Rachel comes home for the holidays to visit her grandmother and inexplicably volunteers to help her neighbor Mrs. Garrett decorate for Christmas. I say inexplicably because both the outside and inside of the house are excessively decorated already. There is no need for further decoration.
Rachel feels sorry for Mrs. Garrett because her daughter Jaime disappeared fifteen years ago and her husband is no longer around. After her friends invite her ex boyfriend to their night out, Rachel manages to guilt her friends into helping her with decorations.
The whole situation is odd. There are multiple Santa mannequins in the living room and other mannequins around the house. Mrs. Garrett isn’t going to help because she’s going out for a few hours, plus the bathrooms are the only rooms not decorated. Maybe forego the bathroom decorations this year then. They aren’t integral to holiday decorating. Just put some small item on the toilet tank and call it good.
One of of Jennifers friends takes a gown off a mannequin and wears it around the house. Are there really women who do this? I’m not sure if it’s a movie trope, or there are actually people who are fine with trampling what seems to be a pretty clear boundary of not wearing other peoples clothing without asking.
We know there is a killer Santa running around, although there is no info provided regarding where the killings are taking place. The killer likes to castrate the men and stab the women with garden shears. So it stands to reason Rachel and her friends will be in danger since Mrs. Garrett eats dinner with mannequins as if they are her family.
The biggest question of the movie isn’t how no one realized Mrs. Garrett was crazy in fifteen years, or why Rachel would volunteer to help decorate a home that is already decorated to excess. But rather, why does Rachel not understand how knots work? If someone puts you in a cage where the door is secured with twine, the first attempt to escape would be to try is untie the knot. However Rachel takes the curious tactic of pounding furiously on the cage door with all her might, hoping it lets loose.
This is unsatisfying in every way and only worth a watch if you’re looking to watch every Christmas horror movie, which for some reason I find myself doing. Also I’m tired of movies promoting themselves as throwbacks to 80s slasher flicks when there is nothing stylistically like that about the movie. This is just a modern slasher.
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| Nothing creepy about this in the living room |
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| Lights and decorations already done inside |
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| Excessive outside lighting yet Rachel was not suspicious |
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| The list of things to do that don’t need to be done |
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| Why does Jaime have black eyes in the portrait? |
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| Rachel furiously pounds on the cage door, alerting us to the fact she doesn’t understand how to untie a knot. |
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