Mainlining Christmas

I've observed in the past that Great Britain tends to be noticeably good at producing family Christmas movies. Granted, some of this could be sample bias - presumably most of what makes the jump is at least pretty good, so I'm likely being spared their equivalent of the worst US media (well, most of the worst anyway ) - but I do think there are elements common to their holiday films that make them at the very least refreshing to those of us used to American productions. While British Christmas media tends to share America's portrayal of Christmas as a melancholy time, it's far less fixated on nostalgia. Modern American Christmas is tied to a post World War II shift from urban to rural America, coupled with a regressive shift in politics. For various reasons, this results in media recycling themes and symbols from 1940s Americana. There are exceptions, of course, and it's worth noting we're starting to see more variation, but on the whole US Christmas movies tend...

This is a low-budget live-action kid's Christmas movie released a couple years ago to very little fanfare. As is often the case with things like this, how good or bad it is largely boils down to deciding what you're comparing it against, as well as what it's trying to accomplish. There's essentially no information about the production online (or at least none I was able to locate), so what little context I have derives from what's on screen, both during the movie and in the credits. We figured out it was filmed in Italy early on, thanks to a sign written in Italian in the background of a shot. The movie's location is one of its stronger assets - the filmmakers had access to impressive mountainous regions, as well as medieval looking buildings and streets, though I suspect some were filmed at some sort of theme park or Renaissance Fair. That aesthetic extends to the costumes and relevant props, as well - anything that looks like you'd see it worn by professio...

Snow Falls is a horror movie about five teenagers who are either being killed off by supernatural snow or just hallucinating due to hypothermia and hunger. The ambiguity surrounding what's causing their deterioration is intentional; the movie being bad is presumably less so. Okay, that was a little harsh. Snow Falls has some decent moments in it, and I need to hedge any criticism with the caveat I'm unclear how much this thing cost to put together (aside from "not very much", which is obvious). I do think it's important to consider budget when discussing movies like these, as well as what the movie was supposed to accomplish for the filmmakers. If they hoped to create something capable of attracting a following like that of  The Lodge , they were way off the mark. On the other hand, if this was produced for very  little money with the goal of displaying a competency with genre... I mean, it's still not a homerun, but there are a handful of good shots scattered...

This 2023 Canadian movie is difficult to categorize. For purposes of marketing, it appears to be getting classified as some sort of horror/comedy or comedy/thriller, but - aside from a couple brief shots that feel as if they were wedged in as an excuse to connect it to the popular horror genre - this is really more a Christmas comedic fantasy. It's admittedly in the grey area between genres, but it's closer to something like The Bishop's Wife  or even last year's Dear Santa than It's a Wonderful Knife . The nebulous genre isn't an issue; the fact it's not all that good, however, is. That's also unfortunate, because the movie has a lot of potential. The premise is bonkers in the best way possible, and there are a handful of twists and concepts that are brilliantly inspired. Sadly, the pacing is off throughout, the ending is underwhelming, and whatever lore is supposed to be underlying this fails to coalesce. In addition, the movie is light on the sort of...

Another in a shockingly long line of high quality Shudder Christmas horror flicks, Brooklyn 45's premise, structure, and setting make it a bit of an outlier. The movie is set in real time during the evening of December 27, 1945, almost entirely within the confines of a locked room in a Park Slope brownstone. The cast functionally consists of six actors, all but one of whom is over 50. The movie is extremely well researched by writer/director Ted Geoghegan, who manages to deliver something that feels grounded without relying on cliches. The characters are written and performed like people, rather than stereotypes of how we imagine 1940s military personnel to speak or behave. At the same time, you can catch flourishes in the performances and direction borrowed from 1940s melodramas, enhancing the sense you're watching a fusion of past and present. The movie plays with this idea in the opening and closing, too: it begins in black and white, looking for all the world like it was sh...

A musical retelling of the New Testament that feels like a mashup of Bollywood and the Star Wars prequels should be more fun than this. To be fair, there's still some fun here, but we're talking "Disney Channel original" with improved production values fun, not Chronicles of Riddick-level fun (despite Herod's soldiers' armor kind of looking like that of the Necromongers). It's bizarre, bordering on so-bad-it's-good, and may even cross that line, depending on your inclinations towards cheesy teen musicals. Because, to be clear, that's what this is. Hell, it's what it's going for! The movie, directed (and co-written and bunch of other stuff) by music producer Adam Anders, is aimed at teens, and the central message of the thing is "Mary and Joseph were just like you!" Well, that and variations on "you can make a difference, too," "you're part of God's plan," and "shut up and have babies." Okay, t...

The last fifteen years has seen a number of attempts to adapt northern European Christmas folklore into horror. Rare Exports  gave us a version of the Yule Goat, both A Christmas Horror Story and  Krampus  (as well as numerous low-budget horror flicks) have played with the now iconic demon (though I'd argue the character in the latter more closely resembles the Yule Goat, but that's a subject for another time), and another installment in the aforementioned  A Christmas Horror Story  was inspired by the tomte (which is essentially another name for the nisse). And of course there's the Danish series, Nisser , which Netflix picked up and rebranded, "Elves." Looking further back, there's a strong case to be made that  Gremlins  was in part inspired by the same lore, albeit filtered through WWII stories and the mind of Roald Dahl. Regardless, put a pin in Gremlins, because we'll be circling back. There's Something in the Barn represents a somewhat mo...

I've seen at least three genre films titled "Silent Night", and none were what I'd call a slam dunk. This comes closest, between John Woo's stylish direction, a clever gimmick, and an impressive performance from Joel Kinnaman - it's by no means a bad revenge flick, but the elements making this distinct don't overcome the ones making it feel generic. Specifically, the movie's sparce use of dialogue doesn't have the intended effect, so you're left feeling like the film is incomplete. That's the gimmick, by the way: this has essentially no dialogue other than radio transmissions and video clips watched and heard by characters in the movie. I actually think this would have worked better if they'd found ways to cut those as well - the handful of spoken words we hear don't add much and water down the effect. It's not that I found myself missing the dialogue itself - if there's one thing this movie succeeds in, it's demonstrati...

To recap, I've been looking at several figures from the second wave of Fresh Monkey Fiction's "Naughty or Nice" action figures. Today, I'll be talking about the figure I was most excited about: Father Frost. Does it live up to the hype? Read the rest of the review to find out!  Wait. I hate when reviews pull that shit. The answer is, "mostly." The figure's pretty goddamn great, with a couple minor caveats. First, let's talk a little about who this guy is. Father Frost is a Russian midwinter figure best known to American audiences as the inspiration behind the Winter Warlock in the Rankin/Bass special, Santa Claus is Coming to Town , though the Russian film, Morozko , features a much more authentic version of the character. Both takes on the character seem to get nods in the accessories of this version, though it's fundamentally a new spin on the character. As you'd expect, the figure's body (and several of his accessories) are reused ...

Similar to Two Front Teeth , Werewolf Santa is a (very) low budget comedy/horror production with a premise designed to attract attention. And also similar to Two Front Teeth, this doesn't manage to overcome its limitations, making it more of an oddity than a "real" movie. Despite a handful of elements deserving praise, this isn't worth tracking down unless you're a huge fan of ultra low budget, tongue-in-cheek genre flicks. That's a long way of saying it's not bad for what it is, but what it is, ultimately, is already kind of bad. That being said, I want to acknowledge that this is absolutely a case where I was not watching the movie the way it was almost certainly intended to be watched, which in this case means "high." The movie lampshades this in the opening minutes and later uses marijuana as either a plot point or a throwaway joke, depending on how generous you're feeling (Were-Santa consumes edibles early on, which give him the munchies...