Director – Max Radbill, Screenplay – Etic Looney & Max Radbill, Producers – Claire Brooks, Eric Looney, Max Radbill, Olivia Radbill & Jason Sayada, Photography – Jack Hildebrand, Music – Cazz Cerkez, Makeup Effects – Errol Spat Oktan, Production Design – Mollie Singer. Production Company – Leaflet McGillicudy Films/Stepdad Productions.
Cast
Natasha Krause (Angela Harmon), Cameron Gilliam (Nate Harmon), Chloe Mikala (Mary Callahan), Matthew Dehoff (Marcus Modeno), Kayvon Kaliush (Evan Stephens), Erik Alexis (George Washington), Matthew Friend (Abraham Lincoln), Gabriel Belotti (Andrew Jackson), Rebecca Clendaniel (Jennifer Lowry)
Plot
Angela Harmon joins her half-brother Nate at their late father’s cabin to celebrate July 4th weekend with several friends. Nate is a flag-flying patriot and eager to celebrate that greatness of America, whereas Angela is more dubious. In between their drunken antics, Nate recites from a copy of the Declaration of Independence found in their father’s study. Alcohol is then spilled over the document and Angela drops a bunch of dollar bills of various denominations onto it. They are then attacked by the resurrected zombies of former US Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson.
Re-Elected was the second film from director/writer Max Radbill who had previously made the non-genre comedy The Sisterhood of the Girls Who Won’t Date Me (2017).
Re-Elected sits right on the edge of being a bad movie and an approach that has an undeniable amusement at times. Right throughout, I was unable to decide whether it was a big dumb comedy or a smart one snidely poking fun at the parade of US nationalism that is Independence Day celebrations. Cameron Gilliam is set up as the flag-waving patriotic jock redneck against which Natasha Krause is cast as a more moderate, if not liberal, voice and gets to make some snide deflations of Gilliam’s more moronic statements. There is an undeniable humour in some of the digs made in Gilliam’s direction.
The film eventually falls down because the zombie presidents look ridiculous, being outfitted in some of the most unconvincing wigs ever used in a film. The film and characters do have a certain occasional snappy, sarcastic sense of humour that helps carry the proceedings over that. Much of the humour also requires a reasonable working knowledge of American Political Science 101 to get many of the jokes.
