The Naughty List of Mr. Scrooge (2024)

Ten years after graduation, a group of friends heads back to town for a reunion. They’re all going to stay at Chandler’s in the house she inherited.  The friends have taken different paths in life and want to catch up.  Tabbie brings her boyfriend, which is odd since he wasn’t invited. Who brings an uninvited guest to stay at someone else’s house? 

When weird things start happening, the group wonders if Chandler is messing with them as she used to love pulling pranks. She insists it’s not her. When the maid goes missing and they discover someone elses head in the house, they realize they are in danger.

This leads to a bunch of exposition about the death of Tabbie’s ex-boyfriend right before a performance of a Christmas Carol. So when a killer wearing an old man mask and dressed as Scrooge shows up, they figure the two are related.

This is fairly tame and it’s easy to determine the killer. There is a scene where Tabbie’s boyfriend gets upset she didn’t tell him the backstory about her exes death and the details around it. Why would she? It was traumatic and she’s only known you a few months. Most people don’t trauma dump in new relationships.

Some scenes have a super shallow depth of field 
which makes viewing it kind of nauseating

Carnage for Christmas (2024)

Lola is a true crime podcaster who is heading home for Christmas. It’s the first time she’s been back since she came out as transgender.

Her interest in true crime began due to a family annihilator in her town nicknamed the Toymaker, who used to play Santa for the local  kids. For years after the murders, teenagers would go into the house blindfolded and call for the toymaker. Rumor was he’d either kill you or show you where his dead daughter’s body was hidden in the house.  Lola was the one who located the body which peaked her interest in true crime.

When murders start occurring shortly after Lola arrives, the police label her a person of interest and tell her not to leave town. They suspect it’s either her or a follower of her podcast. Constable Kent is assigned to watch her, but he’s a fan of her podcast so he’s kind of lax about keeping tabs on her.

Lola starts investigating and makes a deal with Kent which makes no sense. He has to give her all the info the police have and then she’ll decide if she can trust him. Also he has to let her come and go as she pleases. 

Kent proves to be even worse at his job than suspected when he finds a dead body and instead of calling the police to gather evidence, he calls Lola.  While they suspect one of the police may be compromised, Lola being at the scene before police or forensics is likely to implicate her, especially with the hair tossing. 

Better than some of the other films I’ve recently watched since I managed to make it through the entire movie, but not great. 

Ridiculous dialogue

You have to promise me to text me every ten seconds so I know where you are.

Some scenes have very unflattering lighting

The crazy subtitle on the news

Lola tossing her hair around contaminating the crime scene

Advent (2024)

Hailey is a podcaster, YouTuber, and does a blog on urban legends. She’s 26, lives at home, struggles with depression, has an alcoholic father and 100 followers.  

She’s looking to increase her following so she buys a Krampus advent calendar on the dark web. She plans to vlog about it each day and prove the legends aren’t true. What legend, you ask? The one that says if you open each door on the calendar, the devil will take your soul on Christmas morning.  

Her friend Charlie believes the legend is real and they shouldn’t mess with it. His dad was psychic and told him curses are real.  But Hailey jokes of course it’s not real and there is no risk.

Each day she opens a door on the advent calendar and films herself completing the task listed, including sacrificing Charlie’s guinea pig. I’m not sure if he realized her role in its death before he disappeared.  She has notifications on her phone so she can see every time someone likes one of her posts. Yikes!

As the days go by, Hailey gets what she thinks is a cold.  There is a lot of exposition provided by Hailey’s college advisor, which is intercut with the scenes of Hailey and Charlie. 

Ridiculous dialogue

Hailey’s mother had become that person you see in the town square conversing with the air.

The modern advent calendar with skulls on each day

He Sees You When You’re Sleeping (2024)

Christmas Eve 1963 - after Uncle Nick reads Chester a bedtime story, he says Santa isn’t always nice and may kill you with an ax. Nick is petrified. Chester’s parents can’t understand why Chester doesn’t say goodbye when Nick leaves.

His parents hear a news report of Henry Bates, an escapee from the local sanatorium who is wearing a Santa suit. Shortly afterwards Chester sees Santa kill his parents. Then he loses his damn mind. Henry is later convicted of the killings.

Cut to 1980 and Chester is released from the asylum. His girlfriend picks him up and they head to his family home for Christmas. He’s letting his aunt and cousins live in the house he inherited from his parents.

Shortly after Chester returns, someone in a Santa suit is seen outside.  Chester keeps finding notes signed HB, and believes the killer is back.  But the notes disappear before he can show them to anyone else. His girlfriend wonders if he’s taking his medication. Even though no one believes him, there is definitely a Santa with an ax killing people who are near the house.  

This is a low budget movie and while it’s not great, it’s far better than the last few Christmas horror movies I’ve seen.  The song over the end credits sounds like it’s the closing theme of a 1980s sitcom. 

Massacre on Aisle 12 (2016)

Dave arrives for his first night of work, which oddly enough is on Christmas Eve. For reasons not explained, he starts work at closing time.  He and Jackson are asked to move a large floor model tool box, but it’s too heavy.

A group of employees gather as the manager unlocks the box to determine what is weighing it down. Inside they find a dead body. While they check to see if anyone remembers him, they notice he’s holding onto a bag filled with cash.

The workers are split about whether to call the police or take the money.  After Jack makes a racist remark which causes a fight, he runs off, gets high, padlocks the front door, cuts the phone line and destroys their cell phones. 

Everyone is angry about being locked inside on Christmas Eve. The arguments over the money continue. Then fear kicks in when they realize it’s possible the killer is locked in with them, or may even be one of them.

The comedy falls flat and there isn’t really any horror. 

Zombies Christmas Apocalypse (2024)

The movie begins with Jordan, who works at a bar and her boyfriend Dave who’s just been called up to the major leagues.  Dave asks her to marry him and as they walk from the bar to their car, they are attacked by zombies. So say goodbye to our established characters and get ready to spend the rest of the movie with Luke.

A group of survivors are holed up in large building. They venture out to look for supplies and survivors, but sometimes the zombies get them. Some of survivors think they should go to a bigger city before they run out of supplies or the zombies find them.  Luke says they should stay put since they know this town and it’s safer than a larger city.

There is a woman with an unnecessary eye patch who unlatches a door to release zombies. Why don’t the zombies attack her? I have no idea.

Apparently this is the 2017 film Zombie with extra scenes tacked on to the beginning and end of the movie so they could call it a Christmas movie.  This is boring and clocks in at almost two hours. Why?! Why are movies always close to 2 hours long now? They don’t need to be, especially when they aren’t very interesting.

Curtain for Christmas (2024)

Holly loves Christmas and watching holiday romance movies. Her family is dead so she hopes to meet someone who loves Christmas as much as she does. But they’ll have to deal the fact that she has an imaginary human sized rat named Dominick who talks like Paul Lynne. Also she’s a psycho.

A chance encounter with Jay leads them to realize they both love Christmas. Jay invites her to the gingerbread competition his family holds each year.  When Holly discovers Jay invited her as a friend and he’s married, she begins plotting on how to get rid of his wife so she and Jay can spend Christmas together.

This is an indie film with a low budget. There is suspension of disbelief needed for many scenes, but the movie wasn’t comedic enough to make it work. Also if you are making snow angels, you can’t be an arms length apart because you can’t do the wings.

A Creature Was Stirring (2024)

Th

An additive is put in the world’s water supply without being properly vetted. The side effects are heart attacks, diarrhea, and a zombie apocalypse. 

After Mrs. Clause is bitten by an elf and turns in to a zombie, Santa moves to Texas. He spends his time talking to AI, interacting with a zombie neighbor, and using a ham radio to try to connect with children.  He also reads stories to himself and goes into town to make ice cream. 

I started watching because I thought this was a horror movie, but it quickly became apparent it’s a family movie. The zombies have green goo in their mouths or on their skin, but otherwise don’t look that bad. This is another movie where I bailed after twenty minutes.

At one point Santa says, “If you’re going to make a zombie omelette, you need to crack some eggs.”  Then it cut to a gooey cake being extracted from a pan and a family at the dinner table. I was totally confused about who these people were until I realized it’s a commercial because I was watching on Tubi. Perfect timing on that transition.

Christmas Bloodbath (2024)

The description said strangers trapped in a holiday themed museum find out the animatronics have a mind of their own.  Unfortunately I did not get to the animatronics because I could’t take more than twenty minutes of this. It would probably be okay if you were into Troma movies. There are bad wigs, a puppet who owns an industrial plant that pollutes the city and generates toxic waste, a middle aged  band, and a brother who accompanies his sister on her first assignment in an undefined job, where they visit an annoying old lady.

Bog Creatures (2003)

 

A professor has a breakdown after he’s roundly laughed at for his  theory bog people are not Christian peasants, but evil Viking berserkers.  He enlists five students who’ve been kicked out of college to go on a dig in the bog.  Well that should help his credibility. He gives them maps and instructions on where they should dig.

Max, who has worked with the professor for years, thinks he’s an idiot. He doesn’t like being out near the castle and the bog because it always feels like someone else is there. Also how did they not find the bog people in all the years he worked there when they are only several inches below the surface? 

There are flashbacks to swords and castles and I think someone was  wearing jeans in the Viking times.  

Ridiculous dialogue:

Susie is gone and we all loved her but she’s gone and we have to accept that. 

What I want is for you to send as many men as you can possible muscle up to Valborg Castle immediately. Because people are being murdered…. How do I know? I know because I am a scientist and it is my job to know.

He reminds me of a pencil with an eraser on it

The ancient body buried a few inches under the soil