “Hand punches out of the ground” shots. But then they ended them, prematurely even, as if they were tongue in cheek nods to what a real zombie movie would focus on, but not these guys, they’ve got witty humor and banter to recite in front of you. The final fucking straw that broke everything was when dork runs out with the chainsaw and the shotgun and then when nothing works, the hand that was clawing out of the earth waits and begins tapping it’s fingers. Yes, this is an original idea, but that doesn’t make it good! That could be the main summation of this movie even. Once again, when given the opportunity to do something zombie and do it right, they took the hokey poke-a-joke throw-away approach. Which is the main summation of this movie, even. Not only did you fail to thrive and compete, you actively mocked those who put forth effort. Shame.
That was new!
That was new!
Trying to write a movie based around the reanimation of dead presidents. That was fucking new. I have never encountered this before and hope I never do again. Wasting 20 minutes on quibble-level dialogue between humans and zombies was new. Feeling pity for the human who chose to play Marcus was new. Magic spells being created out of crumpled Benjamin’s, shitty spilled Pabst, and museum store souvenirs was new. But nothing was really new. There wasn’t enough of anything for it to be separated into old and new. This was just a smash-up of genre crap in order to support the super thin half baked idea of building a horror movie out of resurrected presidents. That was new. That was not good.
Review Notes
Review Notes
So we’re 7 seconds in and this is creepy- the production company uses a cat in it’s logo that I’d swear is a Russian blue and it looks exactly like this cat I knew back in undergrad when I dated it’s owner and the cat took a shit on my pillow. The good omens increase!
It just said something about “stepdad productions” and the voice-over is the radio DJ talking.
Amy Winehouse is driving in the woods listening to the American song and her car breaks down.
Damn, this girl knows how to swear. And menace people with mace. But can’t lie worth shit. Sounds like a jersey girl.
I can’t see shit- there’s no lighting in this scene.
Something shaggy looking just ripped her arm off. Her name is Jennifer.
We flash back like, three hours later? 3 days?
There’s a montage of patriotic keg party setting up and we meet a dork.
Idiot kids in a car on a dirt road and the worst driver imaginable.
He can’t lie either. But I think it’s not lying they’re going for. I think these are all acting fails.
Phantom no-phone agreements.
There’s nothing that can help this driver. His tie dye doomed him.
Back setting up crap for the 4th, the dork finds… something.
“Well well well. This party just went from a 10 to 1776.”
Still don’t know what he found though. I’m feeling like this is a ripped off Evil Dead cabin.
Why did they have that scene with the car getting stuck? Do we need to waste time that badly?
Marcus, you really are embarrassing yourself.
“Illegal, dangerous… what about dope as fuck?!” as he describes $12 worth of Walmart sparklers.
“Ok, fine, I’ll only bring the ones with the labels written in English.” When it comes to explosives, this isn’t the worst idea.
“One if by land, two if by sea, you fuckers are here to party with me!”. So… the dork is severely annoying.
A whispered conversation about Sexy Uncle Sam costumes…
And some kind of air purifier? Because Marcus has allergies?
The sister looks like what’s her name. That actress who can be really mean.
Two siblings are awkwardly thanking each other for thanks.
We’re informed the dork’s tires are damaged from the horrible road. Even though we saw the car earlier and everything looked fine.
I would rather pound my scrotum into a cordon bleu than watch these guys do another imitation of Jennifer. This sucks.
You’re really not supposed to have awkward pauses in your scenes. That went on so long I wanted to pipe up to fill the silence.
We keep finding out more people are coming to this debacle.
Why the FUCK does Marcus shake up every beer before he opens it?
Some hipster who needs a nut-kicking just showed up in the worst type of mustang with totally fine tires.
A conversation about which countries would be good MMA fighters.
The lamest game of beer pong… A group hug-sterbate.
We’re watching the sadness of two friends who have grown apart. I feel like throwing gravel at both of them.
Fuck. They just all imitated Jennifer again. Does this mean I have to flatten my nuts with a mallet? Gotta say, that was painful enough to serve as penance. I already hate this Jennifer character.
Another awkward pause… and then its onto the getting hammahed monolog. That was fast. They partied for all of… 20 seconds. And now they’re sitting around pretending to be hung-over.
Tickle fest on the couch. That felt weird. Now everyone is telling the dork that he’s drunk. Is this an intervention?
Dork “You won’t tell me when I’ve had too much to drink.”
Hipster friend “I just did.”
This is damn near the exact same conversation I had in the 205 Target with a teenager who was being obnoxious.
The dork’s version of history is fascinating. I like it.
“First it was the beer. Then it was the dirt on the walls. Then it was please put the seat down, I fell in the toilet!”
Wow. Sister just did the Sara Silverman really mean thing to the brother and hurt his feelings. I used to be like him when I drank.
Everyone is saying very hurtful things. And if they could act at all, maybe we’d care.
For some reason the dork is reading from a copy of the declaration of independence.
So… some kind of spell is being read.
Some quick shot of grass and dirt and something thumping up…
Back to the cabin drunken patriotic shoving match. World 1, table 0.
Something about slapping money onto the copy of the declaration summons zombies, because we just had a classic hand-breach. Well done, but on the conservative side. Probably about a 7, maybe an 8.
Back in the cabin, we’ve lost power. And everyone hates the dork. Marcus is used as someone that women threaten to cheat with when they’re mad at their boyfriends.
“Oh Jesus, is it tomorrow yet?” I feel the same way.
A couple in a bedroom, a massage…
A basement, two morons…
Dork just declared that in a zombie apocalypse, he’d be the one to survive. While Marcus is making ghost faces with the flashlight. We’re almost a third of the movie in and there’s been nothing but crappy dialogue.
Marcus brings up his allergies, which might be foreshadowing, ‘cause they made sure we can see the motes floating in the air. And then he’s startled!
Upstairs, we’re nervous about Jennifer. Better not imitate her again.
This girl is acting like Jennifer is the Dopeman.
A knock… the woman who got her arm ripped off… dead on the floor, in comes…. An old person. Probably a zombie. There’s so much mud I can’t tell which one tho. Not that I know shit about presidents though.
So the movie’s doing that cute thing where characters in one setting doing one thing are talking, but then the scene changes mid-sentence to other characters somewhere else as they, mid-sentence as well, finish the initial sentence with something pertinent to them. It’s kinda hard to describe at the moment, but it seems like an awkward add in. They haven’t earned this level of cuteness.
Couple upstairs trying to mack, screaming downstairs where the muddy English wig guy is trying to kill the girl with an axe, so out comes the phone! Music!
The camera is jumping around being cute flashing between the macking couple, the fighting girl, and the two idiots in the basement. It’s moving really too fast to follow. But nothing important seems to be happening.
Idiots come upstairs, thankfully identify the bad guy as George Washington.
“That’s not George Washington. It’s probably some drunk homeless guy wearing a George Washington costume who wandered in here and started attacking your girlfriend with an axe.”
Ok. Spoiler alert. Not really, but I could if I could. The idiots are watching the George Washington tussle with the girlfriend, and then they get a good look at him, and Marcus says something about how’s he’s been re-animated, and then the dork looks at him and says “He’s been re-elected” and then the fucking title is big and blood red bold like old camp movies across the screen. What the fuck is this movie aiming for?
This is a funny movie. It’s a funny movie because the two guys are hiding and having an in-depth conversation about Splenda and sugar while the girlfriend is left to fight off the zombie George Washington all by herself. Which she does by throwing a case of beer, which he catches and then FALLS OVER!!
Another weird homage camera moment- zooming in between two faces like a spaghetti western.
Girlfriend is out of the cabin and in a car, but George breaks the window…
The lover couple just came downstairs and we all made humor by laughing when everyone tried to explain the wacky events that had transpired in the recently.
That’s the second time they’ve blamed the homeless!!
Jennifer’s body has gone somewhere else.
So, it looks like the lover couple is going to… no, the dork is going to go looking for… whatever… outside. While the others stay inside. Classic.
“Don’t worry baby, I’ll never leave you… except for now, when I’m leaving you.” And then the baby stuffed eagle…
“Let’s go impeach that motherfucker.”
Ok, that was funny. They did a great “scene flip” there. Finally got a good one!
I mean, we’re only halfway through the movie.
“I have not been crying. I think there’s onions growing in these woods!”
“I know this is all a big elaborate joke… kinda like the electoral college.”
The Abraham Lincoln zombie has shown up and he looks more like an elderly British pan-handling vagrant, and the Andrew Jackson… is a wig. On top of a random guy.
The couple has run off into the woods, with Failure Abraham Lincoln zombie chasing them yelling “Four Score” and brandishing a knife, while the Andrew Jackson wig takes a pistol shot at the dork who’s begging for some sort of subservient existence. Now they’re talking.
What the fuck?! An aside of Andrew Jackson giving a motivational speech? And then the dork runs while the wig begins reloading.
The couple is in a barn arguing if abandoning the dork was the right decision.
There is so little of interest or value in this waste of time.
A trust conversation followed by a kiss, which is then simply a head holding; Abraham decapitated the hipster, but then they were kissing again, then blood and goo everywhere- the prop of the head was lame, but the goo was cool.
She runs off into the woods and meets the dork, and now Andrew Jackson’s Wig is chasing them.
Someone lost a phone.
A cringe worthy argument between the siblings. You can’t fake chemistry, but you can believe that you’re faking it. This is painful.
This script should have been read by other people.
A “What’s the police’s phone number?” joke. This is mashed and strained peas and carrots once through the child already and back in the jar.
Uhh.. so, Marcus has the phone and is trying to convince the police to come (naturally, they’re skeptical) so he starts playing multiple people on the phone, changing it from ear to ear. This, I’ve never fucking seen before. I mean, I’ve seen the joke before, just not presented through this veneer of fear and self-disgust.
I just stepped away to get a drink of water and had the thought that this movie was financed by the guy who plays the dork as a sort of vehicle for him to self-promote. I have no idea if it’s true, but it’s sort of how it feels.
Marcus and the girlfriend are in the cabin. Evidently when the zombie George Washington was attacking the girlfriend in the car the AC seemed to bother it. No, we’re not just fucking reaching at straws here at all, are we?
Yes. And we just pulled a good one. Once again, I did NOT see this coming. Some sort of drag-cheerleader patriotism appeal…
And Marcus finally got around to getting killed after 4 attempts at making the same joke funny.
Girlfriend is driving away in the car.
“This is what I get for dating a white guy!”
Right before the hipster’s decapitated head lands in her lap.
Back to the siblings arguing.
Him: “This all seems like America trying to teach you a lesson!”
Her: “What lesson? How not to be killed by Zombies?”
Him: “That’s a GREAT lesson!”
And now we veer off into drama? Or…
Him: “I honored him in my own way.”
Her: “You got drunk and broke into a baseball stadium.”
Him: “It’s what he would have wanted!”
The dork is running like Tom Cruise high stepping, yet Andrew Jackson’s Wig is loping like a gorilla and stopping to shake trees? It just used a firearm, yet now it’s simian?
Back in the cabin again, back veering into drama again, back into not sure what the fuck it’s about again, except the dork gets to cuddle a stuffed eagle.
A Lincoln quote.
Enter Andrew Jackson’s wig.
Another cut to the imaginary Jackson, and then brawling in darkness… can’t really see what’s happening.
Washington and Lincoln zombies are discussing some master zombie plan to take the land back over again. Que evil laughter. For a while.
Back in the cabin, not sure where Andrew Jackson’s Wig…
The Dork is announcing he may not be able to fight back against the zombies due to his patriotism.
Andrew Jackson was on the $20. They hammer this into us repeatedly.
Bringing in the Trail of Tears…
Where is this crappy drama coming from? I feel like a soap opera puked in my mouth.
Fuck- there’s like, another 20 minutes left.
Andrew Jackson’s wig is being pelted with chunks of frozen meat, because, you know, the cold hurts them. And then when she’s pummeling him to finish him off, we’re back ripping off 70’s grind house effects. Yay red screen.
She’s found a letter which fortunately has triggered a voice over that explains sorta how all this strange and pretty much unrelated stuff is all supposed to gel cohesively into a plot. Of course, at this point it’s just babble, but the voice is soothing. At least, it was. Stop being cute.
Voice basically said that she’s got to replicate the summoning spell to send them back. Or something like that. But Andrew Jackson’s wig dragged her outside, so… And the three zombies want “The documents”.
The dork has gone full catatonic. Can he be redeemed?
All it took was him throwing a stuffed animal to realize that he needs to man up.
Please end.
So… the pre-impeachment arming up montage was kinda funny with the drinking and hitting his head and stuff. But it’s too far gone. He’s had too many of these moments for them to be anything other than jesting.
The three zombies are shit talking the sister. Sort of funny, sort of a waste of time.
Ok, that was a good joke, It’s hard to make jokes related to slavery, but that one was unoffensive and well played.
Another hand breaching…
No gas, no shells, the hand breach is tapping it’s fingers…
That’s the funniest thrown knife to the calf I’ve seen in a long time.
“Get fucked, Abe.”
The zombies are winning, they almost have the map, then the girlfriend shows up shooting fireworks at them.
This is just a montage of random crap happening. In a moment of insight, a character yells “None of this makes any sense.” That’s exactly what I was thinking. Another character reassures her that it does, but I doubt it.
A great line about breaking up and then an axe in the head. I didn’t see either of them coming and I liked both of them.
We’re officially at looney tunes level slapstick. This is a waste of my life.
Banishing a zombie, losing a leg. Good trade.
Another Re-Elected screen-thing.
Closing with a conversation with the paramedics. They’re not helpful.
No, closing with more 70’s exploitation rip-off. Jesus, that was bad.
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
Re-Elected: “Deep in the woods on the 4th of July, siblings Nate and Angela must face off against the zombies of American Presidents, as well as their own worst nightmare: Spending an entire evening together.” God, why do I hate myself so?
There’s a new Resident Evil (even though I’m not sure it’s got Mila Jovovich in it, so if it doesn’t, is it still a RE movie?)(I mean, they tried to replace Damon in the Bourne movies and look how well that backfired.)(Strange that they can replace Bond and Dr. Who so easily though.) But I could be watching that possibly Mila or Mila-less Resident Evil right now instead of starting off this… thing.
To quote liberally and loosely from Pineapple Express, the cover of this movie looks like if the werewolf genre and, like, every crappy 80’s slasher movie got together and did the sex on top of an American Flag that resulted in a child that didn’t actually get a name until 3 weeks into it’s life because everyone around it was so completely disinterested.
It’s not that this movie looks bad, it looks horrible. I mentioned werewolves? There’s a huge bright full moon predominantly featured in the cover, as well as a house, an American flag, and what looks like a chimpanzee dressed up like Abraham Lincoln. Left, Clyde! 11 people have reported back that this deserves 3 and a half stars, which in Amazon trust currency is worth about crap.
As for the siblings, I see a scared looking guy on a cell phone and a screaming black-haired woman who appears covered in blood. You’d really think that this mishmash of images would prove engaging, wouldn’t you? But is doesn’t. Nothing looks like a zombie.
There’s something that looks like a cosmic rhino or maybe it’s a falcon featured predominantly front and center, and the overall effect is a collage made by a blindfolded child as an assignment in class where they had no control over what magazines they had available to take the pictures from. Why is there an H in rhino? Are you supposed to emphasize it like when you say “whip”? I’m hungry. Chocolate.
What kind of name is Max Radbill? It’s like when Homer Simpson renamed himself Max Power. Radbill? What the fuck is that? Did this guy choose his name by pulling random scrabble letters out of the bag and then hoping? Thankfully, Max Radbill doesn’t seem to be an actor in this movie, so it’s got that going for it. Maybe Max Radbill knows Max Radbill’s limitations.
So it’s the 4th of July, so I expect some alcohol and fireworks, but I have no idea why these two are out in the middle of the woods. Doesn’t make sense that there’d be multiple presidential corpses around, either. So already I got an issue with continuity. I also got an issue with “as well as their own worst nightmare: Spending an entire evening together” being central to the plot.
I think it’s great that the two hate each other, it builds character, and even sometimes provides great motivation for that last minute evil “I could throw the rope down to you, but that means you would survive!!” (Muah-ah-ha-ha-ha)” type back-stabby thing that often substitutes for plot twists these days. But I can just hear the schmooze in the announcer’s voice “as well as their own worst nightmare: Spending an entire evening together” and then the thin laugh track kicking in. This feels like advertisement for sub-mediocracy.
It’s like they knew they were going to have weak interest, so they’ve defaulted to offering a free puppy to the first 100 people to buy tickets. It’s not as evil as Checkers, but if this cliched tripe is the best promotional description of your efforts, I’d afraid you’d have been better served spending the afternoon eating crackers off the sidewalk. A couple of siblings who don’t get along are all Hansel and Gretled off in the woods and dead presidents are out to get them. Fuck. Doesn’t seem like anything can go wrong here. Let’s rip another one and press play.
That hit took about 3 minutes to finally finish. Finally Finish. Finally Finnish. They’re both right, but so different. Look, what I meant to say what that I expect this to be a fairy thin review. I anticipate this to be a low-talent high-energy scream-fest with bad sound and please god they didn’t let a friend’s band do the soundtrack. That never ends well.
Wow. That was the worst technology clusterfuck that didn’t involve spilt liquids in a long time. It’s funny when you continually try to use the wrong mouse.