The Last Ride of El Maestro: Cinco De Mayo (2013)

Cinco De Mayo (2013)

Rating: ***

Starring: Anthony Iava To'omata, Lindsay Amaral, Spencer Reza

Labeled as a menace to their little town, a humble and soft-spoken college professor of Mexican heritage gets fired from his teaching position and gets convinced by the faculty counselor that he has "Aztec blood" brewing inside him, waiting to explode into carnal violence when enough gets enough. After further threatened by overly racist neighbors and mocked by his students for trying to teach the importance of Mexican cultural heritage, this professor has one more lesson to teach this Cinco De Mayo and all those who have treated the Hispanic population unjustly will learn it in blood.

Padded with an 80s-style late night movie hostess telling us about the movie we're about to watch, as well as a faux trailer about a dance group going against a zombie apocalypse, Cinco De Mayo (2013) is a small movie done with an even smaller budget, but with big aspirations and ideas! Its relatively simple plot of a quite man finally snapping into violence is a tale as old as time, but the racial tone and social commentary keep things interesting, especially when our main character and soon-to-be masked slasher isn't exactly the worse person to crawl out of the story, making his killing spree all the more fun to watch.

For a micro-budget slasher, acting is mostly okay and some of the score actually fits the kind of tale of terror presented here, not to mention the direction's perfectly paced and the kill effects are pretty good considering the minuscule funds. It does, however, lack style in cinematography with too many open spaces and lightning problems, its audio occasionally clips and the editing tries hard to replicate the old scuffed-up Grindhouse feel on a budget, only to come off as distracting. These are common pitfalls you would expect from a do-it-yourself passion project and there's no doubt that this will not win a lot of people over, but if you can overlook the rough edges and patchwork, the film can be a real guilty pleasure.

Honestly, Cinco De Mayo (2013) is an alright movie. It's nothing new for a holiday slasher and it's definitely within the lower spectrum of what can be considered as quality work, but it has effort and an enjoyable indie touch. Entertaining enough to check out!

Bodycount:

1 male shot

1 male stabbed in the chest with a hunting knife

1 male had his face shredded with a weed whacker

1 male hanged on a noose, beaten dead with a baseball bat

1 male gets a miniature flag to the eye, stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 male stabbed in the neck with a hunting knife

1 male decapitated with a sword

1 male ran through the back with a sword, impaled in the mouth with a flag

Total: 8