By Geno McGahee
There is something incredibly charming about indie horror films from around this time. I loved going to the video stores and picking up a couple of these low budget horror films and it is a time I missed, but I’m a collector and I own just about every movie ever made. So, I dug into my collection and decided to watch MEMORIAL DAY, a 1999 slasher that I don’t think I’ve ever seen.
Around this time, horror had found a new direction with SCREAM being a huge hit but there were still a lot of FRIDAY THE 13TH fans and this film is obviously created by somebody that had an appreciation for both.
We begin with Tyra (Martine Shandles) and her boyfriend getting ready to get down, but when he goes out to his car to retrieve a condom, he gets murdered by a masked killer in a pretty shitty mask. It looks like it was made out of paper mache, but I’ve seen worse in the no budget horror world. After he kills the boyfriend, he goes upstairs and sneaks in, blindfolding Tyra and tying her to the bed. Why she never opened her eyes or realized he was wearing latex gloves is a mystery, but maybe she was just so into the passion. Maybe she assumed he put the condoms on his hands.
We now have a group of young adults on their way to a lake and they are hiding a secret that involves the death of somebody. I guess somebody knows what they did last summer, or three summers ago as the story goes. The most annoying character is Seth (Derek Nieves). One, he has yellow hair and he’s just obnoxious. He’s got a girlfriend, Reagan (Jasmine Trice). I’m not sure why she is with him or puts up with him, but it’s a movie and this might just be movie magic.
This group has a rotund friend that dresses really poorly. I’ve met plenty of fat guys that know how to dress nice, but this guy just puts on shit to make himself look really sloppy on top of having a weight problem. Just looking at him, I knew he wasn’t going to be the hero of this film and, spoiler alert, they kill him off first. I would have loved if this story was about him buying new clothing.
More details come out about the death of this guy known as “Danny Boy”, where he fell off a boat and died. The killer knows that they let Danny Boy drown three summers ago and that is what is going on here. Little did they know, Danny Boy had a brother and he is the one that is on a killing spree.
When the killer is revealed, it’s quite amusing. Because Danny Boy was disabled, the killer wanted to make everyone else disabled before he killed them. It’s a new twist on this SCREAM formula I guess.
MEMORIAL DAY gets a few points and it may not be fair to other films that I have reviewed. One, I really miss the video store days and this is one of those films that would be sitting right there when I went in, screaming “Geno rent me.” The other unfair advantage is that modern indie horror is so in the shitter that it can’t help but to look better than it did when it was first released. Why can’t indie horror filmmakers make movies like this anymore? This film has some heart and love of the game to it.
On top of the unfair advantages I give this one, I have to say that I enjoyed MEMORIAL DAY and especially liked the ending. I didn’t expect it and it was so hilariously absurd that I respected it. I’m going to recommend this one.
