Mainlining Christmas

I'm not sure why it's taken us this long to officially get to Gremlins . I've owned the movie for years, but for some reason it never occurred to me I should re-watch and review it as a Christmas movie. It's especially bizarre given how much effort the movie makes to subvert the holiday. It plays with holiday music in a manner similar to what Die Hard would do a few years later. It also utilizes imagery to twist the holiday: look at the eerie green and red lights emanating from the pool when Mohawk jumps in and spawns an army of gremlins. You can even interpret the gremlins themselves as being evil Christmas elves (though that's admittedly a stretch). Gremlins is also at least partially responsible for popularizing the myth that the suicide rate shoots up around the holidays: this is certainly where I first heard it claimed. It's easy to believe, but not remotely true . Suicide rates actually drop in December, and with good reason: who has the time?

We had never seen an episode of Grimm before this. From this viewing, it’s… okay. I mean, it’s a quirky procedural, spin the dial and land on a quirky procedural these days. A show like this depends on viewers getting invested in its particular set of actors/characters and its particular gimmick. Without that investment, it’s just a mediocre mash up of tropes from X-Files and Buffy about a guy pretending to be a cop in between monster hunting. The monster of this week is Krampus, which we were excited to see. While the visual design is very nice, the plot is sort of blah. The episode opens with a couple of punk kids stealing presents, then Krampus sneaks up on them under a bridge. He snags one, but the other is just injured and hides in a car. Cut to the next morning, when the cops are investigating a dead kid. Only the kid isn’t dead. He’s really, obviously, not dead. This is the point where we started to really doubt the professionalism of the emergency responders on this s

Earlier this season I stumbled upon a list of ‘alternative christmas movies’. As I expected, some of them we’d seen, and a few others were already on our list, but there were a couple films that had flown under our radar so far, either because we didn’t realize they were set at Christmas, or didn’t think that would be enough to qualify them as fodder for this project. This is one we’d never even heard of. Bell, Book and Candle is set at Christmas, all right, and Christmas and snow, decorations and music are enough of the setting to merit it a place here, but it’s so much more. This movie is about witches in New York. Kim Novak plays a witch who decides to seduce the guy upstairs (Jimmy Stewart) away from another woman with the help of a little magic and the assistance of her cat. Her friends in the magic community both help and hinder her as the relationship goes on. The movie has ups and downs: a few comedy bits with odd sound effect choices, a sequence or two that’s poorly p

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy was a bizarre show. Not quite as bizarre as Courage the Cowardly Dog , but it seemed to be trying. It ran from 2001 to 2007 on Cartoon Network, which makes it a contemporary of some the network's best programming: Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack , and so on. I don't think Billy & Mandy reached those heights. The premise was kind of awesome, though: two kids essentially enslave death and force him to do their bidding. Billy is an idiot (though he usually has almost superhumanly good luck), and Mandy is a cruel, sadistic, and calculating child who routinely frightens Death himself. No one watched this show for Billy. It's been a while, but I seem to recall Mandy's power-level starting a lot higher than it was in this episode. If I'm remembering correctly, the original gag was that the monsters and demons they encountered were never as frightening or dangerous as Mandy. In this one... that wasn't really the case.

Man, when December rolls around, it’s hard out there for a kids’ show not set on Earth. You want to have a holiday episode, of course you do, but if it’s totally unbelieveable for your characters to celebrate Christmas (or Hanukkah, etc.) what do you, the writer do? You could shoehorn Christmas in there anyway (See: He-Man and She-Ra ) and you might get some camp value out of that, but even most kids’ll see the excuse for what it is. Or you could make up your own original holiday that just so happens to resemble the winter-gift-giving-season we all know so well. Now, sometimes this works really well, sometimes it sort of works, sometimes it’s just pathetic. Sometimes it’s just, well, strange. Enter: YamWeen. Ruby Gloom takes place in an undefined Halloween-esque dimension, with a bunch of supernatural characters who are also kids. It’s not at all scary, just a little gothic in its aesthetic. One of the kids is a cyclops, one a skeleton, one friend is a talking raven and one

Nothing says "Christmas" like absurdly low-budget horror. Silent Night, Bloody Night (not to be confused with Silent Night, Deadly Night, which I still have to get around to) is a cheaply made horror movie revolving around an abandoned mansion in Massachusetts. If I cared one bit about spoiling this thing, I wouldn't tell you that the mansion used to be an asylum, a fact which only comes out in a flashback making up the majority of the movie's last act, nor would I let it slip that the asylum's supposedly dead owner is actually less dead than everyone supposes. But if didn't reveal all that, this review would be absurdly short, so you see my dilemma. Before they reveal the mansion or town's dark history, we're treated to a Psycho-style bait-and-switch. A big city lawyer comes to town with his mistress (the movie makes a point of having him call home at one point, in case we didn't know he was married) to offer some of the locals a chance to

Halloween is Grinch Night was made in the late 70's, presumably in an attempt by Dr. Seuss to cash in on the popularity of How the Grinch Stole Christmas . It is in no way a great work of art, but it's nowhere near as bad as the last part of the "trilogy", The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat . There's very little plot to this thing. Mostly, it's a series of Seussical rhymes and jokes (almost all of which are below the expectations we've formed for the good Doctor). The special focuses on a Who named Euchariah who gets lost on Grinch Night and runs into the Grinch. He allows the Grinch to subject him to various horrors in order to buy time until daylight. When I say horrors, I'm referring to a magic cart apparently full of specters, ghosts, and illusions; sort of a portable haunted house. The sequence is a little unpleasant, actually, not from the content but from the premise of a young child allowing a creepy man to subject him to scary things

Aint it Cool posts a weekly list of short films , which is usually worth glancing through. Like the drug stores around here, they're not waiting for Halloween to wrap up before mixing in some Christmas offerings. "M is for Merry Christmas" is only about three minutes long. It stars Krampus, a Christmas demon who really needs more exposure. It's a dark, fun little piece that's definitely worth the time. Check it out: M is for Merry Christmas from Holomax on Vimeo .

Spoilers below for Doctor Who Series 7 (2012-2013) through this episode. This is the first episode in the Pond-less era of Doctor Who. As such, it devotes quite a lot of time to mourning the loss of the Doctor's last companions, particularly Amy. The episode begins in Victorian England, where the Doctor's more or less retired. His friends, Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax are attempting to break him out of his depression, but not having much luck. Enter Clara Oswald, an energetic young woman with a dual identity as a barmaid and a governess. Oh. There's also a curmudgeon who's being followed around by an army of evil snowmen from outer-space, but that's just the plot. Honestly, you could have cycled him out for just about anything without changing the core of the episode, which is about the Doctor coming to grips with the loss of Amy and Rory Pond. Which is, frankly, a little silly. I understand that he cared deeply for these characters, but he's

You knew we were going to get to these eventually. They’ve actually been on the list since the beginning, we have them on DVD, but we kept holding off on them, keeping Doctor Who as a sort of fallback option for when we ran out of other stuff or got too tired of terrible things. And then that didn’t happen. So one day last week we just decided to finally re-watch these. Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion (2005) I have very fond memories of the first time I watched this episode. It introduced David Tennant’s Doctor and I loved it. I loved it a little less on this viewing. The murderous robot Santas and trees are still fun, but a lot of this hour is humans being whiny. Whenever Tennant is on it really picks up, but there’s a big boring chunk in the middle without him. The writers were still sort of trying things out with Ten at this point; his character doesn’t solidify for a bit, and that adds to the surreality of watching this episode. Plus the end with Harriet Jones is kinda nas

This is only the second episode of Tales From the Crypt produced, and it was directed by Robert Zemeckis (keep in mind this is Zemeckis in '89, back when he making the Back to the Future movies and still awesome; not the current Zemeckis who's been producing CG abominations). I saw a handful of episodes of Tales From the Crypt back in the day, but I certainly never watched religiously. Actually, I suspect I would have watched it religiously had I been able to, but I never had HBO growing up (this also means the episodes I did get to see were tragically edited for content). Lindsay tracked this down on Youtube, and we just finished watching it. I'm really, really glad we did: it was a lot of fun. The episode starts with a woman brutally murdering her husband for the insurance money while her daughter's asleep. When she tries to dispose of the body, an ax murderer dressed as Santa Claus shows up. As you can probably tell, there's not much in the way of plot here.

While I maintain the previous year's 2-parter about Scully's genetically engineered baby represents what was bad about X-Files, this is a perfect example of the show at its best. Whimsical, darkly humorous, and fun, this was a fantastic episode which works as a standalone. It's better if you've seen a few other episodes of the show, but it's really not required. This one opens with Scully joining Mulder outside a cliche haunted house on Christmas Eve. The two immediately start sniping at each other like a married couple. The dialogue is witty and clever and sets up the premise quickly: long ago, two young lovers killed themselves here and, according to legend, their ghosts still haunt the mansion every Christmas Eve. Scully dismisses the story and is ready to take off. Unfortunately, she can't find her keys. Reluctantly, she follows Mulder inside, and they begin investigating. Things escalate quickly, and they soon uncover two decomposed bodies that bear

I can't remember ever hearing of "Bump in the Night," but Lindsay swears it was popular in its day. It was a stop motion series from the mid-90's about a monster named Bumpy and his friends. We wound up getting the hour-long Christmas special on the "Christmas Cartoon Collection" DVD Lindsay found for six bucks at Toys R Us. Calling this bizarre is an understatement: it's one of the strangest Christmas specials I've ever seen... and that's saying something. Bumpy sets out on a quest to steal Santa's sack of gifts from the North Pole. On the way he manipulates others into assisting him by promising them presents. The animation is impressive. It's warped and twisted, as is the writing. The jokes are farther apart than I'd have liked, but most are clever (some were exceptionally so). Ultimately, we're left with something mixed. It has an amazing tone thanks to a shockingly dark sense of humor, but the pace is way too slow. Th

Saint (or "Sint") is a Dutch horror movie about a murderous zombie Saint Nicholas who descends upon Amsterdam every few decades to wreak havoc with an army of undead Black Peters when the full moon coincides with December 5th. The selling point for me was the promise of a killer Saint Nicholas, not just another Santa Claus. That sounded surprisingly gutsy: risking the rage of the Catholic Church on top of myriad family groups. Well, I wound up disappointed. While the zombie killer was an undead bishop named "Niklas," the film made it abundantly clear he wasn't Saint Nicholas of Myra, but rather some psychotic bishop from the late fifteenth century. On top of that, it was stated that Nicholas of Myra was a fictitious character invented to cover up the murderous crimes of this zombie. I guess that was done so they could tie his origin to Amsterdam and Saint Nicholas' Eve. Personally, I felt ripped off. None of it really made much sense. It was clearly at

Not to be confused with Jack Frost (the animated short), Jack Frost (the Rankin/Bass special), Jack Frost (the family comedy from 1998), or any other Jack Frost production I'm forgetting, I just sat through the 1996 horror film. I use the term "horror" loosely: this is one of those campy horror/comedies that isn't remotely scary. Of course, it's no closer to being funny, but them's the breaks. The movie opens with shots of a bunch of holiday ornaments while a voice-over sets up the backstory. This is really badly done and yet still somehow remains the high point of the movie, thanks to the fact everything that comes after it is utter crap. The premise revolves around a serial killer who was arrested by a small-town cop. The killer's actual name is Jack Frost. He's being transported to his execution in the middle of a blizzard. If you're wondering why they didn't move him earlier, then you're clearly not drunk enough to be watching this

I just watched an awesome movie. Here's what I knew going in: It's a Horror/Fantasy movie about Santa, it's from Finland, and everyone on the internet loved it. If that is enough to convince you, be off with you to your Netflix queue or your to-watch list! It has occasional bits that are slower than any film made in America would have, but it's a fantastic film. Want a few more details? Still skeptical? Okay. Tone spoilers and minor plot spoilers below! The more detailed premise runs as follows: Pietari is a young boy in a remote town on the Russian border. As the movie opens, he and his friend are spying on some Americans who are excavating something on the other side of the fence. Pietari becomes convinced that the site is where Santa Claus (old-school baby-eating Santa) was trapped, and that they'll all be in danger if he gets out. Of course no one believes him, but Christmas is getting closer... Even though you've passed a set of spoiler tags

There have been many, many adaptations of A Christmas Carol. This isn't the first we've looked at, and assuming this blog pops up again next Christmas, I don't think it'll be the last. The 1951 version starring Alastair Sim is generally recognized as the best of the bunch. I haven't seen nearly enough to render that verdict, though this is certainly better than the Jim Carrey vehicle that came out a few years ago . If we're counting parodies, though, it's not even close to Blackadder's Christmas Carol  or Scrooged , and I actually prefer Mickey's Christmas Carol if only because it's shorter. But if we're just talking about versions that are relatively accurate to the source, aren't parodies, and don't replace the characters with anthropomorphic animals, then yes: this is the best I can think of. The depiction of the various characters is about as close as is humanly possible. Sim's Scrooge is particularly well done, both

I see this movie about once every five years, enjoy it quite a bit, then promptly forget every joke in the film. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - in a way, the fact that Scrooged is so forgettable gives it re-watch value it wouldn't otherwise have - but it also puts a limitation on the film's impact. Scrooged attempts to ride a line between tones and genres and pulls it off well enough to be entertaining, but not so well as to leave a lasting impression. The movie's concept is ambitious: a cold-hearted network executive in the middle of producing a live televised production of Scrooge is visited by the three legendary ghosts of the story. There was a lot of potential here to build a sense of vertigo by playing off the inherent surreality of the situation. Unfortunately, the movie didn't fully embrace this. At no point did the main character reflect on the similarities between his experiences and Scrooge's: he seems completely unaware he's living A Ch

I have fond memories of Courage the Cowardly Dog. The show handled tone extremely well, delivering a surreal mix of horror and comedy. I haven't seen much in years, but I remember being really impressed with some of the episodes. While this wasn't one of the best episodes, it was entertaining. The premise was particularly strong: Courage and his family were "shopping" at the dump, when they got locked in. Courage winds up with an antique nutcracker, and they're besieged by ROUSes out to make a meal of Eustace and Muriel. The entire thing quickly devolves into a tribute to Tchaikovsky's ballet (fortunately, the rats are excellent dancers). It's quirky and interesting, and it maintains the series' dark style and disturbing designs. It's only a half-episode, so it ends before the gag gets too old. We found this on a Cartoon Network Christmas Yuletide Follies DVD Lindsay found at the library. I'm not sure whether this was originally i

Ugh. What a boring excuse for a movie. We all know the story of A Christmas Carol (if you don't, well go read it. It's short and free online, and we're planning on looking at quite a few versions this year) so the only questions here are its quality as an adaptation and its quality as a movie. This fails pretty badly on both counts. The first problem is that A Christmas Carol is not a long story. No, not even if you shoehorn in as many lines of dialogue and tiny descriptive moments as you can bear, including many that wiser screenwriters left out of their versions. Mickey's Christmas Carol works by being short. Muppet Christmas Carol has musical numbers. This one either shoves in deadly dull sequences of nothing; pointless flyovers of GC landscapes, establishing sequences for settings that are never used, ridiculously stupid chase sequences that make no sense, ludicrously over the top “this was filmed in 3D!!!” pans, or it just takes forever to get to the next pa