Unholy Night (2019)

 

A nurse volunteers to work on Christmas and listens to an old man’s stories as she wheels him around the hospital.  He’s got a scrapbook with photos and articles, which is kind of weird since I don’t think he knows these people. Actually it might be worse if he knows them since who would want a scrapbook of deaths of people they knew.  This part of the film ties together the stories in the anthology.

The first story is about a woman who takes her boyfriend home to meet her family at Christmas. She wants to do mushrooms before they go.  He’s not interested since last time it caused him to hallucinate and he wants to make a good impression.  However she ignores his wishes, eats one and then manipulates him into doing them as well.

Things seem okay at first, but then weird things happen and he thinks he must be tripping. Right after realizing he’s not, they send him into the basement to get a pie out of the freezer and the family secret is revealed.

A number of problems with this. First, if you’re already eating, why is the pie still in the freezer? Second, who sends the guy you just met to get something from the basement?  Lastly, they thought he knew their secret, but how would he? His girlfriend never mentioned it and even she is surprised he doesn’t know.  Ridiculous.

The second story is about drunk dead Debbie. Debbie was a shy woman who didn’t have many friends. One night at an office party, she has too much to drink and a group of nasty co-workers goad her drunk ass into hammering drinks to the point of impairment.  They laugh as Debbie staggers off to the bathroom, where she then dies choking on her own vomit.

Legend has it that if three women take a shot and say her name they can summon her.  What? This makes no sense. So Debbie is such a pathetic spirit that she’ll travel anywhere in the world? She doesn’t just haunt the building she died in, or the mean girls who messed with her? I guess so because there she is in someones apartment and bam pow, that’s all they wrote.

The last story involves our nurse, who is treated poorly by her supervisor at the hospital.  After her shift, she heads to her mothers for dinner.  Her Mom also treats her poorly and it’s not clear why she would go see her Mom on Christmas if this is how he’s treated.  It becomes more confusing when Mom locks her in the closet, which apparently she does every year.  Oddly enough there is a manikin in the closest dressed for Christmas who talks to her.  Good god, this can’t bode well.

While this wasn’t very good, it looked like a masterpiece after watching Elves.  It’s got better production value than something shot on a camcorder, but it’s not anything new or all that interesting.

Ridiculous Dialogue:

Nurse - Did that really happen?
Old Man- Definitely
Nurse - Teenagers.  (Said after one of the stories that a made no mention of teenagers in any way).

Christmas Blood (2018)

 

Aka Juleblod

A serial killer, who does his murders on Christmas Eve, escapes from prison a few days before Christmas.  Detectives believe he intends to finish killing people on his list.  As the list was over 300 names and he killed over 100 people, he’s got a lot of choices and they’re hoping to figure it out before he strikes again.

Our main characters are a group of friends who get together due to the suicide of ones mother.  There’s a lot of partying that pads the film and of course our Santa Claus serial killer is right outside their window. Whatever will they do? Yeah, they’re going to die.

This is a Norwegian slasher and much better than the crappy low budget Christmas horror movies I’ve seen this week. That being said, it’s fairly average.  It’s also darkly lit to the point that sometimes it is hard to see what is happening.  

Elves (2018)

 

A group of unlikeable friends meet in a creepy location and play a game called naughty list.  The rules of the game are write your deepest, darkest secrets on a piece of paper and also write your name on a list.  The woman who provided the game tells them to be honest because the elf is watching and he’ll know if they lie.  

Out of nowhere, an elf shows up on someone’s lap.  Now if it was one of those elves on the dvd cover, that would be really creepy.  But instead its like something your middle aged aunt would have bought at a discount store. So it’s just sort of lame looking, rather than scary. Also it’s so odd looking, I’m not sure if I would have known it was

The next day they find out one of the friends from the party died, and realize that the elf is real and coming for them.  You’d think the first thing they’d do is track down the person who made them play the game and ask what the hell is going on. But no, it takes them awhile to figure that out. When they visit her, she says she had no choice, but doesn’t offer any good explanation as to why she provides the elves with a list of names every year.

This is a really low budget film with minimal effects and amateur actors. We aren’t provided with any information about any of the characters. We don’t know what sort of secrets they wrote down, or if any of them has actually done anything horrible to make the elves want to kill them.  And the elves aren’t animated. They appear in a seated position and maintain their non-moving terror throughout the film. So if you want to see a creature that could questionably be called an elf sit motionless, then this is the movie for you.

The opening scene appears to have nothing to do with the rest of the film.  Two brothers are alone in the house when an elf shows up off screen.  The older brother tells the younger one that his present is in the oven.  The kids climbs in and the older boy sets a cooking time.  Are there actually ovens that lock when you set the time to cook? I’m not sure why this kid can’t get out.  Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have a functioning brain stem. He can see into the oven and it is obviously completely empty.  Geez kid, how did he trick you?  This is a rough one to get through.

This is what the elves actually look like. 

Shelved (2016)

 

A man stops at an antique store and finds a toy elf.  He wants to buy it but the shop owner says it’s not for sale.  The man puts a $100 bill on the counter and takes the elf. What a tool.

Over dinner he regales his wife with the story of how he got it.  His wife laughs and says, “you’re such a card.  Nobody tells my husband no.”  What an unpleasant couple.

Their daughter is sent to a psychiatrist because they don’t like her behavior,  which is pretty mild, typical kid stuff. Although to be fair, they do make her brush her teeth before breakfast, and her snacks are gluten free crackers with soy cheese. So if she was to revolt, I wouldn’t blame her.

The real trouble in the house is actually the elf, Sgt. Gumdrop.  The backstory is that Gumdrop was one of Santa’s best.  The other elves were jealous and pushed him over the edge so now he kills people.  Well that escalated quickly.  Now the family has to figure out how to get this menace out of their home.

This is a really low budget video.  A lot of the acting is stilted and in community theater territory.  The effects are very basic.  There’s a weird scene where a neighbor lets herself in, opens a gift, and raids the fridge. It has no purpose other than padding to set up a kill.  I wouldn’t have watched this other than I was trying to watch lots of Christmas horror movies.

Good Tidings (2017)

 

A group of homeless people have found refuge in a municipal court  building that is currently for sale.  It hasn’t been empty long since the interior still looks good.  The group is having a Christmas party when three psychos dressed as Santa break in, lock the front doors,  set up boobytraps and start killing people at the party.

Sam, who was formerly in the military, is the only hope to try to save those who’ve panicked and run like lambs to the slaughter.  He manages to get to the cells, along with two others, and lock themselves in so they’re safe.  

Sam heads out to find other survivors and asks the couple not to leave safety of the cells. But in typical horror movie fashion, they don’t stay put, are too damn noisy and end up getting caught.  Good god.

This is one of those horror movies that just makes you feel depressed.  They establish the kindness of the homeless people and then throw evil in their midst. The Santa’s are creepy in a yucky way rather than a fun way. 

Mrs. Claus (2018)

After being hazed and bullied at a sorority, Angela murders her tormentor and then kills herself.  Ten years later the bullies younger sister Danielle joins the sorority and stays in the same house where her sister was murdered.  

Danielle is unable to admit that her sister was a bully and justifies her behavior by saying it was only a prank and she wasn’t the only person who hazed people. Angela’s mother isn’t buying it and shows up at the sorority house.

Other than one girl who disappears when she heads home for the holiday, people start to disappear at the sorority Christmas party.  This is pretty amazing since there are only around eight people attending, and it’s not readily apparent that something is wrong.

This is a fairly bland slasher without any real scares. The Mrs Claus mask the killer wears is partly creepy and partly silly due to its mouth being open in a big O shape.  If you imagine it going, “duh” when you see it’s slack jaw, it’s pretty hard to be scared.

There is a line in the film about how serial killers only kill attractive people.  This is a very risky line when you have actors of varying levels of attractiveness in a scene. I wasn’t sure if it was foreshadowing but it was only the writer trying to be clever.

Holiday Hell (2019)

 

An anthology which utilizes a wrap around involving a curio shop where a woman arrives at closing time on Christmas eve to find a gift for her sister.  The proprietor shows her items and tells her the gruesome stories behind them.

Doll face- college students go to a deserted house to party. There is nothing creepy about this house.  It’s a modern split level in a residential neighborhood and looks like it’s still occupied. So it’s no surprise when there is someone in the house and people start dying. 

Rabbi doll - Happy Hanukkah! Here’s a creepy, vintage, handmade rabbi doll.  Surprisingly the kid loves it. His parents leave him with a babysitter for the weekend, who turns out to be planning to rob them with the help of her boyfriend.  The weirdest bit is that the kid is supposed to live in a mansion but his bedroom is tiny.

Bloody Santa suit - a guy celebrating a year of sobriety finds himself passed over for a promotion at work for a man with less seniority.  To add insult to injury, his wife doesn’t want to be anywhere near him and everyone keeps telling him there’d better not be another drunken incident like at last years office party. 

The ring - this tale is told by the customer about the distinctive ring she’s wearing.  A young woman moves to an isolated farm where she rents a room and says she’s alone in the world.  Damn it girl! Don’t ever tell a stranger that you have no family or friends.  You may as well say you’re the perfect murder victim because no one will miss you. Things go as well as expected.

While not a great movie, it’s better than many of the Christmas horror flicks out there.  In fact it may have seemed better than it actually was since I watched several horribly bad Christmas horror movies right before it.  Joel Murray and Jeffrey Combs are always enjoyable to watch so it’s got that going for it.

Frenzy (2018)

aka Surrounded

What do you do when you're an influencer who's a travel blogger and you've got a crazy group of friends?  Well naturally you do something stupid like travel to a cove that people are prohibited from visiting. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Paige and her friends post about their crazy adventures around the world. Paige is a risk taker, baby! Her sister Lindsey is more conservative, but is convinced to join the crew on a trip to the cove. Paige and the group are convinced this will bring them tons of hits, thus increasing the money they make from their vlog.

They hire a pilot to fly them to the isolated area. But a few miles away from their destination, the wing comes apart, the door falls off, and several people are sucked out of the plane.

Lindsey surfaces from the crash and finds a couple of the others.  No one tries to grab hold of anything floating the water to conserve energy. One guy decides to swim to an island about a mile away because it should have supplies. He doesn't take anything with him to keep him afloat. Things go from bad to worse when they discover there are sharks in the water.

The movie goes from present day to flashbacks explaining the relationships between the sisters and giving info on the group dynamics.  But you don't care about the characters so if a shark eats them it doesn't matter.  Watch for the scene where the girl with a broken leg uses a lasso to pull a huge boulder off the island onto a shark. There are so many things wrong with that.

Death Nurse (1987)

Edith Mortley is a nurse at a clinic that the city refers indigents for treatment.  Edith's brother provides surgical care, even though he is not actually a surgeon. He just likes to experiment with things, such as heart surgery.

Edith and her brother have a good thing going. They have a steady stream of clients who are quickly killed leaving minimal cost for the clinic. Then they bill medicare or the city for months of treatment. If anyone comes looking for the patient, they claim the person was released after their health improved.

This was shot on video and is only 57 minutes long.  What's even crazier than the short running time is that the film has so much padding. We're treated to scenes of someone digging a hole, as well as real time footage of getting a bowl of ice cream.  There are even scenes from one of the directors others movies, Criminally Insane, which was shot in 1975 and stars the same lead actress.

I was interested in this one because it was shot on video.  Having VHS cameras opened up movie making for amateur filmmakers.  Shot on video movies can have a certain charm due to the filmmakers sincerity, unintentional humor, or can be amusing to watch due to the questionable plot and bad acting. However the majority of these movies are just plain hard to watch, which is where this one falls.

The set for the clinic is the directors home, which makes it hard to believe this is a clinic of any kind.  There is no ADR in this film. The background sound changes from shot to shot during peoples  conversations.  The only music in the film is a single tension inducing chord when footage of two rats is shown. The footage appears to be taken from another horror movie and the chord abruptly cuts off when the scene changes.

The funniest thing about the film is that a character will say something menacing or meant to cause tension and the camera will zoom in on the persons face.  Typically you would hear a music to produce the intended effect, but there is silence as you stare at a face filling the entire screen.

As The Gods Will (2014)

Shun Takahata is a high school student who plays video games and bemoans his boring life.One day at school during a lesson, his teachers head explodes, and a daruma doll forces the class to participate in a life or death game.

Shun manages to survive the game and when one of his friends show up, they try to escape. But the school is locked down and they can't get out. They find other survivors in the gym and the next game begins.

There are times where they run into other survivors and band up to work together to attempt to beat the new game that is thrust upon them. Oh Japan, where do you come up with these things?

This movie is crazy. From little red marble like orbs falling out of the students who die when their heads explode, to the giant cat statue with huge claws, and a deadly game of kick the can.