Father’s Day Review on Blu-ray from Troma Entertainment!

Our film begins with a public access style television channel (ASTR-TV) ad for the upcoming late night movie, Father’s Day, which is up next at 1:00 am.  The standard Troma Team Release titles roll, commencing the presentation…

We immediately see the hacking off of man-ass-cheeks from a beheaded victim.  The butcher continues by removing slick crimson entrails.  The severed grey-haired head is used for fellatio.  Our butcher is revealed as a stocky creep wearing glasses.  He finalizes his event by munching entrails and makes his escape.  However, his exit is thwarted by a one-eyed man who runs him down in his vehicle.  To be certain of his demise, the one-eyed man exits the vehicle and opens the butcher’s head with a bullet from his shotgun, declaring “Happy Father’s Day.”  Is that not enough to get you engaged from the onset?  It sure was for me.

Father’s Day is surrounded by a legend of a murdering madman named Chris Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdock) who people claim has been dead for 30 years.  So the story goes that many years ago fathers were being murdered.  One of the fathers murdered (bludgeoned to death by Fuchman’s cock) was of a boy named Ahab.  At the time Ahab tried to kill “the Fuchman.”  Now in present time fathers are once again meeting their demise at the hands of Chris Fuchman.

After being told the tale of “the Fuchman,” priest Father John Sullivan (Matthew Kennedy) goes on a far away journey through ice, snow, forest and ocean to find the man named Ahab (Adam Brooks).  Disheveled and in rags, the priest finally reaches his destination — an old wooden shack in the middle of nowhere — locating Ahab, the one-eyed man adorned with an eye-patch.  After some deviation, Ahab finally agrees to return and finish what he started.  Together the two team up with Ahab’s hot stripper sister Chelsea (Amy Groening) and a man-whore named Twink (Conor Sweeney) — don’t call him Andrew or he’ll hock in your face.  Twink’s father was man-raped and burned alive by Chris Fuchman, right before his very eyes.  The group then makes it their mission to save fathers everywhere and kill Chris Fuchman once and for all.

Father’s Day is an instant exploitation classic and is perfectly executed.  The movie is well written and humorous, brutal and well acted.  The Astron-6 crew have truly proven themselves with this, their first feature length film.  The film has a lot of style, from the music to the cinematography. It is shot and lit with a lot of reds and blues reminiscent of Argento.  The music is phenomenal.  From tunes similar to Bob Dylan to music as if it were right out of a Fulci film, as well as a catchy 80’s theme song “We Are the Universe.”

Some people may find all the old-man-ass a bit hard to stomach but the film doesn’t contain man-ass alone — there is also multiple footage of strippers at a strip club.  As declared, the cast was top notch.  I found myself wondering how they managed to find such a disgusting old bastard and convince him to play Chris Fuchman.  Well it turns out he’s a young dude with a phenomenal make-up job (as evident by the supplemental feature ‘Make Your Own Damn Fuchman’).  He’s definitely less disgusting in real life than his character Chris Fuchman!

Father’s Day contains about as much taboo subject matter as the Astron-6 crew could jam into its 99-minute runtime.  It contains the requisite man-rape/murder, genital mutilation, sibling incest, demons and bountiful gore, including a castration by biting as well as a kid’s eyeball sliced in half.  This is a must see film that truly encapsulates twisted 80’s exploitation and blows it out of the water.

Troma Entertainment presents Father’s Day with a 4-disc Limited Edition on Blu-ray as well as DVD.  Disc 1 contains the phenomenal looking Blu-ray version of the ‘feature film’ presented 1.78:1 anamorphic 1080p HD.  The audio is presented Dolby Digital 2.0.  The Blu-ray also contains the film’s ‘theatrical trailer.’

Disc 2 contains the DVD presentation of the film for those that aren’t HD savvy yet.

Disc 3 contains the film’s supplemental features.  We begin with ‘Deleted Scenes,’ ‘Artie and Mary’ (00:47 minutes) and ‘The Kiss’ (00:49 minutes).  Original ‘Father’s Day Foreskin’ (01:08 minutes) contains an original rough looking trailer for the film.  Next up is a longer trailer for the film entitled ‘Original Father’s Day Extended Foreskin’ (03:44 minutes).  ‘Animated Foreskin’ is a cool animated promo mixed with live action footage from the film (00:42 minutes). ‘TV Foreskin’ is a 30 second TV promo complete with cheesy voiceover.  There is a ‘Behind the Scenes Slideshow’ (04:30 minutes).  ‘Make Your Own Damn Fuchman’ (04:42 minutes) is the best extra because we see the amazing creation of Chris Fuchman with makeup.  Another feaurette is ‘Make Your Own Damn Tire Iron’ (01:40 minutes).  Moving on, ‘Roll Out The Blood Carpet: Father’s Day Premiere Nights” contains 16-minutes of footage from screenings of the film.  ‘Troma & Astron-6 Charm Festival of Fear’ (04:47 minutes) shows the panel where they announced the film and answered questions.  ‘Create Your Own Damn Award Winning Movie Poster The Duce Designs Way’ (03:24 minutes) is a weird extra.  ‘Super Tromette Elena Recreates The Low Life’ (01:16) features fully nude stills of the Tromette.  Why not?  ‘Father’s Day Article At Rue Morgue Magazine merely depicts a picture of the article from the magazine.  ‘Babies the Fathers Gave Birth To Before Birthing Father’s Day‘ contains two shorts from Astron-6, Laser Ghosts (09:18 minutes) and Cool Guys (28:40 minutes).  Finally, we get to the Tromatic Extras containing trailers for The Toxic Avenger, The Taint, Mr. Bricks, and Mother’s Day.  Rounding out the extras are ‘Make Your Own Damn Green Screen’ (16-minutes) with Lloyd Kaufman and Greg Lamberson, ‘How The Director Sells His Own Damn Movie’ (05:12 minutes) with Kaufman and James Gunn, ‘Radiation March’ (00:54 minutes) and an ‘Interview with South Park’s Matt Stone’ (25:50 minutes).

Disc 4 contains the soundtrack for Father’s Day containing the tracks “We Are the Universe,” “Answer to My Prayer,” Waiting For the Hurricane,” “Zombie,” “Blue Angel,” “The Hunter,” “Point of View,” and “Surf Rape Rock.”

Directed by: Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Steven Kostanski, Conor Sweeney
Written by: Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Steven Kostanski, Conor Sweeney
Produced by: Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman
Cinematography by: Astron-6
Editing by: Adam Brooks
Music by: Dan Bern, Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
Special effects by: Adam Brooks, Adam Graver
Cast: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Amy Groening, Mackenzie Murdock, Kevin Anderson
Year: 2011
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color
Runtime: 1h 39min

Studio: Astron-6
Distributor: Troma Entertainment

DVD SPECS:

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 16:9 1080p HD
Region: A/1
Audio: English Dolby Surround 2.0

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL:

– Theatrical Trailer
– Deleted Scenes, ‘Artie and Mary’ and ‘The Kiss’
– Original Father’s Day Foreskin
– Original Father’s Day Extended Foreskin
– Animated Foreskin
– Behind the Scenes Slideshow
– Make Your Own Damn Fuchman
– Make Your Own Damn Tire Iron
– Roll Out The Blood Carpet: Father’s Day Premiere Nights
– Troma & Astron-6 Charm Festival of Fear
– Create Your Own Damn Award Winning Movie Poster The Duce Designs Way
– Super Tromette Elena Recreates The Low Life
– Babies the Fathers Gave Birth To Before Birthing Father’s Day
– Trailer for The Toxic Avenger, The Taint, Mr. Bricks, Mother’s Day
– Make Your Own Damn Green Screen
– How The Director Sells His Own Damn Movie
– Radiation March
– Interview with South Park‘s Matt Stone
– Bonus Soundtrack CD