A Beary Traumatic Experience: Arbor Day (1990)

Arbor Day (1990)

Rating: ***

Starring: Scott Bradshaw, Chris Calomino, Michael Calomino

So what do you get when you cross the spoof comedy of Airplane! (1980) with the paint-by-number tropes of a slasher flick? Probably Student Bodies (1981). National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982). Wacko! (1982). Pandemonium (1982). Scary Movie (2000), even. Well, joining in this cavalcade of comedic creeps is a film lost for three decades after its initial run through art houses, comedy clubs and indie theaters midnight screenings around 1992 West Babylon, NY. Unearthed and restored from the nothing via a successful crowdfunding, it is now here to terrorize and satire one of America's most beloved National Holiday, one that is cherished by men, women, children, quadrupeds of all age, gender and race.  It is now here to show that no holiday is safe anymore, not even... Arbor Day! 

Opening with a black-and-white callback to gothic horror (and, for some reason, Citizen Kane (1941)), we see an elderly man expiring after uttering the word Arbor Day, which the visiting doctor believes is a reference to what happened many years ago, when everything is in color; cue in a flashback of our psycho-killer, Elmer Jacobs, is a kid, celebrating Arbor Day by finding a spot to plant a tree with his dad and mom, the latter very likely a man in a dress. Things go horribly bad, however, when dad spots a man in a bear suit and cockily played with it to show young Elmer that there's nothing to be afraid of, only for his noggin to be clawed off while his wife gets mauled (and apparently raped) by the angry grizzly. 

The horrors of that memory left Elmer catatonic in an insane asylum over the years to come, all except during the one day when his brain activity gets restored and his strength gets a big buff: Arbor Day. As an annual precaution, the doctors and nurses do their best to avoid mentioning his parents' deaths or show anything bear-related during the holiday under the risk of triggering Elmer's murderous rampage. This year, however, an orderly made the mistake of mocking him just minutes before the clock strikes midnight at Arbor Day, igniting Elmer's killing spree as he eventually escapes and slay a few more randomly placed people along the way.

In come our casts of hapless victims-to-be consisting of a cool guy stoner, an annoying prick of a prankster, a pair of babes, an unremarkable final girl and her geeky kid brother. The gang is celebrating Arbor Day inside Elmer's abandoned home, an idea so terrible that a random doom-sayer manifests himself out of some nearby bushes, enthusiastically telling them that they'll be sorry if they go in any further. And as any of you would have guessed, they still did. They all went inside. And now they have to face the murderous wrath of Elmer Jacobs, now armed with deadly gardening tools and donning a handmade paper daisy mask...

Oh, and there's a detective who's supposed to be out trailing on our killer, but he's busy pigging on Arbor Day turkey and cake.  

As a slasher parody, Arbor Day (1990) does its fair job of lampooning the tropes slasher films are built upon, from the tendencies of the killer suddenly going superhuman after long periods being a vegetable, to the obnoxious use of caricatures as character personalities. At times, the humor can get too silly and overcooked whenever it focuses too much on a joke, like this one gag where the killer tries to cut a simple phone line only for his efforts to be dwarfed by the unusual strength of the cable, or when the finale is practically just one fake out to the next that seems to go on forever, though the intentional unhinged direction these gags run on does have its enthusiastic charm. A kind of silly playfulness with a clear goal to be simply entertaining despite being made under a production budget that's obviously cheap considering the flick's abundance of terrible costumes and make-up, the rubbery special effects and intentionally atrocious acting. Heck, one could even say that the clunky, shoestring production may as well help build up the movie's insane sense of humor for how hammy the sight gags can get!

Any horror elements still present in Arbor Day can be found through its collection of murders and its generous amount of bloodletting and gore. In execution and tone, though, they're in par with the cartoony nature of the film, even more so when the killer committing them is the type of maniac who thinks a giant papercraft daisy a kid can make in kindergarten counts as a threatening slasher mask, or daydreams about their potential future with the final girl should he decided to turn over a new leaf as a loving husband! (A random emotional ballad in the movie did say that behind every masked killer, there's a regular guy!) Frankly, I find the killer here to be the movie's strongest point as everything from his (very preventable) tragic childhood to his refusal to die from being shot with submachine guns and a fiery house explosion is just one outrageously jokey, tongue-in-cheek stab at a slasher trope and I love every one of them! 

A lost satirical gem that deserves a growing audience, Arbor Day (1990) can be a tad rough in its edges, but it sheer ridiculousness and bonkers bodycounting makes it enough to be a worthwhile slasher spoof to scratch one's itch for crazed obscure comedies. Watch it with friends or watch it alone, see it sober or redonkulously drunk, chuckles are guaranteed!

Bodycount:

1 elderly male dies of old age

1 male decapitated by a man in a bear suit

1 female mauled and molested to death by a man in a bear suit

1 male had his gullet disemboweled

1 male killed offscreen

1 male killed offscreen, got a fishing rod through his head

1 female brained with a shovel, guts scooped out 

1 male gets a water hose shoved down his throat and inflated with water, bursts open

1 male decapitated with a weed whacker (Not the way you think, though)

1 male and 1 female squashed with hurled bags of fertilizer

1 boy had his head twisted around

1 male mauled apart by a man in a bear suit

Total: 13