Mainlining Christmas

The Electric State is not a Christmas movie, at least not in my opinion. It only has two scenes which incorporate holiday elements: a flashback to a holiday interaction and a sort of virtual reality recreation of that same holiday at the end. Had the context been a little different, the finale set at the virtual holiday might be enough to justify arguing this counts as a Christmas movie (plenty of romcoms - including the classic Holiday Inn - have effectively claimed the label under similar circumstances). But for reasons we'll go into, the context here is a little different. So why talk about it at all? Well, because I've got some thoughts about the Christmas elements, and I think it makes for an interesting case study in the way holidays are often utilized in film. I should note this is one of the very few aspects of The Electric State I found remotely interesting. I'll start by saying I'm not approaching this with any kind of axe to grind against the Russo brothers....

There's a real possibility this is the lowest-budgeted production I've ever looked at for this blog. Even the term "micro-budget" doesn't convey the experience of watching this. I've seen student films with significantly higher production values. And, for what it's worth, that's all intentional. This isn't trying to be "good" for any meaningful definition of that word. It's very clearly aiming for the sort of movie a group of friends might rent in the late '90s and laugh at. This was, of course, the decade of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (unsurprisingly, both Feeders and Feeders 2 were eventually covered by RiffTrax). The filmmakers behind these movies are twin brothers John and Mark Polonia, credited as co-directors on Feeders 2. Mark is also the star and wrote the script under a pseudonym. The main cast members also appear to be Mark's family, though the kids were credited under different names (possibly his wife, too - she...

Pinning this down to a genre - or even a short list of genres - is virtually impossible. The movie, for better and worse, plays like a barrage of ideas and imagery drawn from Ghostbusters, Blade, Marvel movies (Doctor Strange in particular), The Matrix, Men In Black, as well as more obscure fare - there's a surprising amount of The Frighteners in this. Meanwhile, the pacing feels like it's right out of a Michael Bay Transformers movie, which I promise is only 50% intended as an insult (Nekrotronic, for all its faults, is consistently interesting to look at, which is no small feat on a limited budget). If I had to try to classify this, I'd settle on action/adventure/comedy/horror/fantasy/superhero. More than any of that, this feels like a tongue-in-cheek two-decade-late adaptation of Mage: The Ascension (ask your parents to ask those weird people they knew in college). You'll note something was missing from that long line of genres: Christmas movie. And that's going ...

It's a bit reductive to describe this French horror movie as being about a killer advent calendar, but if anyone needs that for some kind of yuletide horror bingo card, by all means check it off. What I found most interesting about the film is its choice of subgenres and references to establish the rules and lore around the deadly box. I should caution those are minor spoilers, so read the next paragraph at your own risk. The movie's premise is ultimately revealed to be a mix of "deal-with-the-devil" and time travel elements, with the stipulation neither are explicit. The time travel, in particular, won't register as part of that subgenre to anyone who hasn't spent an abnormal amount of time considering that genre. As for the "deal-with-the-devil" thing... it's not entirely clear the monster at the center of this is a demon, at all. You could argue it's actually an angel, of the Old Testament variety. And Eva, the movie's heroine, doesn...

I mean, I put it on, so I really don't have anyone to blame but myself. Bikini Bloodbath Christmas is the third movie in the Bikini Bloodbath series, an extremely low budget horror/comedy franchise I'm guessing was not intended to be watched or considered critically (or sober, for that matter). I don't even mean that as a slight - this is the sort of thing that's mainly just in-jokes and over-the-top sequences parodying mainstream entertainment. It's not pretending it's anything other than bad, which is a good thing because - make no mistake - it is bad. I should probably add I haven't seen the first two installments, nor do I intend to. This stuff isn't for me. I'm not sure it's for much of anyone anymore, given how dated the references feel, but that's another matter. I'll do my best to offer a synopsis, but I'm not sure there's much to say. Part of the joke is there's really not a lot of story here, and what is present inte...

In general, I try to approach low and micro budget productions as gently as possible while still being honest. I understand these are working with resources orders of magnitude below the level of even small Hollywood movies, and many of these feel like labors of love being made to develop skills or just have fun. Comparing something like Two Front Teeth  with Nosferatu  would be like rating a pinewood derby car against a Formula 1 racing car: it's not even supposed to be the same thing. That why I usually refrain from being dismissive around movies like these. But handling these with kid gloves is contingent on the people making these putting in the effort to deliver the best movie possible given their circumstances. Pagan Warrior, a movie which features multiple typos in the text opening the movie, is not conducive to a feeling of goodwill. So, let's be frank: this is bad, and not in a way I found particularly interesting, though the premise is outlandish enough, your mileage...

You'll generally only see this marketed in the US under the title, "A Christmas Tale", which seems be an accurate translation, with the caveat "Cuento de Navidad" is also how "A Christmas Carol" is often translated into Spanish. The other part of the full title, "Películas para no dormir," is the series it's from, consisting of six Spanish TV horror movies originally airing in 2005. That's... actually the short  version: if I'm understanding right, they were sort of a revival for a television series called "Historias para no dormir" which was produced sporadically from the late 60s to early 80s, but let's just focus on what's at hand. I don't believe any of the other five films in the 2005 series were set at Christmas, though I'm tempted to watch to find out. Because "A Christmas Tale" (or whatever you want to call it) is absolutely phenomenal. There's no "graded on a curve" or ...