This anthology is held together by Ron and Jess, a bickering couple on the way to a Christmas party. Ron hates Christmas, and notices "... we're heading up to where that whole Santa incident happened." I'm thinking he's going to lay down some traumatic tale about a holiday tragedy he experienced. Instead he tells us stories of things that happened to strangers, which never explains his dislike of the holiday.
The stories are told via flashback. Ron tells us the first one involves "three girls... who meet at this cabin... every Christmas... sort of like a tradition." Uhhhh, sort of? Wouldn't a repeated annual gathering be the very definition of a tradition?
Every year the girls have a slumber party on Christmas Eve at a remote cabin. After lots of footage of driving and awkward staring out the windows, two girls arrive at the cabin, but find it empty. When they see presents under the tree with Sarah's name on them, they assume Sarah has gone out. So does Sarah usually only bring presents for herself? Because I'm thinking that's odd.
As they wait for Sarah to return, we see them talk, sit, shower, look for rocks, sit awkwardly in lingerie, and dance. They also play a game where you write your name on a rock and throw it into the fire. The next morning if your rock is gone, it means you'll die within the year. Whaaat?? Oh hell no, I am not playing that game. What sort of Christmas game is that?
When the story is over, we cut back to Ron and Jess. At this point, it occurs to me Ron just told Jess everything we just watched. So he described everything they did in mundane detail? Because that dancing scene alone was five minutes long and can best be summed up by saying a stripper dances while wearing lingerie and a Santa hat ,while an older woman in lingerie sits on the couch and stares at her. So... that was probably ten seconds of dialogue but it was five padded minutes of film. Aaarrggh! A perfect example of having an idea, but not enough of an idea to make a movie.
Oh and we never see the killer or any of the girls get killed. How do you like them apples? Onto the next killer Santa segment... with less killing and less Santa than ever before!
Yes, it's more padding and no dialogue in this next segment where robbers break into a house to rob a safe. Again, please realize that I have summed up in one sentence what took five or ten minutes to watch.
Even though no one is home, there are lights on. While the robbers are digging through the safe, a woman appears and goes into the bathroom. Then she heads out into the kitchen. How can she not notice the robbers? She's blind! Of course, she is. And how do we know she's blind? The confirmation is a white cane leaning against the kitchen wall - which is actually sticking out into the floor space at a dangerous angle and should trip our little blind friend.... wait a minute, if she's blind, then why are the lights on?
Apparently your other senses don't get better when one doesn't work, as she doesn't hear our robbers following her around. But we do get to see the blind woman make coffee, so that's... no, that's nothing but padding.
Then for some inexplicable reason, the robbers kill her. So do they run away so they won't get caught for the robbery and murder? No! They decide to investigate the odd noises coming from the other end of the house. Really? Why? What if it's another blind chick or a deaf guy?
They discover a padlocked door and decide to open it. Come on! You've just robbed a safe and murdered a blind woman, but you've just got to know what's making that weird noise? Too bad for them it's a nut job psycho locked in a closet. Apparently he's used to be in the "Asylum for the Dangerous Insane" and you know how difficult they are to deal with.
And now they're not even trying as we get even shorter segments where we watch a girl read, a goth kid smoke and a little kid playing piano. Good thing we saw these in detail before they each gets killed by Santa. And hurrah for piano boys mother who gets slashed, drags herself to phone, pulls the cord out of wall, drags herself to wall to plug it in and dies. Come on! Are you kidding me? You don't have a movie, just padding to fill out time.
The last segment is a young couple whose car breaks down, walks randomly through the woods to find help, and ends up being chased by a junkyard Santa. Serves them right for visiting a junkyard Santa.
It's almost like there was no script, just a couple ideas. Oh let's just pad this out with people doing things. We don't need any dialogue. Good god....
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| This is exactly how you'll feel while watching this movie. |
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| Guess which one takes a shower? |
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| Is that her hat or is it her hair? |
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| Yup, this scene totally screams Christmas Eve. And who wears pants that are slit up the side? |
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| Nothing awkward about that posture. |
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| What a great tradition. |
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