Mainlining Christmas

So long as you're interested in the journey, no matter how unsatisfying the destination proves to be, the majority of The Legend of Hell House makes for an enjoyably quirky haunted house flick from a time when science (or at least semi-respectable pseudoscience) was considered compatible with the supernatural. To put that another way, this is the kind of thing Ghostbusters was parodying, a world where psychic phenomenon is considered commonplace and spiritual questions can be studied scientifically and associated problems potentially addressed with technology. That's one of several elements that make this entertaining, if not good. Likewise, the story (adapted by the legendary Richard Matheson from his own novel), populates the cast entirely with characters who are professionals in their field. This means the characters reacting (or through the first half of the movie mostly not reacting) to what's occurring around them have incentives to see this play out and unravel the m...

I learned about this while looking at the fifth volume of The Valancourt Book of Victorian Ghost Stories, which includes the lyrics to a popular British song written by Thomas Haynes Bayly dating back to 1829 about a young woman who seemingly vanishes during a game of hide-and-seek and whose skeleton is found in a chest years later. The underlying story is even older - Wikipedia credits Samuel Rogers with the earliest written version, a poem titled, "Ginevra", published seven years earlier, with the caveat the narrative was most likely folklore before either Bayly or Rogers wrote it down. Apparently, there are numerous old manors throughout England claiming to have been the site of the supposed tragedy inspiring the story. One difference that's hard to miss between Bayly's "The Mistletoe Bough" and Roger's "Ginevra" is that the earlier poem wasn't set at Christmas. Bayly's song, as the name implies, absolutely is - at least until the ti...

I guess you can add "Home Alone" to the growing list of Christmas movies the British do better than us. That seems to be the primary point of reference in Bad Tidings, with the caveat the protagonists are adults, not kids. Still, the premise of this TV movie centers on unlikely protagonists alone on Christmas Eve dealing with ostensibly dangerous robbers. The complication here is the heroes are engaged in a bitter feud and need to overcome their issues with each other if they want to survive the night and save their neighborhood. Oh, right: it's a neighborhood this time, rather than a house. At any rate, that's the gist. This is fusing an enemies-to-friends motif ( take your pick ) with the Home Alone home-invasion-lite template. If it had been made here a decade ago, I have no doubt it would have been awful. But the UK, for whatever reason, seems preternaturally good at this stuff, so the movie winds up delivering something funny and entertaining. It doesn't rea...

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...

I've had this one on my watchlist for ages, but it never seemed to be streaming on services I was subscribed to. Netflix recently picked it up, so I figured late is better than never. If they'd started streaming it a bit earlier, I'd have included it in my October horror reviews, but I never said I'd review horror only during that month. At any rate, Wind Chill is a 2007 horror movie very much in the "Christmas ghost story" wheelhouse. There are times when I'm unsure if that was intentional, but this was produced through a British company, and if there's any country I trust to be conscious of that tradition, it's Great Britain. This one seems a bit divisive: I've seen it defended as one of the better Christmas horror offerings, and I've seen it dismissed as uninspired and dull. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to side with the latter group. For what it's worth, I suspect a lot of the difference in opinion is due to expectation. This was ...

This is one of several movies I found on a BFI list of great Christmas movies of the 21st century . Like a few movies on that list, Moven Callar's holiday credentials are a tad dubious - I'd defend this as a Christmas movie, but it's a pretty close margin. What's less ambiguous is the quality. The movie is gorgeously shot, with a fantastic performance from Samantha Morton in a role conveyed largely through physicality. I don't quite agree with the assessment in the article linked above that she "barely says a word throughout the film," but it's notable that virtually nothing she says offers a hint as to why she's doing any of the things she does. The movie is exceptionally good, and those in the mood for something dark and meditative will find it a satisfying experience, provided they're not easily frustrated by narratives that are disinterested in explaining themselves. So, take all that into account before reading on, because - as usual - we...

This should be a short review, but I think I can make it even shorter: you need to track this down and watch it. "On the Twelfth Day..." is a 20-minute British comedy special from 1955 that's more or less just playing with the premise of adapting the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" literally, without dialogue other than the lyrics. Suffice to say, it sinks or swims on a combination of the comedy and visual design, and... you know what? It doesn't sink or swim - it floats away in a hot air balloon. It is joyful, ridiculous, and beautiful. Just a joy, start to finish. It's directed by and stars Wendy Toye as a progressively more exasperated woman dealing with a suitor literally named "Truelove" in the credits (played by David O'Brien), who gifts her everything outlined in the song, in the quantities specified. Toye and O'Brien act silently, with O'Brien seemingly channeling Charlie Chaplin. Both give great comedic performances, as...