Night Killer (1990)

A group of questionable dancers are interrupted by one of their troop who is late.  The choreographer says this is the last time she’s going to be late, which proves to be true when the dancer is killed in the dressing room. The killer wears a creepy mask, has a glove with long claws and is able to punch her heart through her body. 

The maniac’s next target is Melanie, but she manages to survive.  The police question her but she can’t remember what the man looks like. She doesn’t remember a lot of things, including her daughter. 

Once released from the hospital, Melanie is followed by a creepy guy named Axel. She manages to get away, but he tracks her down at the beach and holds her hostage in a hotel until she loses her mind and hopes to die. So much of this movie is unpleasant to watch.

There is a confusing scene when Melanie is introduced. A man knocks on her door and Melanie sends her child off with him. He walks down the street to another woman’s house. Then the child and woman drive off together. Who are these people? Is that the child’s father? Why didn’t they just pick her up in the car? Does Melanie not want her child to be alone with this woman?  We don’t know until later when it’s revealed the couple are friends of her and her husband.

This movie was made by the guy who did Troll 2. It is half hilarious and half yucky. The women being assaulted and held hostage is hard to watch. The enjoyable parts were the confusing scenes where I struggled to make sense of what was going on, and the odd acting choices.

The out of sync dancers

The police phone with packing tape around the cord and bottom

Continuity -  hair pulled back and blue scarf…

…hair down and no scarf

The Christmas Spirit (2023)

For the past twenty years Cole has carried the guilt of not helping his younger sister Carol put up the Christmas lights, which led to her falling a ladder and hanging herself.  As an adult, Cole has gotten nowhere. It doesn’t help that since Carol’s death he’s been followed by a Christmas spirit dressed as a luchador.

The spirit tells Cole he must make a sacrifice to be forgiven and be free.  Cole isn’t sure what to do until he sees Maggie, who looks just like his late sister.  The luchador convinces Cole if he sacrifices Maggie, both of them will be set free. But how to get her in his van?

After interacting with her at the mall while dressed as Santa, Maggie declines getting in his van. He follows her and her friend as they walk home and when she’s alone he approaches her.  Since Maggie is fighting with her mom, who recently split up the family by having an affair, Maggie decides to punish her by posting on social media that she’s been kidnapped. Cole is glad to help and ties her in the back of his van.

Once Maggie figures out she truly was kidnapped, her friend starts trying to figure out her location.  The young toughs they met at the mall decide to help also. 

This is an odd film since it seems to be for teens, yet Cole’s character is unsettling.

The only Christmas movie with a luchadore

Krispr (2023)

Eli has spent the past seven years working on creating a clone and is excited when his dreams come to fruition.  Worried about leaving her alone after her first day of life, he takes Krispr from the lab to his family’s weekend Christmas gathering. His wife is not amused.

The family is gracious and welcoming, but privately agree it’s weird. They don’t believe he should not have brought the clone, especially since he favors the clone over his wife Chloe. Krispr is an attractive adult and Eli is very doting on her. Chloe thinks Krispr is trying to drive a wedge between them and wants him all to herself.

Since Krispr doesn’t need to sleep, Eli leaves her in front of the tv to amuse herself.  The next night Eli gives her access to the internet. When Chloe expresses concern, Eli says it’s fine because there is a parental lock on it. Cut to Krispr watching nuclear blasts, riots, scandals, and the fall of the Twin Towers.

Krispr’s learning capabilities are amazing as she learns to read and grasp complex concepts over night. She’s also learned manipulation and is trying to destroy Eli’s marriage. When Chloe talks to Eli about the weird things Krispr is doing and saying, Eli blames Chloe and says she’s jealous of his success. 

When Eli gets a call from the lab on Christmas stating Krispr is missing, he says he needed to supervise her. His colleague counters she was already under supervision in the lab and Eli has no idea what Krispr might do. But Eli is stuck in his my creation is beautiful phase and shall hear no bad words about Krispr. That’s too bad since his dream for a Nobel prize has passed when he compromised protocol by removing her from a controlled environment.  Also Krispr is not who he thinks she is and there’s a world of hurt about to come down.

For a guy smart enough to create a clone, Eli is a dolt. He steals the clone from the lab even though there is no way to know if the clone is dangerous, or if he’s exposing the clone to something harmful. He brings it to his families Christmas, even though there is no good reason to do so. Then he has no idea why his wife is upset he’s so attentive to an attractive clone who is showing signs she wants Eli to herself. His wife seems sweet and his family loves her. Yet he’s going to take the clones side every time something happens, even though his wife has never done anything crazy before.

Dialogue which confirms Eli has lost perspective

Christian: Elijah, G4667 is gone. She’s not in the lab.

Elijah: I know. I know, Christian. I have her,

Christian: Are you insane?

Elijah: I had to keep her under observation, Christian.

Christian: She was under observation, Eli.

Smart enough to create clone but can’t handle his own hair

Santa Isn’t Real (2023)

A year after being attacked by Santa and left for dead, Nicki comes out of a coma to discover everyone thinks she tried to take her own life. Her boyfriend Nate and best friend Jess visit her in the hospital, but it’s obvious to everyone but Nicki something is going on between them.

The newly awakened Nicki decides she’s sick of the hospital and against the doctors advice, she goes home. She needs crutches for balance and is warned to stay on her meds.  

She must not have a good relationship with her family since she goes away for Christmas with her friends.  Nicki, Nate and Jess drive to a cabin where MJ has already arrived. When Nicki tries to set the record straight that Santa came down the chimney to kill her, no one believes her. You’d think they would give her the benefit of the doubt that it was a criminal in a Santa suit, but nope they think she did it to herself.

Nate and Jess are caught in bed by Nicki and everything starts going off the rails.  Not only is Nicki angry, but the killer Santa shows up.  Nicki disappears but no one is looking for her. MJ drives off in the car her friends drove up in to try to get help. Wait, she doesn’t have a car? How did she get there?

The movie is often dark and hard to see. Nate has no emotional range. He can’t even crawl convincingly. Santa’s voice is altered to the point I couldn’t understand him and to make it worse, he just drones on and on. He doesn’t need a knife because he could kill you with boredom.  That being said, even though it’s  below average, it’s still better than the majority of Christmas horror movies I saw this year. 

There’s a scene with a landline that feels like it was written by someone who has only used a landline in a hospital or corporation. When one of the kids asks how to use it, the other says dial 9. That is not normal when in a home. The 9 is used to get an outside line rather than an internal number and a house would not keep any calls inside the house

Some shots are so dark you can’t see what is going on

This is the most emotion Nick can muster

Werewolf Santa (2023)

After dropping out of college and getting fired from her job, Lucy heads home for the holidays and brings Dustin, even though he is clear they aren’t exclusive. Lucy considers herself a paranormal investigator and has had a YouTube channel for year, but barely has any followers. 

When Lucy and Dustin see a guy dressed as Santa attacked by a werewolf, they miss capturing it on video. Thus ensuring no one believes them, including her father who is the chief constable in town. Lucy goes in through the back door of the police station to look through their files. Nice to know the station either has no security or Lucy’s dad has allowed her to paw through confidential files to the point she knows how to access them.

Eventually Lucy, her parents, and her childhood friend Rupert are all trying to resolve the werewolf issues plaguing the town.  At one crime scene, Lucy states she’ll back up her dad.  Why do I feel like the local constables think Lucy is always overstepping but don’t say anything because her dad is in charge?

This is a hard one to get through. Lucy is so unlikeable.  She’s demanding, rude, and overall unpleasant. It’s also disconcerting that she looks the same age as her mother.  Also why is the chief constable an  American? It’s a got great title, but is not very entertaining. 

Lucy and her mom appear to be the same age

Lucy’s personality matches this expression

12 Slays of Christmas

Three women wearing outfits totally inappropriate for winter get lost in a storm and end up stranded at the home of an old weirdo. When  no one answers the door, they let themselves in and find a table full of food. The two brunettes start stuffing their faces. The blond woman appears to have pink eye and it’s uncomfortable to see.

This is not so much a movie as it is scenes from Full Moon movies disguised as stories the old man is telling. If you want to see clips of the puppets murdering people and love Full Moon, this might be for you. The best thing I can say about it is it’s relatively short at around forty minutes long.

Not gonna lie, this looks cool

She appears to have pink eye

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