Happy Labor Day, everyone! Wait a second, what the heck is Labor Day? We all know when it occurs, and that we typically get the day off of work the Monday on which it falls, but I’m willing to bet that the bulk of Americans don’t really know what Labor Day represented, when it started, or why we celebrate. A quick, quick history lesson: Labor Day was started in March of 1886 by president Grover Cleveland to commemorate those lost and unfairly treated during the Haymarket Massacre, an infamous riot that took place after a labor strike.
And while I don’t want to make light of the tragedies of 1886, Labor Day has, in the modern age, become something of a limp holiday. It is barely remembered by kids, and possessed of no traditional signifiers other than a day off of school, and – for those of us working in the film industry – the official end of the Summer movie season. And guess what? There was a movie based on Labor Day.
Check Out: The 12 Days of Killmas (Video)
The tradition of Holiday movies is hardly novel; Christmas and Halloween movies are legion and stretch back decades, if not a whole century. But some enterprising filmmakers have – in occasional spastic fits of creative desperation – tried to make other holidays “happen” for filmgoing audiences. If it worked for something like, oh, Friday the 13th, then maybe the following holidays can also be exploited as fodder for drama. The lesson to be learned here: If you start with a lame holiday, you come up with a lame movie.
Slideshow: 8 Lame Holiday Movies About 8 Lame Holidays
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly Trolling articles here on Crave, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
8 Lame Holiday Movies About 8 Lame Holidays
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April Fool's Day (2008)
Holiday: April Fool's Day
In 1986, largely in response to the ultra-successful Friday the 13th franchise, Paramount elected to make a film called April Fool's Day, a slasher film set on the titular holiday, involving murders and crazy twin sisters. The original is a serviceable '80s slasher, if not a particularly notable one. In 2008, however, someone thought to remake the film in the newly-minted “grim 'n' gritty” and “remake everything” idioms. The film went straight to home video, and was instantly forgotten. And why was it forgotten? Ask any critic or fan, and you'll understand why.
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New Year's Evil (1980)
Holiday: New Year's Eve
This cheapie horror film from the immortal Cannon Group involves a serial killer who is killing people every hour, on the hour, to coincide with the world celebrating New Year's Day. New Year's Eve has always been a stressful holiday for unattached people, forcing them to drink and/or find someone to kiss to ring in the New Year. The premise of New Year's Evil is fine, I suppose, but the execution is cheap and odd and not as entertaining as it perhaps should be. The extended band sequences certainly bog the film down. Maybe New Year's Evil doesn't suck, but it's not great either.
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Leprechaun (1993)
Holiday: St. Patrick's Day
I think we're all familiar with the bafflingly tenacious cultural reputation of the 1993 turkey Leprechaun and its five sequels (and an upcoming remake!). Many of us have seen it. But why have we all seen it? This film is not creative, pretty dang dull, and the monster isn't scary. Its lame attempts at humor don't really crack a smile either. We may think of the Leprechaun in vaunted terms, but we must remember that his movie wasn't good. The story is simple: An evil leprechaun escapes from a crate and murders a few people. I think Leprechaun is a case of massive snarkiness influencing the mass view of a bad movie. If I were Irish, I would blush at the thought of this movie, and cry over some of its sequels.
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Uncle Sam (1996)
Holiday: Independence Day
There is a lot to be said about knowing your own country's history, although I'm not sure how eating potato salad and setting things on fire worked their way into that knowledge. Although written by B-movie luminary Larry Cohen, and directed by Maniac Cop impresario William Lustig, the July 4th-themed 1996 horror movie Uncle Sam is still a stinker. This straight-to-video slasher is about a soldier who, after being killed by friendly fire in Kuwait, returns from the dead, dresses as Uncle Sam, and kills people in his small hometown. It's hard to say if the film was meant to be funny or not, as the gags or so lame and the horror so limp.
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Spring Break Shark Attack (2005)
Holiday: Spring Break
Spring Break – if Harmony Korine's 2013 film is any indication – has been codified in the minds of college kids as one of the prime opportunities to indulge in sexual and hedonistic excess. Setting a movie during Spring Break seems like a no-brainer: There are lots and lots of chances for the filmmakers to include nudity and sex. Throw that nudity in front of a shark, and your film makes itself. So why is the lame, lame 2005 TV movie Spring Break Shark Attack so awful? Oh right: Because its a TV movie, and the required nudity and sex had to be left out. Also, the shark attacks were achieved with some cheap special effects, making the actual violence pretty toothless as well. Here's how not to make an exploitation movie.
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Thankskilling (2009)
Holiday: Thanksgiving
I have always kind of hated Thanksgiving. I hate the foods served on the Thanksgiving table, and since most of my family lived in town, going to see them wasn't a special event. While there may be a proper Thanksgiving-themed slasher movie coming soon, the only one we have so far is this, ahem, turkey. Thankskilling is another near-spoof horror comedy that is neither scary nor funny. It follows the misadventures of a foul-mouthed talking turkey named Turkie who murders people, has sex with people, and cusses a blue streak. In concept, that may sound fun, but in execution, it makes you want to tear your hair out.
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2012 (2009)
Holiday: The Mayan End of the World
Of the bold, brassy, and overblown Roland Emmerich-directed cycle of world destruction movies (Also included: Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla), 2012 is the largest, longest, and most devastating. It's also probably the worst. In it, the Earth decides that it has had enough, and shifts its own crust for no good reason. The result is worldwide earthquakes, environmental disaster, and the flooding of entire continents. The people living on Earth race to giant arks to survive. 2012 is the loudest, most clichéd, and preachiest of all disaster movies, making it both perfect and unbelievably stupid.
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Labor Day (2014)
Holiday: Labor Day
Released in January of this year, Labor Day was a bafflingly sedate and largely misogynistic drama from Jason Reitman. Kate Winslet starred as an emotionally damaged widow who is rescued and repaired by James Brolin, an escaped-prisoner-cum-Flawless-Rescue-Stud. Winslet's character is a weepy, insignificant shrinking violet who is nearly comatose with grief, but is still somehow irresistible. Although her main concern is that she may not be able to become pregnant with her new boyfriend's child – even though she already has a 12-year-old son. It's a dull, achingly offensive movie that does nothing to explore the character of Labor Day.
