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Released by: Camp Motion Pictures
Released on: March 14th, 2017.
Director: Jeremy Todd Morehead
Cast: Robert Z'Dar, Jeremy Todd Morehead, Jason Delgado, Ari Lehman
Year: 2014
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The Movie:
One of the late, GREAT, Robert Z'Dar's final movies was Jeremy Todd Morehead's crowdfunded 2014 slasher comedy, Easter Sunday. A very low budget shot on video production, the story here takes place twenty-four years after a serial killer named Douglas Fisher was killed. Known as The Bunny Masked Killer, he was killed by the cops late one Easter Sunday evening after slaughtering his own family and a few other unfortunates who got in his way.
But in the modern day, a group of teenagers in a rock band called the Heartbeaters are out to have a good time. Led by Jeremiah (played by Morehead himself), they wind up accidentally summoning Fisher's spirit from beyond the grave, which is bad, because one of their members, Ryan (Jason Delgado), is a relative of the late Douglas Fisher. With Fisher back up to his old tricks, aided and abetted by a crazed mailman (Ari Lehman), the teenagers find themselves in a race against time to find a way to send Fisher back from whence he came before the clock strikes midnight. If they can't, the safety of everyone in town is at stake. Thankfully the cop who took him down the first time (Z'Dar) is on hand to help…
Easter Sunday isn't a perfect film but it's an entertaining piece of low budget hokum that sets out to entertain and succeeds. The script crams in more puns than you'll care to count and if you've got an aversion to this sort of goofy comedy, the movie might not be what you're looking for - however, those who can appreciate the intentionally cornball comedy that the film dolls out should get a kick out of this. The movie also features some pretty decent kill scenes. Not all of them work as well as they should (low budget practical effects are almost always better than low budget digital effects, and when CGI is employed in Easter Sunday it tends to fall flat) but some of them are pretty great. If the script, like a lot of low budget horror pictures, crams in references to other, better known genre efforts (an annoying trend that persists for inexplicable reasons), so be it, it doesn't happen enough to sink this ship.
The acting is entertaining enough. Of course, the main draw here is to see Z'Dar, sadly not in the best of shape, doing his thing. Like he does in most films, he gives it a good shot here and his cop is an entertaining and memorable character. It's also amusing to see Ari Lehman pop up here and go over the top a few times. Morehead and Delgado are fine in their roles too, while the supporting cast are all amusing enough here, even if it's clear that some of the cast members aren't as experienced as some of the others.
Well-paced and smart enough not to overstay its welcome, Easter Sunday is worth checking out for fans of quirky, goofy, low budget slasher films.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen presentation offers good black levels and nice, lifelike color reproduction. The shot on digital video movie is nice and clean, and the disc is well authored so there aren't any serious compression issues. Some light banding and minor shimmer pops up here and there but otherwise, this looks as good as it probably should (some scenes were clearly lit and framed better than others).
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track, the only option, is fine. Dialogue is generally easy to understand and while there are a couple of spots where the levels jump, these are rare exceptions. Overall the movie sounds pretty good, music is used well and the sound effects come through with some solid resonance. There are no subtitles or closed captioning options provided.
The main extra on the disc is an hour long making of documentary that covers a whole lot of the movie's creative process, with an emphasis in the first chunk at least on the crowdfunding used the get the movie made. As the documentary progresses we also get some insight into the effects work featured in the picture, which members of the cast and crew were responsible for what, and quite a bit more. This is quite well made and genuinely interesting, at least it is if you have an interest in low budget filmmaking and/or Robert Z'Dar (who gets a lot of love in this piece).
Outside of that we get a bunch of trailers for other Camp Motion Pictures releases, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Easter Sunday throws in so many bad puns and goofy gags that it's clear from the start that you're not meant to take it too seriously - so why even try? Accept this one for the goofy slasher throwback that it is, marvel to all that was the mighty Z'Dar and give in to this movie's stupid charms. If you can get to that point, Easter Sunday is a lot of fun.
