Father's Day (2011)

Dir: Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Steven Kostanski, Conor Sweeney

I should have known better than to watch a Troma film sober.

FATHER'S DAY is a hardcore gore comedy throwback to the exploitation films of yesteryear. The opening of the film is processed to look grainy, streaky and washed out like a 70's film shot on 16MM. The remainder of the film just looks cheaply shot.

The one-eyed patch wearing Ahab (Adam Brooks) lives in seclusion tapping trees for syrup after his release from prison for the vigilante murder of cannibal killer and sodomizer Chris Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdock), a vile man who buggered, slaughtered and dined on the entrails of fathers, including Ahab's when he was a boy. The father killings start again and a young priest, Father Sullivan (Matthew Kennedy), seeks out the help of Ahab to put a stop to the madness. Along the way they are aided by a male prostitute (Conor Sweeney) who's father was savaged by Fuchman, his pimp and Ahab's estranged sister Chelsea (Amy Groening) who works as a stripper. They soon realise that Fuchman is working for the man down below and their fate is to battle it out in Hell.

Topless stripper with chainsaw. Genital mutilation. Obese man's buttocks pumping away during an act of sodomy. Eldritch tome. Incest. Trippy trip to Hell. Lloyd Kaufman as God. Maple syrup. Gratuitous male nudity.

FATHER'S DAY certainly packs in plenty to offend and gross out the viewer. While a few of the jokes are brilliant, such as the ending, most of them fall flat. I'm all for film makers going for the gross out but at some point I grow tired of seeing yet another penis being mutilated.

A number of the actors, writers and directors of this film went on to make the superior THE EDITOR. I think of FATHER'S DAY as the unfocused trial run to THE EDITOR as they both share a love for exploitation, Italian giallos and black humour.

*1/2 out of ****