Background:
In 2012, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter came out. It was probably exactly what you’re thinking that it was, and Badass Digest (now known as Birth. Movies. Death., the blog component of wonderful film dork chain Alamo Drafthouse Cinema) hosted a contest.
The contest was to see who could make the best fake movie trailer, and your movie had to be based on a president having another job, akin to Lincoln moonlighting as a vampire hunter. They provided a list of “jobs” and for some reason “barbarian” was one of them.
My filmmaker group of friends thought that was hilarious and we could make our friend Jack walk around without a shirt, so why not? We chose Andrew Jackson because he was so completely ridiculous, and really hated the national bank, so there was our antagonist. All of his lines in this trailer were taken from actual Jackson speeches, and it made it even better that Nashville actually has some Andrew Jackson history to it, including a statue we feature at the end.
Needless to say, we didn’t win the contest. I’m sure this is one of those projects that only entertains those of us that made it, but it was fun nonetheless. I have a brief cameo as a politician who dies from “tuberculosis,” and staging a sword fight in a park is always a recipe for a good time. To this day my shotgun mic still has fake blood on it.
Jonathan Forisha 