Yule Log (2023)

Three friends head to a cabin for the weekend in hopes of cheering up one whose wife has recently died. They go into the woods to get firewood and find a fallen rotten tree. None of them are particularly skilled with an ax so the rotten tree is easy game.  

Every chop of the ax reverberates in the body of a young woman who is wandering in the woods after a car crash and she collapses.   It turns out the tree is in a location where a witch was burned years ago. Their actions awaken the witch and branches start moving along the ground in a low budget Evil Dead fashion.

When the car crash woman shows up outside the cabin all discombobulated, they take her in.  One tries going for help but as the woods are alive with the sound of witchcraft and strange spirits in monk robs and plastic masks, it does not go well.  There’s also a three headed dragon skulking around.

This is an extremely low budget movie with a ton of padding to flesh out its length. It’s another Polonia movie so you know what you’re getting and the acting is cringeworthy.  There is a plug for Polonia’s Sister Krampus movie while the group is listening to the radio. The special effects are rudimentary at best.

The two scenes with food stand out because they are so odd.  The gas station appears to have nothing but second hand junk and three bags of different snacks randomly thrown on a shelf. It’s almost like the clerk put down his snacks for the night while doing something and these guys bought them.  Then there’s the scene where they search through the cupboards in the house looking for food and find one can of something. So did they not bring any food on their weekend trip?

Ridiculous dialogue

He insinuated [Night of the Mothers] was something sinister.

You heard her. The trees attacked her car and she ran for her life.

The car crash effects

The gas station with 3 random packs of snacks
and everything else is second hand junk

The not so scary in the day time spirits

The witch

I didn’t expect cgi fog or a monster

This is our hero?

Hell on the Shelf (2021)

A real estate agent is frustrated about one of her properties, the Wingate house.  She says people don't stay in the house for very long and it’s the most haunted house in the area. But then she mentions it was built around 1911 and there have been seven owners.   7 owners over 110 years doesn’t seem like a huge turn over. Maybe the problems just started?

She hires a Max, paranormal investigator, who hires Damon and Lennie to run camera and sound.  He tells them forty five years ago a single mother with mental health and substance abuse issues lived there with two boys.  One of the boys fell down the stairs and broke his neck.  Max believes that is the source of the hauntings and he hopes to help the spirit cross over.

Legend has it the antique elf doll is possessed by the spirit and anyone who touches it will die. The three investigators sure do touch this doll a lot so hopefully the legend isn’t true. The sounds of gigging are heard and the doll sits in a different place than they remember it. Oooo isn’t that scary, kids?

At one point they use a spirit box, the most annoying contraption ever, to try to communicate with the ghost. Overall not much happens and it’s like watching an even tamer ghost hunting show. There’s not much to it and there are no scares. The doll is a fairly friendly looking thing that you might find in department store

This is a Polonia production so it’s not like I didn’t know what I was getting. It’s super low budget and shot in the directors home. There’s not much to it.

The possessed elf doll 

They strap a GoPro to the elf and the footage looks like this

I’m Dreaming of a White Doomsday (2017)

A slow moving story of a family in a bomb shelter who are running low on food.  Dad heads out to see what he can scrounge up. As the days go by and Dad doesn’t return, Mom decides to venture out. Her son is afraid she’ll disappear too, but she promises she’ll be back. We watch her wander around before finding another survivor and screwing them over for their food.

The majority of the movie is the mother and child in a bomb shelter. I didn’t care for the characters and it wasn’t that interesting. The cover is pretty cool though.  

Night of the Missing (2023)

A janitor working overnight in the police station is surprised when a disheveled, crying woman walks into the office asking for the sheriff. It’s not clear why the door to the station is unlocked since the janitor is the only one there.

When the Sheriff finally shows up, the woman doesn’t say anything for awhile. Maybe it’s because she’s in shock or because the Sheriff never turns on the lights and the only illumination is from a desk lamp. Also the Sheriff is pretty damn weird and off putting.

When the woman finally speaks, she talks about the missing posters on the wall behind them. She tells the sheriff stories about what happened to the people on the posters. The sheriff is not amused and neither will you be.  

The best story is about a couple girls who end up as miniatures in a diorama. How did they get that small? We’ll never know. 

Granny Krampus (2024)

Ashley and Lea head to their estranged grandmother’s home. Their mother had a falling out with her years ago so they don’t know here. But Grandma wants Ashley to live with her and go to college there so she’s been discussing it with Lea.  It’s weird that they would discuss where Ashley would live and go to college without involving Ashley in that discussion. 

When they arrive, they find that Grandma’s brother Robert lives there as well. Robert, who seems to have taken a few too many shots to the head, doesn’t speak and stares off into space. Some other relatives around their age show up and blah blah blah oh god there’s a family curse and a Krampus.

The biggest question I have about this movie is who drove on Lea and Ashley’s drive to Gran’s house.  They appear to be riding in the back of the car. I thought it must be a taxi or Gran has a driver.  But the car doesn’t leave after they get out.  So who was driving the car? Or were we not supposed to notice they were in the back seat?

Ridiculous dialogue

Why would Gran have a picture of a strange girl in one of her books?

She appears to be in the backseat

Down the Chimney with a Shotgun (2022)

A mental patient is on the loose and the news warns he’s wearing a Santa hat and orange jumpsuit.  They may have also wanted to mention he’s doing a voice that veers between Beetlejuice, Yosemite Sam and the Macho Man.

The wrap around story about this lunatic holding someone hostage ties in the five stories that make up this anthology.

• Christmas Boogeyman - guy banished by the church dresses as a scarecrow and is later killed after murdering a child and eating him. Now he’s known as the Christmas scarecrow because apparently that’s a thing. He scares naughty kids and adults. 
• Christmas Hell - a guy with a burlap bag over his head seems to be caught in a loop in time
• Santa’s Little Scalper - special dolls are made from the souls of evil elves and given to children whose behavior needs attention.  As if that isn’t nonsense enough, the doll is with an adult.
• Christmas Witch - man rents a room due to a blizzard. The innkeeper has a creepy doll, talks about how everyone has a purpose and won’t shut up about the ingredients in her cookie recipe. Even though things are freaky, he stays the night
• The Butchers List - after he butcher two boys, St. Nick resurrects them and the butcher repents.  After forgiving him, St. Nick takes him on to deal with naughty kids by killing and eating them. So … he continues doing what he did before repenting?

There is some very questionable acting and things that don’t make sense.   If the dolls are made from souls of evil elves and are demonic, how would they help bad children change their ways?  They imply there are multiple elves and dolls, but then tell us one special child will receive the doll. How bad is this child that he’s chosen out of every child in the world? Most importantly, why doesn’t this story have a child in it? The doll is with an adult.

Ridiculous dialogue 

He roamed the country side in his scarecrow disguise.

So every year one special child will receive the demonic doll hoping the doll will help the child change it’s ways before it’s too late.

The blizzard that causes a man to stop driving and rent a room

The perspective is off as the truck is only slightly taller than the man

Is that supposed to be an old gravestone?

Krampus and the Crazy Cats (2023)

Absolute nonsense and not in a good way. I couldn’t even get through it. Random scenes that go nowhere. Foley doesn’t start until part way through some scenes. The editing isn’t always smooth either.  If someone is walking and the shot cuts from back to front, we should not see them motionless for a second before they start walking again. 

Cursed (2024)

Gordon is backpacking in Romania when he gets a message his mother has died. When he heads toward a town with an airport to fly home, his general douchebaggery and lack of cash results in being kicked out of a taxi and stranded by the side of the road.

With no choice but to walk, he wanders down the snow covered  country roads until he finds a fruit stand in the middle of nowhere.  Seeing no one around, he stuffs his face and fills his backpack with everything he can carry, including the money box.

At dusk, he comes upon a house and knocks on the door. The woman inside lets him in, feeds him and allows him to stay the night.  The woman mentions that her grandmother Olga owns a fruit stand. One time someone stole the money box and the townsfolk beat the crap out of the thief.  

Thus we are on our way into a story which has Gordon doing far worse and getting even more unlikeable.  Our dirtbag protagonist is going to get some terrible and unexpected karma for his actions.  

This movie came up when I did a search for Christmas horror. Based on the cover, you’d think Krampus was going to show up at some point. Each time something messed up happened or people started giving each other the side eye, I’d think, here we go, let loose the Krampus  But instead, it seems the cover was made by someone who apparently didn’t know anything about the movie. There is no Krampus. It’s well done but if you’re expecting what’s on the cover you’re sure to be disappointed.

Beware the Children (2018)

After some opening scenes in different time periods which mention experimental drugs and disappearing children, we jump to current day Happy Valley. David arrives home after serving overseas and his family celebrates by pulling out a cake. The kids are told to eat as quickly as possible because it’s bed time.  This begs the question, why not celebrate tomorrow? Also why are they going to bed when it’s light out?

The next day David and his wife get together with their friends and discover all their kids are suffering from nightmares.  They decide group therapy would be best, even though the kids are different ages and don’t all have the same fears. Will the kids be comfortable being vulnerable in front of their friends?  The parents are not concerned.

The child counselor is super creepy and resembles Bigfoot.  He lets the parents know when the counseling session is over, they can pick their kids up in the park across the street. Nothing suspicious about that. One of the parents says the children’s behavior is getting worse after what the counselor is serving them and the counselor counters he’s not serving it anymore. Wait, I thought this was the first session.

Meanwhile in another part of town, a group of teens talk about how hungry they are and a creepy delivery driver brings one styrofoam take out container. Why didn’t everyone order food if they’re all hungry?  The guy who ordered take out goes outside to eat while his girlfriend watches. I’m not sure why we are focusing on these teens.

Soon children start to disappear and the movie devolves into the worst attempt to arrest a suspect. A line of detectives with guns drawn and the reaction time of a sloth step en masse into a garage. Then a small child hits the button for the garage door and it slowly closes behind them, locking them in.

The movie is a low budget film that’s really disjointed and sometimes you’ll wonder what is happening.  The audio is inconsistent, like when Timmy is in the counseling session but sounds very far away.  There are off putting close ups with strange framing. At other times, the principle actors heads are cut off, partially or fully.  Sometimes the color is washed out, which was definitely a choice but it’s not clear why. There are even some scenes where actors trample on each others lines.   

One of the oddest moments is when the adults can’t believe another adult is someone they went to grade school with because he used to be such a small kid and now he's huge. You could say that about almost anyone you hadn’t seen since they were little.

This is one of those movies where the best thing you can say is they had an idea and put the effort into  actually making the movie.  

Ridiculous dialogue

It’s like demons versus God for me. So I just tell him say a prayer and turn the light on.

Baby sitter: Is anything wrong?

Police: Well they went to a therapy session and now all the children are missing.

The newspaper article which misspells bizarre 

The choice to not include any characters entire head in the scene

The delivery boy with the hand drawn name tag

The delivery boy continues standing at the door, plus
everyone said they were hungry but this is all they ordered 

The creepiest child counselor ever

Out of focus and odd framing

Wait, this a religious movie?

More odd framing on close ups

The family wave to well wishers

Hellavator Hotel (2023)

Aka The Elevator; aka Haunted Hotel

Lily arrives for her first shift as the night manager at a hotel. Instead of training on how the hotel works, she’s immediately shown her room which has multiple bunk beds.  You’d assume it’s staff dorm, except the only other staff member we see has a different room. 

The hotel is odd.  The guest rooms also have multiple bunk beds, which seems like a really bad business decision.  The boiler is not in the basement, but on an upper floor.  Then there are the strange permanent residents and a history of guests dying in the hotel.  

Lily is more concerned with investigating the most recent death than in doing her job. She constantly leaves the front desk to look into what happened.  I guess that’s not a big deal since no one seems to stay there. Plus Lily has no training so she has idea how to check someone in or charge them for their room.

There is security footage of the last person who died. She was playing the elevator game so Lily tries to play it too, but caretaker Zack catches her.  We’re told Zack has been the caretaker for ages so you’d think he’d be close to retirement, but he appears to be in his twenties.

While the hotel has 14 floors, they only let guests go to the 7th floor.  Lily’s room has several leaks in the ceiling so I thought she was staying on the top floor, but that’s not the case. Aside from the residents, the only guests we see are some influencers who are staying there due to the deaths in the hotel and are shooting some footage for a video. It does not go well for them. 

This is a slog to get through. It’s slow paced and not much happens.  Lily is mostly expressionless and glassy eyed.  The demon is a man in a rubber suit which was used in other movies by the same filmmaker. 

The name on the title screen does not match the cover

Why does he have a photo of the new manager hidden in his book?

Why does the hotel have bunk beds?

Oh joy,  we’ve got some influencers 

She can only see ghosts through her cell phone

The most inefficient use of space in a diary entry

Brilliant investigating

Rabid (2019)

Rose and her best friend Chelsea, a model, work for abusive fashion designer Gunther. Rose dreams of being a designer but Gunther thinks her work is pedestrian.

Due to her insecurity about the scars on her face (which are barely noticeable), Rose usually skips fashion events. But when Brad asks her to go with him to a party, she accepts. She’s having a great time until she overhears two of Gunther’s models calling her scar face and laughing about how Chelsea convinced Brad to take her tonight. 

Feeling the fool, Rose bolts from the club, gets on her moped and is hit by a car. She wakes up in the hospital with horrific facial injuries. The doctors tell her repairing the injuries could take years, is expensive and she will never look the same. Since heartless Gunther let her go after her accident, Rose has no job and no insurance to pay for the procedures.

When she sees an ad for the Burrows Clinic offering an experimental procedure at no cost, she and Chelsea make an appointment to meet with the doctors. Rose decides to move forward since it is her only hope.  The experimental procedure is flawless and the reconstruction is amazing.  But she reports having odd dreams about biting people and consuming blood, which is  upsetting since she’s a vegetarian.

At one point there is a public health crisis where people are advised to stay home due to a rabies outbreak. But Gunther has a show to do and fashion waits for no one. Who cares if the public is at risk, he needs to show his ugly fashions.  

Since Rose is now beautiful, she’s back on Gunther’s team and is helping with the show. When Chelsea arrives disheveled and stating she was bitten while riding the subway, no one is concerned. Other models seem ill and once again, no one is concerned. People fall down on stage and there is barely registered concern. Since rabies is not fashionable, everyone pretends the health crisis doesn’t exist.  We all know this isn’t going to go well.

This is a remake of a 1970s movie. 

Dialogue from fashion industry insiders

You know you’re pretty now, right? You don’t have to be nice.

Fashion never stops for anybody or anything.

Rose and her hideous scars which make her a fashion outcast

I don’t think I trust the Burrows clinic’s operating staff

The orange faced, be-wigged goon on the left is not a clinic
patient, but renowned fashion designed Gunther

Horror in the Forest (2023)

Redwood Forest is known for a high number of child abductions. Yet people still take their children into the woods to camp.  The police search for the missing, but if they are not found within 48 hours, they are never seen again.

Three paranormal investigators decide to explore the forest. They plan to retrace the steps of one of the recent abduction cases. They’re pointed towards Nelson, whose daughter recently went missing, who believes a witch stole his daughter.  His plan is to call the witch and make an exchange to get his daughter back.  None of the investigators think to ask any questions about what he plans to exchange.

They walk deep into the woods and reach their destination well after dark.  Nelson tells the group he makes the rules and they must follow them. They need to stay inside the circle no matter what happens.  If they leave the circle, they’ll die.

As expected, things do not go the way the investigators think they will. What’s unexpected is Georgie keeps shining the light in her own face in the middle of the pitch black woods, effectively blinding herself and making her whereabouts easy to find for whatever evil happens to be looking for her. 

Be prepared for a lot of this type of shot

Never go into the woods with a stranger

Stop using the light when you’re trying to hide

I’m sure the ghoul in the woods is perfectly safe

St. Patricks Day: The Sluagh Awakens (2022)

After striking it rich in the market, Colin takes his wife on a camping trip. While at a bar, they tell the bartender about their good fortune and their plans to camp.  The bartender warns them not to go camping tonight of all nights, but head back into the city.  Colin laughs in his face. The bartender angrily shows them scars on his arm which he says are from fighting a creature out there.  Colin and his wife laugh at him and the bartender is not amused.

Once outside Colin says the bartender was a dick, but his wife says maybe they should rethink their plans.  Colin isn’t worried since they’re in the middle of nowhere and the townsfolk are uneducated rednecks who suffer from mental illness. Surprisingly that statement does not concern his wife. But since she doesn’t have long to live, I guess she can’t regret it. Colin barely survives the creature attack and spends years blaming others because he didn’t heed the bartenders warning.

Seven years later Tara, her boyfriend Pierce, and sister Olivia head to the same town. Tara is so unpleasant it’s hard to imagine being trapped in a car with her.  They arrive on St Patrick’s Day and visit with Pierce’s uncle, the same man who warned Colin seven years earlier.  The bar is dead since the locals know if you want to party on St. Patrick’s Day you need to leave town.

Colin is also back in town seeking revenge on the creature who murdered his wife. He doesn’t seem prepared though. It’s like he has no real plan and not enough weapons. The kids end up being chased through the woods and take shelter at the house he’s renting for the weekend.  People keep making stupid decisions, such as running outside after getting in a fight. Or when Olivia looks over Pierce’s shoulder with a horrified look on her face, Pierce says “What?”  It never occurs to him it could be one of the creatures they previously escaped from, nor does he think to turn around or move. 

Other than the initial death in the set up, which is over in an instant,  it takes 50 minutes to get to the night of St. Patrck’s and the creatures attacking.

Ridiculous dialogue

Your uncle gave us a pretty half ass warning about it seven years ago. He knew and now my wife’s dead.

 

Has he done research about what could kill the monsters?

Tara is always side eyeing people

The scars that look like a Monster energy drink