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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
ADAM & EVIL MEETS BLOODY MURDER, January 3, 2006
This review is from: Memorial Day (DVD)
[good things]
Watching this movie brings back feelings of good ole backwoods slasher movies like Friday The 13th, The Burning, Madman and Bloody Murder. The movie is an obvious take from Friday The 13th, right down to the back story. The script and plot aren't great, but it gets right down to the point. One thing I did like about the story was the twist at the end (every movie seems to have them now). When I watched the movie I suspected both obvious people that you were meant to suspect, and then we see who was the real killer, and who started everything. I thought the ending was far from brilliant, but very well done. The location was great, it's too bad they weren't able to utilize the cabins and camp other than a couple shots.
[the bad]
I have no clue who these "actors" were, but they were very bad and very annoying. While, the 3 more important characters were about as good as you can get in a low budget production, the rest horribly over acted, and made me want to gouge out my eyes and ears. The blood was almost nil,and the deaths weren't very well done. I thought the movie started off too fast, there was really no character development before they started dying off one-by-one. I think the characters could have been developed to the point where anyone could have been the killer, but that didn't happen. The killer was an obvious Jason Voorhees ripoff, but that wasn't a bad thing. The bad thing was that Trevor Moorhouse (Bloody Murder 1 and 2) was a more intimidating killer, and that is just pathetic.
[final thoughts]
Memorial Day is a good movie to kick back to on a Sunday and watch, it rates up there with Bloody Murder, Adam & Evil and Generation Ax. The movie doesn't play well when actually looking for an interesting movie, it plays well when you want to watch something short and something that you can laugh at. The movie isn't that bad considering the movie was made on a miniscule budget, and was made as a carbon-copy Friday The 13th. Yes, the blood, deaths, acting and dialog could have been much better. But, it is a backwoods slasher, we see people die. We see boobs, we have the slasher staple "camp fire" scene, we have a solid back story/legend to base more movies on, we have just about everything a million dollar slasher movie has (other than the things I listed that it lacks!). When I watched this, I really didn't hate it, I didn't love it, but I did like it. I like movies that play like fan films, and in my opinion this was nothing more than an homage to the backwoods slasher genre.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A BAD RIPOFF OF FRIDAY THE 13TH, April 28, 2006
This review is from: Memorial Day (DVD)
Ummm...let's see, a group of kids goes to a cabin on the lake and gets killed by a crazed maniac wearing a hockey mask. Gee...never heard of that plot before. How original. Where did the braintrust of Memorial Day ever think of such a fantastic plot. These guys are geniuses! Seriously now...that is the plot...and unabashedly, and pretty much shameful ripoff of Friday the 13th, and the producers don't seem to care one bit. This is one of those films where it was the first...and only acting credit of the cast involved and one can certainly see why. It's absolutely atrocious. Beyond bad. Have these people ever had a single drama class? Did they rehearse? It's shot poorly...the special effects suck...just bad all around and if you rent this you'll lose 80 minutes of your life that you will never get back. Don't say you were not warned!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A lot of problems, but at least it was moderately interesting, October 1, 2008
This review is from: Memorial Day (DVD)
As others have said, this is basically a Friday the 13th type movie. Some kids go to a lake to do some partying. Three years ago, the brother of one of the people died in an accident at the lake, and this is the first time they've been back since that incident. One couple is killed before they even leave for the weekend, and the others of course assume they must have decided not to come. The other couples go to the lake, do some partying, and then the killing begins.
The acting is a mixed bag. I thought a couple of the female actors did a pretty good job, though one of them gives a very morose performance and it's drudgery to sit through her scenes. A couple of the male characters are definitely guilty of over acting, though the third did an okay job. Despite this, I found the characters to be a more or less likable bunch, and that's probably the most important thing in a slasher movie. However, the story is told in a somewhat clumsy manner, the worst part being that the characters take refuge in a brightly lit building, which kills any atmosphere the movie might have had. The acting during the scenes where the killer attacks is rather strange as well; One girl acts unbelievably calm, while another guy freaks out way too much.
Despite these faults, I did find the movie moderately interesting, mostly due to the sympathetic characters and, well, how can you screw up a Friday the 13th plot? The movie was really, really low budget, but it's not nearly as bad as some of the zero budget direct-to-video crap I've watched lately. I was almost thinking of giving it three stars, but it's just got too many problems. Given more experience and more money, I think these people might someday make good movies.
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