Terrifier 3 (2024)

OCTOBER 10, 2024

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PREMIERE SCREENING)

Given their phenomenal success and my own status as an easy mark for slasher movies, it may surprise you to learn that I cannot count myself as a huge fan of the Terrifier franchise. There's a lot to appreciate in the first two, no doubt, but the tonal shifts, sluggish editing, and random plotting keep me at arm's length; I've never been the guy who watches a F13 just for the kills, but when I watch these films that's pretty much all I'm there for. But I also watched the first two films at home on Blu-ray instead of in theaters, so I figured that seeing Terrifier 3 with an excited opening night crowd, along with the series' biggest budget yet, would result in some "third time's the charm" kind of reaction.

Alas, it didn't make much of a difference. The tonal shifts have been reduced (Art is less torture-y this time around; no salt in the wound or cat o' nine tails action), but it's still got that "Are we watching the assembly cut or a final edit?" feeling. And while it's not too random with its plotting for the most part, the climax just goes way off the rails with nonsense; I don't want to spoil anything but I have to note that I was not expecting to suddenly be thinking about Return of the Living Dead and Passion of the Christ as this slasher movie reached its conclusion, not to mention an out of nowhere _____ (it's on the living room floor) tossed into the mix with seconds left in the runtime. Again, I didn't DISLIKE it, but I can't help but feel disappointed that the same issues were present yet again.

Part of the problem is that it takes forever to get going. In the first 20 minutes, we get an extended (and ultimately completely disconnected) kill sequence, a resolution of T2's epilogue shocker, and finally a scene that sets up the film's five year time jump. Then we catch up with Jonathan and Sienna, the former at college and the latter just being released from a facility where she has been presumably letting her mind heal. She's off to live with her mom's sister and her family, trying hard to be normal but still having flashes of her dead friends, and doing her best to be sisterly to her little cousin who is unaware of her past but keeps sneaking peeks at her diary.

But here's the thing: by the 45 minute mark we haven't really gotten much further than what I already said. Vicky is now immortal like Art, for some reason, and also more or less taking the place of The Little Pale Girl (who is MIA and never mentioned) but there's no discernible explanation for this suddent shift in her character. In fact, since she birthed Art's new head, having him be vulnerable now due to her inferior DNA or something would have maybe made more sense? To be fair she makes for a more interesting partner than LPG, but it felt more like a decision based around maybe that actress being unavailable and not wanting to recast, as opposed to a purely creative one.

And for a two hour movie, there really should be more to the plot than "Art's back and wants to finish the job by killing Sienna and Jonathan." A chance encounter with a drunk mall Santa gives him new duds for this adventure (this scene is probably the movie's best, thanks to fun turns from Daniel Roebuck as Santa and Clint Howard as his drinking buddy, plus Art's genuine excitement about meeting "Santa"), but the reveal is slightly underwhelming since we saw it already in the movie's cold open (which, again, never relates to anything else that happens, despite the sequence ending on a cliffhanger of its own). And he takes his sweet time getting to them; the film is actually about 15 minutes shorter than the previous one (thank you!) but at times it felt even longer due to Art having no real urgency to complete his mission and very little else to the narrative.

It also curiously leaves some scenes off-screen. Sienna returns to the Terrifer to find her sword, believing it can kill Art, but we don't see any of his occur; she just comes home with it along with some dirty hands to sell the idea. With so much of the movie set either on Jonathan's campus or Sienna's new house, the change in scenery would have been welcome. More troubling, however, is that two major kills occur offscreen entirely, one of which is done to try to delay a surprise, but it doesn't really land. Basically Vicky tells Sienna that a mangled head is ______'s, but after a couple minutes her and Art reveal that person is alive and the head is actually _____'s. But the issue is, their proof is still flimsy, so it feels like it's yet another ruse, only the person seemingly is really dead because they never return. Also the movie ends on the series' most abrupt cliffhanger yet a few minutes later, so it's just a completely ineffective way of sending this character off.

All that said, it's certainly firing on all cylinders when it comes to being a Christmas slasher; even though I didn't like it as much as I hoped I would, I'm sure I'll add it to my mix of holiday horror along with the three Black Christmases, the Silent Night Deadly Nights, Christmas Bloody Christmas, etc. In addition to Art's Santa suit, everywhere he goes is decked out in full force with lights and decor, the soundtrack's got a lot of the standards, and it's even got some snow, which puts it above every SNDN sequel (all of them were shot in LA and certainly didn't have the dough for fake stuff). I wish he had implemented some seasonally appropriate weaponry into the mix (come on, you know my man coulda done wonders with an icicle or even a fireplace poker) but it's hard to miss that sort of thing when he has brought a chainsaw, liquid nitrogen, and rats along this time around. The FX continue to impress, and there's a cameo from a certain makeup guru that feels like he's giving it his blessing, which must have been an amazing score for the creative team. And David Howard Thornton is giving a truly great performance as Art, who never makes a sound and yet has a complete and identifiable personality; his reactions and expressions rarely fail to amuse and his physicality is up there with Robert Englund in Freddy's heyday.

The acting from the supporting cast is also much better than the previous entries as well, thanks to having the budget for more professional actors. In addition to Roebuck and Howard, Jason Patric also pops in for a few scenes (don't want to say as who, it's kind of a reveal), and Bryce Johnson from Willow Creek does some nice work as Sienna's sympathetic uncle. Lauren Lavera has a lot more range to display this time around (it's actually surprising how little time she interacts with Art as they are basically in two different movies for the most part; it's akin to Halloween Ends on that level), dealing with her PTSD, being a surrogate big sister to her cousin, but also having some adult bonding time with her aunt (her mother's sister) and trying to keep close to Jonathan, who is away at school and just trying to live a normal life.

I honestly think that with some judicious editing that this could easily be the best of the three, thanks to all I mentioned in the last two paragraphs. With improved acting and character work, a more consistent tone, and the fact that I'm an easy mark for Xmas slashing, it's really just the at times interminable pacing that kept me from enjoying it as much as I probably would have if someone came in and got it down to 90 or even 100 minutes. Like, the opening scene is solid, but it also runs 10 minutes and without any connection to the rest, in retrospect you look back at it and realize it could have been cut in half, which would make it more effective in its job (which, as anyone can tell, is to give the movie an opening kill before a long chunk of getting the audience up to speed). With the film slated to maybe even top the weekend box office (which is insane and awesome) the 4th film is a guarantee, and I'll be there, but I will no longer hold out hope that the pacing (which has been an issue for all three films, even the mercifully-in-retrospect 84 minute original) will ever be more to my liking. Here's hoping they can at least keep coming up with good kills and funny stuff for Thornton to do to make up for it.

What say you?

P.S. The film was showing as part of an event to debut the new Ice Nine Kills video (which I thought was great but as their one time lawyer I'm a bit biased!). Since the T3 trailer spoils half the kills, I'm putting the video here instead, though you have to sign in to watch due to all the gore (!!!). Enjoy!

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Thanksgiving (2023)

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

GENRE: HOLIDAY, SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (ADVANCED SCREENING)

It's kind of funny that Scream was supposed to kill the idea of doing a slasher film and yet it's only the success of parts 5 and 6 that we finally, FINALLY have the feature version of Thanksgiving that's been in the works for over 16 years, after winning fans over with its faux trailer during Grindhouse (a film that flopped and yet has inspired several films from its fake trailers - this is the fourth after two Machetes and Hobo With A Shotgun) - not to mention all the movies since that aped its dirty/scratched look). Spyglass was the production company that successfully relaunched Ghostface, and smartly not wanting to put all their eggs in one basket, they made Eli Roth an offer to fulfill this long overdue promise. Was it worth the wait?

Somewhat surprisingly, yes! Luckily, Roth and his writing partner Jeff Rendell realized early on that they couldn't just flesh out the trailer (which had no actual story to it, just kills) and make a real movie out of it. Instead, per Roth at a post-screening Q&A, they decided to treat the trailer as a lost slasher of yore and write the would-be remake/reboot/rewhatever of it instead. So there are a few moments from the trailer that are recreated here (the sight of a trampoline produced an audience cheer as if an A-list star just made a surprise cameo), but not all of them, and I think it was the right move - it allowed us to get into the movie as we would any other, but with a few fan service moments like that to remind us that having fun was the order of the day.

It's also got a terrific hook for the obligatory tragedy that sends our masked killer out for revenge a year later: a Black Friday stampede that leaves a couple people dead/injured. The Wal-Mart type store is owned by one of our hero teens' fathers, so they use their privilege to sneak in a few minutes before opening to buy a new phone, prompting the impatient mob outside to break through the metal fencing and storm the store, crushing a security guard, an employee's wife, etc and also breaking the arm of the local high school sports star, ending his promising career. So not only is it an epic way to open the movie and give us some spectacle for the incident (as opposed to the usual accidental *single* death like in Prom Night), but it also opens up the suspect pool more than we are used to for such things. The injured kid could be getting revenge for his destroyed career, the husband could be avenging his wife, etc., while the privileged teens, the rioters, and the store staff are all to blame in some way.

And the killer (named John Carver after the famous pilgrim/governor of Plymouth, MA, where the film is set) is the best kind of revenge slasher, where he mostly sticks to the people who were involved and doesn't add randoms to the mix when it suits him. Since I recently rewatched I Know What You Did Last Summer, a movie I don't like much anyway, I couldn't help but think of how the fisherman actually kills more people who had nothing to do with him/the main group than the ones he was actually mad at. That's not the case here; the killer's identity isn't exactly difficult to parse out, but their motive is actually quite strong (almost sympathetic!) and they rarely go outside of their target group (in fact I think Carver merely tranquilizes a few "in the way" people who had nothing to do with the stampede, but I'm not 100% sure).

Plus, the kills are all on the ridiculous side of things, and many have something to do with cooking/dinner. One gets corn cob holders to the ears, another is basted and roasted, etc - it's a nice change of pace from Scream VI, in which more people actually died by gunshot than knives (if they died at all; another nice thing here - no one's invincible). Roth knows better than to hold back from the gore, and it is glorious right from the start, as a man's neck is lacerated on broken glass as he storms into the store (and then proceeds to try to grab a toaster oven anyway). The MPA has gotten more lenient over the years to be sure, but even on that level, there were one or two kills that had me momentarily wondering if this was some sort of unrated cut, just because you don't see this type of stuff in major studio (Sony!) theatrical releases anymore. Not that you NEED this sort of thing for a slasher to work (Halloween, my favorite, has next to no blood and the kills are all rather pedestrian even by existing standards - nothing like the unicorn in Black Christmas!) but you also kind of want to feel that the person calling the shots loves them as much as you do, and that's a good way to prove it and let you know it's OK to cheer at this or that demise.

Because make no mistake, this is very much a fun slasher film in the vein of Jason Lives or Hatchet, where it's not that you dislike the victims (in general; there's a few you're supposed to hate) but the tone suggests you're not hoping they all get away either. And it's aided by the genuine humor, in particular a local gun/alcohol salesman who is using the events to drum up business but is also seemingly a genuinely good dude that ends up saving the day (not with a gun or alcohol). Roth - a native Masshole like me - also gets lots of mileage out of our well-known anger issues; I don't think the movie is five minutes old before we are treated to our first of many "Faaack you!"s. The accents are also on point; the angrier people have the "Hahhvahhhd Yaaahd" thing going but the people with actual normal volume dialogue keep it in check. Patrick Dempsey as the town sheriff (no Michael Biehn like the trailer, alas) is particularly good, but turns out he's from Maine and has been faking a "normal" one for his whole career, so I guess he was happy to just use his real voice for once. It sadly wasn't shot in Massachusetts, but whatever Canadian town they used is a pretty good stand-in - it's only the lack of decorum (read: Patriots jerseys and Dunkin Donuts cups) that spoils the illusion. On that note, my actual hometown got used as the butt of a joke, so that along with the gruesome death of someone named Collins has me thinking Roth might be mad at me about something (or he just has no idea I exist and it's a coincidence. One of those.).

I only have two minor gripes. One is that the heroine is kind of a blank page; nothing against the performer, but I couldn't tell you a single thing about her by the end of the movie, so she's one of the "final girl by default" types and I expect a little better from Roth in that department, since he played against expectations so well in his earlier films. The other was some wonky plotting regarding "who was there that night", treating it as a mystery of sorts when there isn't one? There's a subplot about the store's security camera footage being erased that results in two weird plot points: our heroine says her father has a backup, which makes no sense once we know who deleted the store's footage, because there's no reason for them to not delete that one too. And I couldn't quite track why they needed it in the first place, because one of our hero teens filmed the whole thing and put it on Youtube, so that along with eyewitness accounts (which apparently just don't exist?) should have been all the cops needed anyway. It felt reverse engineered, as if Roth/Rendell were still awkwardly trying to fit together elements from their trailer or something. And it's more of a funny issue than a serious one, but apparently one victim is identified by their legs, since Carver keeps their upper half for his dinner table tableau (very Happy Birthday to Me/Madhouse) and yet the news reports name the person instantly.

Other than that, I had a blast. It checked so many boxes for me (A masked slasher! Halloween homages! Over the top kills! People with Masshole accents shouting profanity!) that I think Roth would have had to stop the movie cold and have each actor say something derogatory about my mother for me to be not on board with what it was serving. Your mileage will vary of course; I know Roth's style just rubs people the wrong way, but as a fan of most of his films (Death Wish is the only one I dislike I think?) I was happy to see him dive into his first proper slasher, since he's confessed his love for such fare from the early days of his career but had never actually made one. And I know not everyone will find "Hanover sucks!" as funny as I do (it's a "well-to-do" town in Massachusetts, so yeah, they suck), so other audiences might not get QUITE as much of the humor, but I'm confident that the kills, the gore, the all-purpose humor (two things to look out for: a thermometer ding and a cat being fed), and well rounded cast will be more than enough to make your ticket price worthwhile.

What say you?

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Halloween Ends (2022)

OCTOBER 11, 2022

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (ADVANCED SCREENING)

It's funny: on the same day I was confirmed for a screening of Halloween Ends, the new 4K UHD set of 6-8 arrived at my door. This odd release (which is spread across and finishes two of the series' continuities and contains none of the films that are setting up said continuities) finishes the main franchise's conversion to the 4K format (leaving only the two Rob Zombie remakes), so Halloween "Ended" twice for me in the span of a few hours. And in Resurrection, Laurie Strode famously died - would I be seeing this character die yet again?

Well obviously I won't be spoiling that much, but it's impossible to talk about this movie without getting into something that's been more or less hidden from the marketing (though I feel one could suss it out if they put enough thought into what they were seeing and what they WEREN'T seeing). So if you want a totally clean experience, best to just bow out now and come back later, but I'll leave you with one spoiler-free thought: if you thought Kills was too much of a swing (and a miss), then you best not even bother with this one. This one swings even harder, to the point where you can conceivably forget for a long stretch that it's even a Halloween movie. If your ideal entry has lots of Michael Myers doing lots of Michael Myers-y things, this film is not for you.

(FINAL SPOILER WARNING! Plot details will be "spoiled" but I will not get into the film's ending.)

OK, for those still here, you've presumably seen the trailer or read enough about the movie (or maybe even saw it by now; it's posting before release but these reviews are here forever!) and thus have caught wind of a character named Corey Cunningham. Given John Carpenter's continued involvement the name Cunningham (as in Arnie) can't be a coincidence; he's very much like the Christine protagonist: awkward, shy, bullied, etc. His problems - as is the case with many a Haddonfield resident - began on a Halloween night, though I'll refrain from saying how (if you've seen the movie, I think you can agree it's one of the film's best shocks) except to note that they were in 2019, and now it's 2022 - a four year jump from the events of the previous two films.

It's an odd shift that the movie never really smooths over; for starters we barely know Corey enough to understand how he's changed since then, but it's just as equally "off" that we get no sense of how Karen's death affected Laurie. The movie really needed something like (stick with me here) Avengers: Endgame, where they get their revenge on Thanos in the first 15 minutes and THEN spring the jump forward on us. When we first see Laurie and Allyson here, they're both seemingly over it - Laurie's even decorating her (new) house for Halloween and baking a pumpkin pie! Since the last film ended literally on Karen's death, we've never even seen how Allyson got the news, only a few hours after her dad died, that she lost her mother too. It's the most character driven entry in this trilogy (which has already been more focused on the characters of the three women more than any other entry in the series save maybe Zombie's Halloween II), but it's also bizarrely missing a big piece. (That Karen is represented from a photo taken during a deleted scene of the 2018 film almost seems like a weird acknowledgement that they know they're just kind of brushing her off.)

But anyway, eventually Corey's path crosses with Laurie's, when he's being bullied by some local jerks over his Halloween past, which naturally earns her sympathy. He has an injury, and Allyson is now working for HMH, so she successfully plays matchmaker by bringing him there. Allyson and Corey bond over his injury and also her busted car (he in turn works at an auto shop/junkyard, another Christine nod), go on a date, etc. Meanwhile, Laurie reconnects with Frank (my man Will Patton) and seems to have her shit together for once! She's even writing a memoir about her ordeals; one hopes she can get Sidney "Out of Darkness" Prescott to write the foreword.

You might notice that I haven't mentioned Michael Myers. Well, that's because... he just isn't in it for a while. He makes exactly one non-killing appearance in the first hour (yes, HOUR) of the film, and it's an important scene, yes, but given that this is supposedly the series finale it's very strange how the marquee villain sits most of it out. Did they learn nothing from Jason Goes To Hell? Then again (OK, final spoiler warning!) maybe that's also intentional, because in that one appearance he seems to transfer his evil to Corey, much like JGTH's makers thought the best sendoff for their own boogeyman was to leave him on the sidelines for most of the movie. But at least there he had that great opening in the cabin! Again, this is why I feel the movie really could have used a 2018-set prologue where Laurie (and Allyson, perhaps) tracks him down after he murdered Karen, maybe let him kill some rando (or even Lindsey, who returns but has no purpose), and then let Laurie "kill" him in the usual (read: not effective) manner. Instead they just say he disappeared for all those years, which really rang false to me. He's just in a sewer tunnel in town - we know Haddonfield PD isn't the best police force in the world, but are they really so ineffective that they'd just shrug him off after he murdered over 40 people in a single night? Didn't they, you know, look?

Anyway, yeah: Corey takes on villain duties for the bulk of the film, sometimes even when wearing Myers' mask (so in addition to JGTH, there's a little New Beginning in there). I'm not opposed to this, I should stress - I think it's an interesting idea and I've certainly seen the real McCoy do his thing enough in 11 other films. My issue is both the placement (again, in the "last" film) and the awkward way we return to this world after Kills, where it feels like we missed a movie in between. I know Covid forced them to change plans a bit, but I can't imagine any scenario where they couldn't have just had a less awkward first act that could solve a lot of the movie's issues (shrugging off Karen, Myers' long absence, etc.). I mean, the movie's almost two hours long, brings back every surviving character (not that there are a lot), introduces several new people and locations - it doesn't FEEL like a movie that's hamstrung by the pandemic in any way. To sum up, they're already asking a lot of the fanbase to accept a movie that doesn't have their "hero" in it for the entire first half (and has him split duties for the second half), but they ask even more of us by doing it in a way that seems needlessly clumsy.

Once it gets going, it works really well, and will satisfy folks who were burned by Kills. It's not on kill overload (it's got a decent body count, but well south of the previous film's record high) and there's no "Evil dies tonight" or anything like that - it's just the usual brand of carnage, highlighted by a sequence at the junkyard where the Shape takes on four jerk teens. The movie occasionally dips into the weird melodramatic dialogue that David Gordon Green and his writers seemingly love (most prominently in a bar scene with a victim's father), but never to the point of derailing the whole thing like in the previous film. It doesn't even have any humor of note; a little bit of cutesy stuff between Laurie and Frank and a couple lines from Corey's father are the only attempts in the entire movie at making the audience smile.

And (not really a spoiler here, it's in the trailer and also obvious) the big showdown between Laurie and Michael is very satisfying, although it has very little buildup - you might not even realize that you're watching the climax until it's, well, VERY OBVIOUSLY the climax. I chalk that up to the lengthy setup period and the fact that most movies are seemingly over two hours now; by the time Myers is actually up and about and doing his thing, there's not much of the (1:50) movie left, but without knowing the runtime and just going off the "feel" of the film's pacing you might assume there's another half hour or so to go when he finds himself facing Laurie again. It doesn't help that Lindsey just disappears from the story at a certain point, and it's not until the very end I even realized that Frank was still working as a cop since there was no police presence in the movie (Sheriff Cowboy Hat only appears in two shots in what's essentially an epilogue); after taking forever to get going, they suddenly start racing through things.

The good news is: the stuff that works? It works REALLY well. Jamie Lee is terrific, seemingly fired up after spending so much of the last movie in bed (and perhaps a bit energized knowing it's almost certainly, definitely, for realsies no takebacks, the last time she'll play Laurie Strode), and Rohan Campbell (Corey) is the rarest of things in this series: a sympathetic young male character. Even when he starts doing awful things, it's hard not to root for him to shake it off and beat his demons, knowing they were triggered by just the absolute worst luck (twice!). Patton doesn't have much to do but he seems happy to be there (and his puppy dog affection for Laurie remains the most endearing thing to me), and Andi Matichak has finally gotten to really shine as a lead without being overshadowed by Curtis (in 2018) and the entire damn town (Kills). And with what little he has to do, James Jude Courtney remains an effective Shape - there's still no stalking of note, but at this point it'd almost be weird if there was since Green has shown no interest in it in his previous two outings. And - probably goes without saying - the Carpenter/Carpenter/Davies score is terrific, with Corey's character giving them some new motifs and one big cue in particular (called "The Procession", already available on streaming) is as epic as it should be given the scene it accompanies.

But only patient viewers will be rewarded, and you gotta deal with some weird plot points (Allyson was apparently dating a cop that's like fifteen years older than her? Again, anyone invested in her character's journey over these three films really got robbed of a big chunk re: Karen's death and how it affected her) and some strange "What year is this?" kind of writing (for example, everyone in town seemingly listens to the same FM station? In 2022?). Tone/pacing wise (meaning, ignoring the plot points) it almost feels like THIS should be the middle entry, setting up a Kills-like action packed finale, but instead it's more like an extended epilogue, which might work if the previous film didn't have such a gutpunch cliffhanger. It's bound to be the most polarizing yet of this trilogy (which is saying something!), and I am crushed that it's also heading to Peacock simultaneously, as that means a lot of the angry takes are going to be from people who weren't even fully paying attention to it and/or having the experience interrupted by ads.

I guess the best way to put it is this: it's a bad Michael Myers movie, but ultimately a good Laurie Strode one. Your mileage will vary depending on whose presence is more important to you in these things. And if you're like me, who assigns them (and Loomis, but he's not an option) equal value, it's just kind of bewildering at times, but ultimately ends in a satisfying way, enough to qualify it as a win. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't have to forgive a lot of clunkiness to get there. And here's hoping that "Halloween 14" is a return to the anthology format the series was meant to have in the first place, because there is clearly nothing less to do with these characters and I want everyone who is still alive at the end of this one to just enjoy the rest of their lives offscreen. They've earned it! Leave them alone! But don't remake them, either! Our affinity for them is mainly due to the actors who played them, something Rob Zombie clearly didn't realize. If a remake must be the way to go, do it without Loomis, Laurie, etc. The common complaint about Halloween III is "Where's Michael Myers?!?", not "Where's Laurie Strode?!?", so lean into it if going anthology isn't financially viable (though, I feel it'd be more accepted now especially since H3 appreciation has soared over the years. And if they can get Carpenter and his boys to do the scoring...).

What say you?

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A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

DECEMBER 23, 2020

GENRE: ANTHOLOGY, HOLIDAY
SOURCE: STREAMING (SHUDDER)

I forget who talked me out of watching A Christmas Horror Story back when it first hit in 2015, but whoever it was deserves a giant lump of coal... in their face! This isn't a classic on the level of Black Christmas or Inside (i.e. must-see Christmas horror films) but it's certainly worth watching and gets more right than wrong. By structuring the film like Trick 'r Treat and letting the stories drift in and out (instead of contained chunks) it avoids the erratic pacing of most anthologies, working as an traditional single film experience, as opposed to something like Creepshow where you might hit the chapter skip if you're not in the mood for this or that story.

And all the stories are engaging in their own way; even the wraparound (featuring William Shatner as a Christmas-loving DJ) not only has its own little unfolding mystery (a tragedy at the local mall) but ends up tying into one of the tales in a surprising and kind of awesome way. Careful viewers might be able to spot which one (an actor appears in both, though in one he is not seen in closeup and is partially obscured) and then in turn figure it out, but if you're just soaking it in instead of trying to get ahead of it I'm sure it'll get past the average viewer. One problem I have with a lot of anthologies is that there's no real connection between the tales, and has a wraparound of almost no importance - this one uses the whole buffalo, and is all the better for it.

The stories are also well balanced in terms of sub-genre (though all have something supernatural) and characters: there's a standard group of horror movie teens in one, a dysfunctional family unit in another, a married couple with a mute kid in a third, and... Santa Claus? Yep, the big man himself features in one story, in which the poor sod has to battle his elves, who have turned into foul mouthed zombies. For some reason I had the idea that the movie was a comedic one in the vein of junk like Santa's Slay, but in reality the only real "comedy" in the movie stems from hearing elves swearing as they try to eat Santa Claus and his wife. It might not even register as funny to some people; I just revert into an 8 year old whenever I hear profanity coming from unlikely places (one of them accuses Mrs. Claus of f-ing the reindeer, which is also amusing to my warped mind).

The rest is played pretty straight, and gets surprisingly dark at times; I was not expecting to think about Tales From The Hood's "Boys Do Get Bruised" segment when I sat down to watch this film. The weakest storyline is probably the one with the teens, because it inches into found footage territory as they not only film it (it's not all POV, just a few shots) but they're also - sigh - walking around a closed up building and dealing with a ghost, which is something I am happy to never see again as long as I live. On the other hand, it actually went AGAINST a tired cliche by having a dude rebuke a girl's advances because he has a girlfriend (and the two girls are friends as well). To be fair it's the "ongoing affair that gets uncovered while they're running from a maniac" cliche that I really hate, but still! It's nice to know some of these people have standards! Also the sex is important to the plot, if you can believe it or not (the girl - possessed for the record - needs a "donor").

Also, it's set in the same town as Ginger Snaps (Bailey Downs, for the record), which is the sort of tip of the hat I always like. It doesn't mean anything to the plot; it's just a fun in-joke for those who will get it and won't distract anyone who is unaware. It's part of why I dislike the "name all the characters after directors" kind of thing - it ends up being a distraction, A. because some of those names are unusual (something like "Mayor Cronenberg!" is going to cause an eyebrow cock whether you know who David is or not) and B. you're likely to recognize some (Craven, Carpenter, Romero) and then feel left out when there's one that you don't recognize, or - if you're a bit of a snob - scoff when they throw in one that doesn't deserve to be on the same level with the others. It's best to just let the people who will get it smile, while everyone else is unaware that there was ever a joke at all.

And yes, it makes good use of the Christmas theme. The kids one not so much, but obviously the Santa story is loaded with it, the family unit is visiting an aunt for the holiday when they awaken Krampus, and the other family sneaks onto private property to get a Christmas tree and bring back something else. I noticed a few other modern Christmas ones don't really have much seasonal relevance (the newest Black Christmas goes the total opposite direction of the 2006 one, with a bare minimum of decor and a fairly crowded campus for what is supposed to be break), so it was nice to see them making the effort in that department. Moreso, it's presented with a noticeable and appreciated lack of much cynicism; even the mall element isn't stacked with anti-commercialism sentiment or whatever. Despite this year's unending stream of misery, the season still flew by for me, so I would have been bummed out if, on Christmas Eve Eve, I watched something that was seemingly made by people who hate the idea. I nearly cried yesterday when I turned the tree on, knowing it was already going to be one of the last times I did so for another year (I watched the movie on the 23rd but am writing the review on the 29th, just to clarify). Hell, today is the day my mom would traditionally take the tree down when I was a kid, and I'm feeling I just put it up!

Needless to say this will be added to the rotation. I'm slightly curious if I would be as warm to it if it was presented in the usual "chapter" structure (with Shatner presumably introducing each tale properly), and would be open to watching it that way if someone did a fan edit or something, but I suspect I'd prefer it as is. The ways the stories connect (the teen girl in the Krampus story is friends with the teens in the ghost one, who were tracking a case investigated by the man in the Christmas tree story, and so on) felt a little more natural than other anthologies that have attempted similar things, and as a result you can't really just remove one story which is often what most of these things could really use. It made it more of an "ensemble" movie as opposed to a traditional anthology one; the Love, Actually of horror?

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Dial Code Santa Claus (1989)

DECEMBER 15, 2020

GENRE: HOLIDAY, THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

A couple years back, one of the repertory theaters here showed Dial Code Santa Claus (aka Game Over; French: 36.15 code Père Noël), hyping it up as what sounded like a cross between Home Alone and Silent Night, Deadly Night, pitting a kid with a penchant for booby traps against a demented Santa Claus in his giant home on Christmas Eve. Obviously that is very much my thing (indeed, I went to drive-in screenings of both those films in the past week!), but for whatever reason I missed the screening, and kind of forgot all about it until it arrived at my door courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome. Perfect timing!

There isn't much more to the story than I've already suggested. The unnamed psycho is somewhat sympathetic when we meet him; he clearly has some issues but he also has a childlike appreciation of Christmas and wintertime. In his first scene he comes across a group of children having a snowball fight, and when he tries to playfully join in, they all run away because he's not one of them - it's actually kind of heartbreaking! But after a bit his true colors shine through; first he slaps a little girl who says he's not the real Santa (he's working at an outdoor plaza/mall sort of thing), and when he is rightfully fired, he decides to exact murderous revenge. Luckily for him, the boss who fired him is also the mother of a little boy who is home with his ailing grandfather, and she has arranged for a delivery of some Christmas gifts to their home. So he hitches a ride with the delivery truck, kills the driver and her house staff, and spends the night stalking the kid.

UNlucky for him, the kid is obsessed with action movies, dressing like Rambo and setting booby traps that would make "Dutch" Schaefer proud (not to mention Kevin McAllister; and yes, the director says Home Alone ripped his film off). So what should have been an easy and quick bit of revenge becomes an all night cat and mouse game, as the two go at it like some kind of demented Tom and Jerry routine. The kid's home is a literal castle, giving him plenty of places to hide, set traps, etc - not to mention explain why the killer can go long periods of time without even encountering him. There's even a giant room with a floor space bigger than most of our homes - completely hidden! He can only access it from a hidden passage in his closet or a (disabled) refrigerator in some other room off the garage.

The seemingly impossible layout of the home (aided by some not convincing model shots of the exterior) leads to one of the movie's issues - it's impossible to get a sense of the geography, which dilutes the tension whenever the two are separated. For such scenes to work you have to be able to understand the space between them, but I never could get a hang of it. The better moments are when they're actually facing off; there's a fantastic scene where the kid rigs up a grenade to a toy train that he has directed toward "Santa", only for the man to send it back - it's a terrific little setpiece. But more often than not the giant space is just an excuse to slow things down (when the kid and his grandfather go into the hidden toyroom, he just starts playing on a rockinghorse!), so there's a lot of fits and starts as opposed to a gradual ramping up of tension.

It doesn't help that "Santa" commits all his murders pretty much as soon as he arrives; the driver obviously had to go quick, but he offs the cook and housekeeper seconds later, and then (warning!) the kid's dog, so for the next hour it's just this intermittently suspenseful chase. The only real potential victim after that is Grampa, who is also written out for large chunks (he hides in a suit of armor!) instead of being in any danger, so I wish he had spread out his killing spree, and/or someone else showed up (the mother's boyfriend, for example) to give the film a little jolt maybe around the end of the second act, because it gets a bit repetitive after a while. They also leave the house for a bit (the kid can drive!) which is always a no no for me in these home invasion films. I mean, granted it came 25 years later, but if you want to watch a French film about someone being stalked inside their home on Christmas Eve, there's one that's damn near perfect, whereas this one is merely just OK.

But when it's firing on all cylinders, it's a pretty fun time. Patrick Floersheim makes for a great psycho; the use of that fake spray snow for Christmas trees to color his hair and beard white is an inspired choice, giving him a plastic-y look that adds to the creepiness. And the kid (director René Manzor's son) is also quite good; he's old enough to believably doing the things he does, but still young enough that his repeated cries of "Mommy!" and frequent teary breakdowns don't seem immature of him. I felt legit terrible for him; he was hoping to see Santa come down the chimney and believes all of the events of the movie (including his dog's death) are his fault, that the real Santa is the one chasing him to punish him for sneaking a peek. Hell, the ending almost seems to be suggesting he will end up like Billy Caldwell, before he snaps out of it, but he's still clearly traumatized.

Vinegar Syndrome's release is on 4K UHD (!), but that disc lacks any of the extras. For those you have to insert the standard blu, and honestly I'm surprised there was any room left for the film. The interview with director Manzor runs a full 90 minutes (just a few minutes shorter than the film itself), and another with the now-grown child actor is 40 minutes. Manzor's interview basically doubles as a commentary; he discusses his previous film The Passage (which starred French superstor Alain Delon, something he mentions about 900 times) and how its success both helped and hurt his ability to get this one made, the film's production, the actors, etc. It's all in French with subtitles (as is the film itself; no dub track is offered) so you have to be committed (or speak French) to get through it all, but it's a good interview all the same. The one with the kid isn't as enlightening; he naturally doesn't remember too much all that vividly and repeats himself a lot, so unless you're a die-hard fan you can probably skip it.

The rest of the features are a little more traditional in length; some behind the scenes footage (with Manzor commentary to provide context), some storyboard comparisons, the trailer, and - swoon! - a music video for the Bonnie Tyler theme song, which alas is NOT a Jim Steinman song. "Holding out for a Hero" would have worked perfectly if you ask me, but it's a specifically written song for the movie, about the kid and Christmas. And VS has offered the film in one of their deluxe slipcovers; if you follow me on Twitter you'd know I have little affinity for these things usually (I film myself recycling them just to annoy the people who buy them on eBay) but if they were all like this I'd change my tune perhaps - they're quite well done and feel like actual packaging as opposed to something disposable.

Every year on Christmas Eve I build a Lego set while watching a variety of holiday themed movies and shows, and I think this will be a good fit for the occasion. As I am obviously focused more on finding the right pieces and looking at the instructions (I'm no "Master Builder"), putting on "background" type movies is ideal, and that's what this is - there are a few scenes that demand attention, but the rest is just a lot of running back and forth or cutting to the mom saying things like "I can't get through on the phone" as she makes her way home on snowy roads. Enjoyable to be sure, but nothing I need to revisit with full attention in a year or two.

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Black Christmas (2019)

DECEMBER 13, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

As the world's biggest (but not lone, as I've recently discovered! Was such a relief!) fan of 2006's Black Xmas, the only thing that annoyed me about another remake is that when Black Christmas (2019) was announced earlier this year, it was met with a lot of optimism and excitement that was never afforded the previous incarnation. Where were you all in 2006, when even Bob Clark's blessing couldn't keep horror fans from raising their pitchforks and torches about that one? So that irked me a bit, but then again, there's a big difference between this one and the other two: this time, women were writing and directing, which meant not only a different perspective on the usual story, but a timely one as well.

As with Glen Morgan's version, Sophia Takal, directing from a script she wrote with April Wolfe, wisely borrows only the basic concept of Bob Clark's original and changes just about everything else. So while yes, this is indeed the third version of a movie about a group of sorority sisters who stay on campus during their holiday break and are menaced by a killer, it's in many ways even more removed from Clark's film than Morgan's was, and that's a good thing. There's the usual animosity online about them "ruining" the story or whatever, but as always I feel this is the best way to go, as I can forget about the film(s) that I love and focus exclusively on this one, judging it on its own highs and lows instead of how it compares to the others. They don't even really reference the others that much; the cat's name is "Claudette" (a variation on the male "Claude" from the original), a sorority house's number is 1974 (heh), and some of the kills are influenced by the others (a plastic bag and - yes! - an icicle), but that's it. No house mother, no creepy phone calls (texts instead), no Billy or Agnes... it's its own thing.

Our hero this time around is Riley (Imogen Poots), who embodies the usual Final Girl template but with a grim addition: she was sexually assaulted as a freshman (she's a senior now), with the attacker more or less getting a slap on the wrist. So she's become not only a bit more hesitant than you'd expect from a sorority girl, but also protective of the younger women who have pledged since, hoping to keep the same thing from happening to them at the hands of fraternity brothers. It's not long before things start weirding her out, but at first she is unable to tell if it's just the frat guys messing with her for spreading rumors about their "bro", or if it's something more sinister and dangerous. Of course, we know it's the latter thanks to a (pretty solid) opening scene kill and another one later (which plays out as an homage to another horror "3"), so thankfully it doesn't take too long to get her up to speed with us.

In fact I was kind of surprised when the shit really hit the fan. Rather than follow the usual slasher template and pick everyone off one by one before our final girl is even aware that she is in immediate danger, the killer attacks all three of our main heroes at once at around the halfway mark or so, allowing them to work together and fight off their attacker. It'd be too spoilery to talk specifics, alas, so I'll just say that it's very satisfying to watch Poots, Aleyse Shannon, and Lily Donoghue take on the killer together as sisters, rather than bog the film down with pointless in-group bickering or backstabbing as so many modern films do (even the 2006 one had some of this, though thankfully not much). These women really care about each other and have each others' backs, and it's incredibly refreshing to see.

(ALERT! If you haven't seen the trailer yet, please skip the next three paragraphs!!!)

And I say that as a white man, i.e. the type of person being targeted by the script. As you've seen in the marketing, it's not just one or two killers this time - it's a whole group of dudes in masks and robes, and yes they are obviously part of a fraternity. The how's and why's I'll leave to your imagination until you see the movie for yourself, but I don't think anyone would deny that this film was written as a response to the Brett Kavanaughs of the world (just to make it clear, one of the film's male characters even plainly says "I like beer"). So naturally, as a man, it's not always a fun watch, being reminded repeatedly that I might be perceived as a threat by one of its makers should they happen to be walking past me at night or sharing an elevator or (name literally anything you do during the day and there's a woman who has been made to feel unsafe doing it).

There's a scene right at the beginning that hit home; one of the girls is walking alone at night when she starts to suspect the guy behind her is following her and meaning to do her harm. After a few tentative looks behind her she starts to panic, grabs her keys and holds them out as a claw, ready to strike, and then... the guy just walks across the street into a house, having no intentions for her and presumably having no idea she was even scared of him in the first place. It's something that's happened to me; I am a rather fast walker and one day while walking on an otherwise empty side street I noticed a woman in front of me noticeably tense up and repeatedly look over at the store front window parallel to us, presumably to see my reflection and gauge my intentions. I felt horrible about it - but I also wondered how many times I've been in that same situation but *didn't* notice that someone in front of me was terrified to hear my lumbering steps behind them. As I am not a killer or rapist, I naturally don't walk around with the slightest notion that anyone would have a reason to be afraid of me, but ever since that day I keep it in mind, and either intentionally slow down or sit down if necessary and let them get the distance they want (seems like a better solution than yelling "Don't worry, I'm just trying to get to the movies so I have time to order a hot pretzel!", which, let's be honest, accounts for roughly 75% of the times I am putting a little extra spring in my step).

But that is just scratching the surface of the shit women have to deal with on a daily basis, and naturally I'll never even begin to understand even half of it. Why do I bring this up in a slasher movie review? Well, because I think the filmmakers are tired of men not getting it, and using the slasher as a vessel to spell a few things out, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to make sure no one misses the point. In a genre filled with films that were read into (cue Carpenter laughing at Halloween having an anti-sex attitude), Sakal and Wolfe make it abundantly clear that this is about toxic masculinity, literally spelling it out in their own way (again, no specific spoilers beyond what's in the trailer), having grown tired of men like Kavanaugh getting away with what they do while women are harassed and labeled as "hysterical" when they call such men on their deplorable behavior. Ideally, the movie would be incredibly dated in ten years (sooner?) because these problems have finally been dealt with, but sadly I fear that it will continue to be relevant for a while.

Luckily, even if those issues are a thing of the past, it'll still largely work as a slasher, especially for younger crowds who might not be ready for the likes of Freddy or Jason just yet. Yes, it's a PG-13 film, but I rarely remembered that during my viewing, and in fact at one point the rating actually HELPS, as something happens off-screen that you might assume is because of its rating but ends up being a clever misdirect. The characters are all engaging, with no standard cliches - there's no "snotty girl" or "weird girl" or whatever; they're all just normal friends with believable, amiable chemistry. I wouldn't have minded more chase scenes, especially since they're not confined to the house (nor is the timeframe as compressed as the others - it takes place over several days), but they instead focus on moving things along and keeping the runtime from getting out of hand (it's barely over 90 minutes with credits, bless), so it's easily forgivable.

That said, I wouldn't have minded a little more time explaining, or at least building up to, the... thing. I can't say what it is, but you'll know exactly what I mean when you see the movie. It's admirably kind of an insane idea and introduces an element I certainly wasn't expecting (even from the spoiler-y trailers), but it's somewhat jarring in its execution; I liken it to watching Halloween and then skipping ahead to the final 15 minutes of Halloween 6, as it offers the same sort of "Wait, WHAT?" kind of reaction one might have if they were to do that. I assume it's part of the "let's skip being subtle" approach, and if so I can certainly appreciate the effort, but the idea itself just didn't really land for me. It's kind of like Us in that I'd rather know less, because once part of it is explained it opens the floodgates to other questions, ones for which there is no seeming answer. Plus, if they introduced it earlier, it'd give the chance a movie to get even weirder and more inventive - as it stands, there's so little left of the film it feels more like a deus ex machina. With the ads giving so much away, it's kind of the only surprise the movie had left, and there's not enough time to do it justice.

Otherwise, I, the white male enemy, enjoyed this new take on the basic story. I don't know if it'll be thrown into my Blu-ray player as often as the others, but I can easily recommend it to horror fans with open minds, and women who will appreciate the cathartic moments in the third act (in fact, this may be the only actual place where the PG-13 rating hampered the movie, as it would have been great to see the antagonists get gorier demises). The heavy handed way they go about delivering their message may be a turn off for some men (and self-loathing women, who are also represented here), but I found it fair game and very much justified - the last thing anyone should be complaining about is a modern horror movie with a point of view, especially one that differs from your own, as you should think of it as a fun way to maybe learn something. But even if you somehow are able to ignore its message, it's still an enjoyable holiday slasher; its missteps aren't enough to derail the whole thing, and its heart's in the right place, so overall I call it a win.

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Christmas Blood (2017)

DECEMBER 24, 2018

GENRE: HOLIDAY, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Back when I ran HMAD proper, I tried to make sure I saw at least one new Christmas-themed film every year around this time, because there are so many I haven't seen and don't usually find myself in the mood for such fare in say, April. It's a tradition I meant to keep after "retiring", but like most of my optimistic plans for the site's future, it hasn't exactly panned out; even when I manage to see one, like last year's Better Watch Out, I usually lack the time to write them up (for the record, that one is pretty good but the twist is far too easy to spot ahead of time, and the film takes a bit of time to get back on track after trying so hard to misdirect us). So after last month's Mrs. Claus I'm happy to be sitting here again with a review of Christmas Blood (Norwegian: Juleblod), making up for last year's absence.

Alas, while it's certainly better than Mrs. Claus, it's not exactly a new classic that will join the likes of Black Christmas or even Black Xmas. I'll give it this much: they score lots of points by going big with the concept. Our killer is another axe-wielding Santa Claus setting his sights on a house full of lovely people, but they're just a few of the many, MANY targets he has. As we learn in an opening crawl (after a pretty good prologue where he takes out a guy and his present-snooping daughter), Santa has compiled a "naughty list" of admitted criminals from all over Norway, and every Christmas he whittles that list down from his initial 300+ (!!!). After being taken down and institutionalized in the opening sequence, we cut ahead seven years where he has escaped and picks up where he left off. You gotta love such a widespread scenario that - if all goes well - makes sequelizing easy, as they don't need a continuing victim hero like Sidney Prescott or even much of a new story. "It's Christmas again and now he's after these people on his list" is all they really need.

And we get a cop on his tail, which fills in some of the questions one might have about this particular MO since it's known (basically, the departments work together to check in on all of the people on his list) and breaks up the house-slasher stuff. But here's the weird thing: rather than take advantage of this scenario by having Santa hit up a few victims in one area (dealing with the lone patrol checks as necessary) he sets his sights on one group, so the filmmakers never really embrace the freedom of their own concept. If you think about the biggest hurdles for a slasher, finding a reason for everyone to stay in one spot (and not notice when people go missing) is one of the harder to overcome, and they had this easy way around it but opted not to take it. And they really should have, because (like Mrs. Claus, oddly) the house isn't exactly perfect for this kind of thing - it's kind of cramped and not even isolated, forcing the action outside often enough to make you think "Isn't it supposed to be super cold, and also where are the neighbors?"

Weirder still, the person on his list is already dead, so he's not even sticking to his "thing". The person on his list is a woman who drunk drove and ran over a kid, but the grief about this led her to a recent suicide. Lucky for Santa (and non-discriminating slasher fans), she has a daughter, and that daughter has several friends to comfort her, and those girlfriends have love interests to pad things out. So even though they set up a slasher where the victims kind of deserve it for once, it ends up being another thing where he's going after people who never did anything wrong, which is fine when we know that's the score (see: Friday the 13th) but when they establish "criminals get their due" and don't deliver, it feels like more of a bummer than it should. I'd rather it was just crass from start to finish.

(Santa also goes out of his way to murder two of the people at the house who are made to leave, rendering the backstory even less relevant.)

Another problem is that it takes too long to get to the kills, in a movie that's too long overall (an hour and forty five minutes) to boot. It's just before the hour mark when Santa starts offing the people in the house, by which point some folks might have already checked out (I myself might have, but I had to wait for laundry so it was either this or find something else). That first sequence is a pretty good one, to be fair, with Santa toying with the two victims and giving a good chase before taking them out, but after that all the kills lack the same panache. Most of them don't even have much of a buildup: Santa just shows up and chops them with his axe (or smashes their head with the blunt side of it), and then we cut to the others or to the cops that are trying to pin down where he might be tonight. He occasionally seems to teleport as well, which wasn't even that acceptable when Jason did it in Manhattan - at least build up your goodwill before cheating the audience, brah.

Finally, the end isn't worth the wait; if it was great some of the other flaws could have been forgiven, but alas. (SPOILERS!) In the prologue Santa is shot several times, including once in the head, but survives - and we kind of buy it, because we don't see where the bullets hit (and maybe the hat got the blunt of the round!), and also maybe there's a MBV-like twist where this Santa isn't the same one. But no, it is, and when he gets taken down by the same cop, you'd think this time he'd make sure the bastard was dead. Instead he inexplicably wanders away, so of course Santa disappears, and you have to wonder if he's actually a damn zombie already (along with the teleporting thing, maybe this IS Part 8 of their plan and the next bunch of films will be prequels?). It's also a downer; after Santa is dispatched, the Final Girl (whose mom is the one he was ostensibly after) rushes to a friend he attacked, a familiar beat that usually ends happily - but no, in this one the girl dies, adding to the bummer nature. Nothing in the film feels like a triumph, even momentarily.

On the plus side, the girls are mostly likable and normal, so the only reason you're wanting Santa to start killing them is because, well, it's a slasher and that's what we came for. And he does so with practical glee - there's more than one instance of spilling guts (if that's your bag) and one girl is killed because so much blood from the other victim poured on her that she doesn't seem to be able to see enough to get away. Also, they don't overuse their Santa, which is a blessing - he sticks to the shadows and stays quiet, so that when he does speak near the end it's kind of a creepy moment. I wouldn't have minded if they had personalized his look a bit - in wide shots he might as well just be Billy Chapman - but in this era of "THE NEW HORROR ICON!" it's nice to see one that keeps it simple and doesn't earn top billing. Last but not least, the score is Carpenter-ish but not punishingly so, and doesn't directly ape any of his themes in its attempt at homage (looking at you, Strangers 2), so it's not distracting - it's just a pretty good idea of what he might have done if he scored this movie with his new band.

Plus, you know, 'tis the season and all. My slasher itch has been well scratched lately thanks to Hell Fest and Halloween, but otherwise I might even be kinder to it, as it's not exactly BAD, just zigs where it should have zagged more than once, leaving it kind of in that neutral "Well, if it's on and you got nothing better to do, you can do far worse" kind of territory. I'll probably keep it but only because I collect slashers (and Christmas movies); the odds of me watching it again land somewhere between Jack Frost (Keaton) and "one of the lesser Silent Night Deadly Night movies", though those would have improved if it was twenty minutes shorter at least. I've included the Amazon link for my fellow collectors - everyone else that's still intrigued can do with a rental, as the disc has only one extra: the trailer that's right below this paragraph. So uh, happy holidays!

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Mrs. Claus (2018)

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

GENRE: HOLIDAY, SLASHER
SOURCE: STREAMING (ONLINE SCREENER)

If you're not a discerning slasher fan and want to start diving into your seasonal horror collection, then I've certainly seen worse than Mrs. Claus (formerly Stirring). It's watchable, it's got plenty of kills (and they're done practically), and even if the mystery is so obvious the killer didn't even really need the mask, it's still a whodunit as opposed to some lame attempt at a new wisecracking "icon", which sinks so many of these things. Also, I have to give it props for hiding an additional twist in the audio for those who watch the end credits - there's no "post credits scene", but if you listen you'll hear a line of dialogue that suggests the killer had an additional helper. That's kind of novel!

But if the movie hadn't made a huge blunder I probably wouldn't have caught it, because the only reason I was watching the end credits all the way to the end was to see if it listed the filming location, because while the plot (and pretty much entire film) is set in a sorority house, it looked more like a two bedroom apartment to me, and it kept the movie at bay the entire time. Alas, it didn't list any of its locations, but I did learn that there were apparently more producers on this movie than actual crew members, and I can't help but wish one of them produced a better location for the bulk of its action.

See, location is crucial for a slasher of this sort - we need to know how far apart people are, the killer needs room to stalk/chase his victims, etc., but none of that stuff works here because everything seems so cramped. There are no chase scenes at all, really - someone will just enter a room or their car and then the killer pops up and kills them. We never see Mrs. Claus unless she's about four seconds away from offing someone, which further undoes the need for a mask at all - we barely ever get to see it, so they might as well have just taken a cue from the original Friday the 13th and done everything with POV and feet. And without any sense of geography for the "house", there's not a lot of tension the director or editor can manage when someone's in danger: are their friends in the next room, another floor? The way it looks in the movie, it shouldn't even be possible for Mrs. Claus to make her way around without being seen by the other characters.

It doesn't help that everything is a direct lift from To All A Goodnight, right down to the identical setup (a tragic death at the sorority), and motive for the killer. Hell it even cribs the same damn twist (spoiler: they're not acting alone), so it started to rub me the wrong way since To All A Goodnight is a pretty obscure entry in the slasher canon and thus could be stolen from without some folks noticing, unlike Halloween or Friday the 13th where the filmmakers tend to make those films' influence more apparent to avoid any such "ripoff" claims. I'm sure the "sorority house during Christmas break" setting will make more folks think of Black Christmas, a film that this one otherwise shares little in common with, but there aren't enough grains of salt in the world to make me believe that David Hess' film wasn't on the minds of this one's screenwriter.

But again, at least the kills are practical! And plentiful - I was worried they blew their fake blood budget on the first one (the obligatory "tragedy", in which a picked on sorority sister viciously stabs the meanest one before hanging herself) as it was almost unsettlingly bloody, but I don't think they hold back on any death scene - everyone gets stabbed or impaled in some manner or other, with the red stuff pouring/spraying in a manner that suggests they wanted to rub it in to MPAA-mangled predecessors like F13: The New Blood. Occasionally the deaths are Christmas-themed, like a guy who gets a giant decorative candy cane shoved down his throat, and I started to wish they embraced this sort of thing more often to help make up for the movies' lapses. If someone got beheaded by a giant nutcracker or run over by a reindeer, I would have forgiven all that other stuff.

Oh well. Even though I wasn't expecting a classic, it didn't quite do it for me even when I factor in its low budget hurdles. The bad acting and non-existent production value I can look past, but when they're swiping so heavily from another film that had its own issues (and wasn't exactly a big budget affair itself) it's hard to really get excited about it. There's zero excitement or engaging material to be found unless someone is being killed, and with no buildup to these moments, you'll find yourself just waiting for the next one. Luckily they're never too far apart (possibly the one thing it has over To All A Goodnight), but still - keep your phone or a magazine handy, as there's little reason to bother with anything in between. Hell they even bungle a defense of Christmas Vacation over other holiday staples by leaving it to the film's resident douchey asshole guy to say it! I find that offensive! Let the male hero be the one to rightfully acknowledge its merit!

What say you?

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Red Christmas (2016)

AUGUST 30, 2017

GENRE: HOLIDAY, SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I thought it was a little weird that Red Christmas, an increasingly rare addition to the holiday slasher canon, would be released in August, but Silent Night Deadly Night 2 was released in April, so they're at least closer to the namesake season*. But "weird" was the order of the day with the film anyway, which on the surface is a holiday slasher in the vein of Home Sweet Home, in which our targets are a family of adults and their various partners as opposed to the usual group of college kids or whatever. But the devil's in the details, and I assure you I was not prepared for the number of fairly taboo subjects that were not only addressed in the film but part of frequent conversation, as well as the killer's motive. I'm not in the mood to get into arguments/debates about these topics, so I'll just let you know if you have VERY STRONG OPINIONS! on things like abortion, infertility, religion, and Downs syndrome, this might be a movie (and review) you should skip.

Any film that focuses on a family getting together for the holidays is going to showcase some dysfunction, so when one of the adult sisters (the mom of the family is Dee Wallace, so that should clue you in, roughly, to the ages of everyone involved) chastises another over the latter smoking when she's pregnant, and Wallace's brother mocks one of his niece's husbands over his religious beliefs, I didn't think much of it - par for the course of these things. But this one goes a bit deeper: the aforementioned religious guy might be a closeted homosexual, as he races off to masturbate in a wardrobe (?) after seeing his brother in law's bare ass, and the pregnant sister returns the insult to her sister by mocking her inability to get pregnant at all, which in turn leads into a brief discussion of using scientific methods to get pregnant instead of trusting in God/nature. These are all kind of touchy subjects, and not always handled delicately (and by "not always" I mean "pretty much never"), so when you see the '80s style poster and read the generic plot description, you might not expecting to be confronted with a topic that might be a sore spot.

Then there's the Down syndrome topic, which is actually the least of its worries for a while - no one treats the character (Jerry, Wallace's son - the patriarch of this clan passed away earlier in the year, we are told) any differently or even mentions his situation. But it ultimately ties into the abortion subplot, and that's where things get a bit dicey (SPOILERS AHEAD!), as we learn that twenty years ago, Wallace got pregnant again after Jerry and when she discovered that baby would have Downs as well, she aborted it, because it was hard enough with Jerry and she didn't want double the stress. Combine that with what we've already learned (and isn't really a spoiler as they tell us fairly early), which is that the killer is actually that would-be aborted fetus, who survived and became a mutated killer, and you have a movie that is bound to rile up the folks who like to scream and shout (read: tweet) about how "problematic" our movies are rather than actually do anything to contribute to the good of the world.

Luckily, I am not one of those people, so I just went along for the ride. The writer/director, Craig Anderson, has a comedy background and has said in interviews he set out to make "a stupid movie", and the trailer also touts its comedic bent. so I don't think it's wrong to not take these serious matters all that seriously. I wouldn't say it's an outright comedy (or even "horror comedy") but it has that offbeat tone like Frank Henenlotter or the Black Christmas remake, where you aren't laughing out loud but just appreciative of the sick sense of humor and a "no sacred cows" kind of approach. That's right up my alley, and you all know how desperate I am for more slashers (especially on the big screen, albeit in as limited a form as this), so forgive me if I wasn't offended by the idea of using abortion as a backdrop instead of the usual "A prank went wrong and now he's out for revenge" kind of killer motive. Like I said, if you have strong opinions on the subject maybe you won't be as charmed by the film, but for what it's worth I think it helps that the movie isn't preaching to either choir - on one hand, the fact that the killer (named Cletus) SURVIVED his abortion (don't ask for details how this worked, the movie doesn't offer any) gives plenty of weight to the "it's a living thing" side of the argument, but if that living thing grows up to be a serial killer...? You can't accuse the movie of picking a side on that one. Plus, the heroine is Wallace's character, who a pro-lifer would probably see as a monster for her actions, but then she spends the rest of the movie doing everything in her power to protect her (adult!) children, so the "bad mother" argument pro-life types often employ doesn't quite work. It's almost like it's a difficult topic with no easy answers!

As an experiment, though, let's say the movie was silent and it was just another slasher where a guy in a costume (a cloak and bandages - he kinda looks like Darkman) wreaks havoc on a group of people, free of any weightier subject matter. Would it work? Well... no, probably not, alas. Some of the kills are pretty great, and Cletus has a late-period Jason affinity for using a variety of objects (including but not limited to a blender, an anchor, and a peanut allergy), but the direction and editing often makes them unsatisfying and in some cases completely confusing. In fact this sort of thing plagues the entire movie; for example, there's a scene where Wallace aims a gun at the killer from a very short distance and fires multiple times, yet whether or not she hits him is never made clear (this follows a scene where it seems like SHE is shot accidentally, but where that bullet landed is anyone's guess since she falls to the ground but wasn't hit). The geography of the house is also puzzling, with the killer seemingly teleporting in and out of rooms at times because there's no other way to explain how he was able to sneak up on a character or exit the room without the others being able to tackle him. At one point we see him using a lattice (nod to Black Christmas?) to get into one particular room, but unless they had the things on every wall of the house it doesn't explain all of the other times he was able to pull off his movements.

The characters often make baffling decisions as well, and I don't mean the usual "running upstairs instead of out of the front door" kind of stuff. Out of nowhere, Wallace decides to collect all of the cell phones (there are only three including her own) so that she can scatter them around the house, and then her son-in-law dials those numbers from his hiding spot - the idea, I guess, is that Cletus will hear the ringing and make his way to those victim-free spots while she carries out a task elsewhere (if the movie wasn't over a year old I'd swear this was a nod to the Friday the 13th game, where you can turn on radios to distract Jason - it doesn't really work). It's weird enough that she comes up with this plan instantly, but then she neglects to hide her own phone, so when it rings she screams (almost definitely giving away her location) and tosses it roughly ten feet away from her and stays in the same spot, self-destructing her own wonky-ass idea and putting herself at more risk to boot. There's also a character with a peanut allergy, something she apparently doesn't think too much of since Anderson decides the best way to convey this information (foreshadowing) to the audience is to have this adult absentmindedly reach into a bowl of peanuts (Wallace sees her and stops her from doing it), as if she was a 5 year old who didn't understand their own medical conditions.

So yeah, it's one of those movies where you get the sense that things were reverse engineered from previously decided upon beats, no matter how convoluted or unnatural they might seem to the audience. At the end of the credits we are told to visit MakingRedChristmas.com, which has a trailer for an upcoming documentary about how difficult it was to make the film, so that might explain some of the confusing edits (if anyone can explain the final showdown between Cletus and his opponent, I'd love to hear it), as there might not have been time/resources to film the proper coverage and Anderson just had to make do with what he had and hope the audience could fill in some of those blanks. But that excuse can only go so far; a lack of funds couldn't possibly be to blame for such headscratchers as a redneck neighbor threatening to put Cletus "out of your misery!" before urinating on him, or why Anderson frequently shows the characters' feet. Outside of their (again, expected) spats none of the characters are hateable, and Anderson did a pretty good job at making it hard to tell who would be the next to die, but their often alien-esque behavior kept any true suspense at bay, as my eyebrows were almost permanently raised during the scant - but still somewhat padded - 82 minute runtime.

But there's really nothing else like it, and it was too damn peculiar to dismiss. I was never bored, it got the basics more or less right, and it inspired a conversation that lasted nearly an hour afterward, which is more than I can say for at least 50% of the slasher films I've ever seen. And even if it made the movie's "point" a bit difficult to pin down, I genuinely like that Anderson wasn't coming down hard on either side of the topics he brings up (though there seems to be very little affinity for traditional Christianity), so pro-life and pro-choice people alike can find something that backs up their beliefs. And that goes for even the smaller things; I might be reading too much into it, but there's a nasty fight between the two older sisters over whether or not a meringue should be refrigerated, and when I went home I looked it up, finding: "let the pie stand at room temperature in a draft-free spot before serving it. After a few hours, however, it will need to be refrigerated", so I guess they're both right, which is like everything else in the movie. If Anderson's saying anything, I think it's that people don't always make the best decisions, but that doesn't mean someone else should be telling them how to live. Which, if that was his conscious intent, is a damn fine message to spread, though I'm not sure why he opted to make it in a film where a blender goes through a guy's eyeball.

What say you?

*I'm not just pulling that movie out at random - there's a clear homage to it in the film (it involves an umbrella), which delighted me to no end as most folks are likely to pay homage to one of the original's kills (the antlers, usually).

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