Runaway (1973)

The ski train is heading back down the mountain and engineer Holly talks about how he’s been doing this run for years and is going to retire. Uh oh, that’s not a good sign.  Before you know it, the air brakes aren’t working and the train’s speed is increasing.

Meanwhile let’s meet the passengers.  Les is a ski bum who tries to get everything for free, utilizing such methods as hitting on wealthy women in hopes they’ll pay for his vacation or stealing someone’s train ticket. Ellen and her husband are planing to get divorced. John is with his young son who was afraid of something I can’t remember, maybe skiing.  There are some college students and a few professors making a racket, shouting and banging on things as if they’re drums.  Student Carol is declaring her love to Professor Dunn,  asking him to say he loves her and to sit with her. Dunn looks uncomfortable and brushes her off.

Based on these stereotypes, we can assume Les will grow as a person and stop thinking only of himself. Ellen and her husband will reconcile.  John’s son will learn to be brave and Carol will be rebuffed with extreme prejudice during the crisis.

Since the brakes fail within the first fifteen minutes, you wonder’s what sort of disaster is waiting for the rest of the movie. Well it’s mostly interpersonal disaster and a lot of people getting down on the floor to brace for a curve they’re going to hit at 60 mph.  Holly thinks he can make it but the guys in the office don’t believe him.  But damn it Holly’s been doing this run for years.  Plans include trying to use handbrakes or a faster train to catch up to them and attempt to help them brake.

This is a 1970s tv movie, it’s formulaic, and I’m all in. 

Ridiculous dialogue

Carol: I did it because you’re alone.  I don’t like it, being alone.

Les: That’s dumb.

Holly: We’ll try the emergency brakes in the coaches. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try the hand brake.  If that doesn’t work, by god, we’ve got a runaway coming off this mountain.

Les: I’m gonna be ready. I’m gonna make it. You run around pulling the shades, not me.

I like the graphic

Smarmy Les putting his arm around a woman who appears to have
money and suggesting they take a ski trip where she pays their way

The panic begins

Les proving he’s the weasel by hiding and refusing to help

The sketchy idea of hanging off the car to look at the brakes
while someone holds onto your jacket to keep you from falling

Smiles and horror in the same shot

Hurrah! Let’s mob the crippled train

The Elevator (1974)

Disaster movies follow a predictable pattern. Introduce a number of unrelated characters, stick them together in a stressful situation which could kill them all and see who gets out alive. Who will fall apart? Who will overcome their fears? Who will admit their flaws and become a better person? Who will reveal they are pretending to be something they’re not?

A Brinks truck makes a delivery to an office in a high rise, not realizing robbers know where they’re headed. Once the truck leaves, Pete and Eddie head upstairs while getaway driver Irene stays in the parking garage.  When Pete kills the man in the office, Eddie is upset but Pete says he saw their faces so it had to be done. 

As they try to act nonchalant and leave tthe scene of the crime, they find a number of people waiting for the elevator.  Eddie and the money get on, but there is no room for Pete who frantically asks Eddie for the briefcase full of money. When the doors close, Pete runs down to the garage to wait for Eddie but he never arrives. If only the workmen had used the freight elevator for their seven hundred pound safe, the bolts would have held and there’d be no damage to the mechanism.

Stuck in the elevator with claustrophobic Eddie are the rest of our cast of characters.  Mrs. Kenyon is looking for a penthouse for her son.  Marvin is the leasing agent who works for the building and showed her the penthouse. Dr. Reynolds is having an affair with his secretary, and is now trapped with her and his wife.  Robert is a young man who is upset with his fragile mother for trying to control the inheritance from his father. 

Questions you’ll have are why was Pete hiding in the trunk of the car, rather than sitting inside it with Eddie and Irene? Or why didn’t Eddie get out of the elevator since Pete couldn’t get on? Why was 

The Magnificent Dead (2010)

The town of Rosewood is under consideration as a new stop on the railroad.  The townfolks are excited about the business it would bring and how much easier it would be to travel.  Everyone wants it except Jared, a rancher who doesn’t want the railroad on his land.  I’m not sure why the railroad needs to use his land, but he’s not having it.

Meanwhile an injured man is found outside the saloon and brought to a holding cell in the jail to await help. When a household servant brings him food, the man bites her. The Sheriff says the doctor should arrive soon to check the man and urges her to stay so her wound can be looked at as well. But the servant goes home and she falls ill.

The mayor hasinvited the railroad representatives to town to convince them to designate Rosewood as the new stop.  This makes Jared mean mad since he’s made it clear his land is not available.  He and his men come to town and dust the railroad reps who turn out to be mostly gunfighters.

When a new preacher arrives, he says he can help them convince Jared.  Then he suggests hiring a group of gunfighters in a nearby town who’ll take up the fight. The only issue is they’re lepers.  People aren’t too keen on bringing lepers to town but he assures them they won’t catch the disease.

The preacher and a couple of men ride out to ask the lepers if they’ll convince Jared of his selfishness.  The lepers agree but the next morning are nowhere in sight.  Surprisingly no one is suspicious of the three large, upright boxes in the back of the preachers wagon that he won’t let anyone get near. Or that the lepers aren’t in town when they arrive, even though the preacher said the lepers had gone ahead to scout the town.

The leper gunfighters show up that night for a town meeting. They tell everyone to stay in their houses at night and not to leave town during the day. Oh this doesn’t bode well for our townsfolk, especially since their leader is sounding like a cult leader with lines like, “Whoever believes in me though he were dead will have eternal life.”

The only reason I watched this was because the gunfighters were lepers, but that didn’t have much to do with anything. Also were they really lepers or was that a ruse to avoid telling people they were dead? Are they vampires? Zombies? Lepers? All three? It’s not great, but it is the only western leper horror movie I’ve seen.

Ridiculous dialogue

Man: Are these lawmen?

Preacher: No, they are lepers.

The horror of their malady adds to the fear that they strike in the hearts of their opponents.

Carl: This town hates me.

Father: I think it’s you Carl who hates this town.

He doesn’t look too bad for a leper

Oh no,he’s deteriorated a lot in the past 24 hours.

Yeah, it just got way worse

I Trapped the Devil (2019)

Mark and his wife Karen decide to visit his brother Steven. They haven’t seen him in a while and have been unable to get in touch. When they show up, the house is a mess and he’s tells them to leave.  Mark says he has as much right to be there as Steve does and they’ve driven all this way to see him.  Steve relents and lets them stay the night.

Mark feels like something is off and after dinner Steve takes him down to the basement.  There is a closed door and Mark hears a man asking to be let out. But Steve says it’s not a man. It’s the devil.   When Mark tells Karen, she says they can’t be involved in this, but Mark thinks if they let the man go and pay him money, then they can get Steve some help.

Mark and Steve argue about if the man is the devil. Steve shows mark the attic which is covered with a string graph.  Meanwhile Karen contemplates letting the man out of the basement and worries because the gun she saw in the bedroom is now missing.    

The main question is what does Mark do? What if he lets him out and he’s made the wrong choice? But I also had other questions that are not addressed.  How did Steve trap him? Why does he think he’s the devil? If he is actually the devil, shouldn’t he be smarter than to be trapped in a basement? And most importantly, shouldn’t the devil be able to escape from a locked room, or are locks his one weakness? He’s the king of darkness but as long as you can keep a door locked, you’ll be safe.

Overall I liked it. It’s more a psychological piece with a slow burn rather than straight horror. But while I liked it, I wasn’t fond of the ending.  At first I thought, oh that’s it? But the more I think about it, it’s making me question some things.

Black Santa (2023)

Twenty five years ago, Stephon and Blake were sent to a foster home after their crackhead mother couldn’t take care of them.  Their foster mother kept them chained to the floor. When Blake wouldn’t stop crying, a doctor came to the house and shot him up with something which killed him.  They covered it up by saying Blake had a seizure. There was no investigation.

Twenty five years later, Stephon dresses up as Santa and kidnaps his mom, foster mother, doctor, CPS worker and a small child. The child was in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

As he’s in the middle of torturing everyone, his girlfriend calls and says she’s on her way to his place and they need to talk. It turns out she’s pregnant. So he slips her a mickey, brings her to the garage and ties her up with his other victims.  She was in the foster home with him, but doesn’t recognize the others.

Unlike Silent Night, Deadly Night, this isn’t any fun.  It’s mostly poorly done torture on people tied to chairs in a large garage or storage space.  The only fun part is the aging is accomplished by slapping some ill fitting gray wigs on the actors.

Stalled (2013)

During an office Christmas party, the janitor heads into the women’s bathroom to fix the fan.  While he’s in a stall, two women enter and he’s afraid to come out.  He listens to them trash talk about another woman and about the charity auction where they’ll wear bikinis to try to get the highest bids.

When one woman turns into a zombie and bites the other, he realizes he’s trapped.  Soon more zombies have stumbled into the restroom and they can’t figure out how to get out because the door opens in. 

Almost all of the movie takes place in the bathroom and is mostly one man and zombies. There does turn out to be someone else in another stall but we just hear her voice and her face is never shown. This probably would have made a better short film. It’s a horror comedy but not really funny or scary. 

Krampus vs. Bigfoot (2021)

Apparently Bigfoot works on a space ship, his friends refer to him as Foot, he looks like a gorilla and his voice sounds like Fat Albert. He works with Van Helsing, who’s gotten crew member Karli pregnant. Van Helsing is a jerk and a martyr.  He leaves the ship because he says Karli would be better off without him.

Krampus is in another space ship with his minions. So you’d think this would be awesome but it’s super boring.  It’s a bunch of CGI with voice actors and generic background music. 

 

Ridiculous dialogue

All she cares about now is that baby I put inside her.

Generic Space

Everyone wears helmets inside the ship

I thought this was a gorilla till they called him Foot
and he mentioned he’s a Sasquatch

 

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

 This anthology has the stories running concurrently, rather than doing them one by one. The wrap around story is a DJ played by William Shatner.

1. Santa’s elves get ill and become zombies who try to kill Santa.
2. High school kids break into a school during Christmas vacation to investigate the year old murder of two students, not realizing what killed them is still around.
3. A crappy family visits their rich aunt to ask for money, but when their shitty son purposely breaks a Krampus statue, it unleashes evil.
4. A family trespass to cut down a tree for Christmas and choose the one property where creatures can assume the shape of a child.

Production is decent but most of the characters are jerks so you don’t care about them.

Ridiculous dialogue 

Molly: I get that he’s creepy but that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.

Dylan: then what’s he doing here on Christmas Eve?

The Christmas Tapes (2022)

While celebrating a quiet Christmas Eve, a family hears a knock on the door and finds a man holding a large present. He says his car broke down and his cell phone is dead so he wants to use their phone.  No one is suspicious except teen girl Rachel who thinks he’s weird and wonders why her parents are ignoring the stranger danger rules.

Her fears turn out to be valid when she comes out of the bathroom and her entire family is tied up.The stranger says watching regular Christmas movies is boring so he’s brought his own. 

1. Travel Buggies - Dave and Jess have been posting videos for years and have 200 subscribers. Dave’s tired of the manufactured experience all for content. He wants to stop filming and enjoy each other’s company.  Jess disagrees but says after this trip, maybe they can take a break. When her content doesn’t go as planned, she gets mad at Dave and blames him for not helping plan the trip. Things might have been okay if earlier in the day they hadn’t done a ritual next to a scarecrow calling on Hans Trap who snaps the neck of nasty kids.
2. The Christmas Gift - Dean is claustrophobic but since his kids only pay attention to YouTube, he’s going to ship himself to them in a giant box. He’ll film everything and make an unboxing video. Freight companies won’t ship humans so he finds someone on the internet who agrees to help. The guy shows up dressed as Santa and asks to stop by his own house to talk to Mrs. Santa. The two convince Dean to get into the box there rather wait until he’s a block from his house. Oh Dean, why would you ever trust a stranger to lock you in a box, especially when you are claustrophobic?
3. Untitled - a dating service puts a chip in a client’s head, tells them to deliver a package to a hotel room, and that they might see things that don’t exist due to the chip.  If they fail to deliver the package, they’ll die.
4. Christmas Spirit - A couple buys a house but the moving company can’t bring their furniture until after Christmas. The wife finds decorations in the closet and puts them on the mantle. Odd things happen so they call someone to investigate. He sends over a weird paranormal investigator who makes them so uncomfortable they don’t want him in their house.

It would have been so much more enjoyable if when the stranger brought out the VHS tapes, the family no longer had a VCR. Sadly they still have one hooked up in the living room. I noticed IMDB lists this as both horror and comedy, which is surprising since it wasn’t funny.

 

Christmas Cruelty (2013)

Aka O’Hellage Jul!

The movie opens with some horrific murders, and then transitions to the characters we’ll be watching for the rest of the film. Unfortunately they're really unlikable. We watch them get drunk, get ready for Christmas, and insult each other.  One guy hates women and talks about how all his girlfriends have been horrible, overlooking the fact that he’s the common denominator. 

Once in awhile they cut to the killer who sits at his desk at work, or goes home and has dinner with his family.  The editing is bizarre. In some scenes there are constant cuts. Sometimes they cut to a slightly closer shot of the same thing and then back.  It might happen six times in a single sentence. It’s annoying.

It’s not fun or interesting, everyone is unlikable, and you’ll feel yucky when it’s over.

Sister Krampus (2021)

During World War II, three old soldiers desert their regiment and are helped by a nun, whom they thank by assaulting her. The convent blames the nun for being victimized and kicks her out.  She wanders through the woods until she comes upon one of the soldiers. Krampus shows up, rips the soldiers head off and then she becomes his wife.  What the hell.

Meanwhile in current day, sisters Judy and Mary are wearing Santa hats and garlands while hiking in Austria.  They’re not on a path or road, just traipsing through a field.  When they run into a nun, she mentions a nearby convent and how they haven’t seen Americans since World War II. Then she disappears.

Once in town, the sisters get a room for the night.  In a continuity issue, they wonder what is going on outside and cut to a gathering on a dark night.  Cut back to the sisters with sunlight pouring in the door behind them. 

The next day Mary feels sick so Judy decides to look for the convent.  Townsfolk warned them the convent has been abandoned for years and people who see the nun usually die.  But Judy wants to take photos and both sisters scoffed at the local legends so she’s not worried.

When Mary discovers Judy has disappeared, she goes to the convent to find her but finds Sister Krampus instead.  After some blathering and some fighting, we end up with a bizarre sitcom ending out of left field complete with cartoon sound effects.

The acting in this is pretty bad.  I’m curious if Mary’s acting was a choice or her character was supposed to be condescending and annoying.  She scoffs, rolls her eyes, and grimaces at everything.  The beginning of the movie is shown again part way through but with extended scenes.  It’s not necessary and is just padding the film. The flashbacks have things like modern wiring and a camouflage baseball hat which wouldn’t have been around in WWII.

Ridiculous dialogue

We’ll stay here till dark.  Then we’ll sneak back to the platoon under the cover of darkness.

When Judy is scrolling through the photos on their camera,
we see this shot which they couldn’t have taken 

The WWII soldier with camouflage baseball hat under his helmet

The modern wiring in the WWII convent

It’s raining, yet their raincoats are dry.

Nothing suspicious about this nun.

Oh Mary, is there anything you won’t grimace at?

Christmas Craft Fair Massacre (2022)

Mortimer Shade is the new school principle and is using the disfigured janitor to kill people for Satan.  He wants to be Satan’s right hand man which requires the sacrifice of someone pure. Mrs. Pendragon, who runs the mall, asks Shade to work with her so she can make the sacrifice and get the power.

Meanwhile Patrice is talking to Dan about the Christmas craft fair. She’s planning on selling her jewelry but feels like there’s a bad vibe at the school. Maybe it’s because it’s built on a Native American graveyard or the construction that dug up several bodies. The bad vibes lead Patrice to do a tarot reading and she doesn’t like what she sees. But she’s still signing up for the craft fair.

While the Satanists look for someone pure to sacrifice, painter Dan, Tarot reading jewelry maker Patrice, local priest Father Goodman, and Native American Ben Highcloud form a group to fight the coming evil. Ben is able to astral project and the entire group begins projecting their thoughts. This leads to awkward scenes of people sitting there with their eyes closed doing nothing as a voice over conveys what they’re thinking.

This is a movie where everyone appears to have no acting experience. The line reads are awkward like what you’d see in a high school play.  Some of the conversation scenes appear to have been shot with each actor in a different room. The walls are different colors, decorations don’t match, and the characters never appear together. Also it doesn’t sound like a conversation, rather like saying one line at a time. 

When I saw footage of Trinity Church, I figured the movie took place in Boston. Nope, they just inserted stock footage of the church and the duck tour bus going by it.  When choosing stock footage, maybe don't choose an iconic building the movie takes place elsewhere.

Ridiculous dialogue

He’s disfigured not just in a way that’s disturbing, but distracting.

Mrs. Pendragon is in conversation with….

…this character in the room with different decor and wall color

The stock footage of Boston

This ghost seems to be included just to use the effect

Someone went crazy with the Halloween/Christmas decorations

The Night Before Christmas (2019)

This is the sequel to Once Upon a Time at Christmas. So if you haven’t seen it, or you don’t remember it, you’re out of luck because they assume you know the characters and their back story.  Sometimes you get information in later scenes, but for most of the movie I was wondering who are these people and what do they have to do with the killer Santa?

When Courtney’s dad has a car accident and is found dead in the woods, the police think he just crawled the wrong way while trying to get help. But when the FBI arrive, they discover huge letters written in blood a short distance away which say naughty and deem this a homicide. They don’t want to tell the family which seems insane since they suspect it is the Santa killer and couldn’t the family be in danger?

As the bodies pile up, the lead FBI agent tries to find a link between the victims to figure out where Santa and his wife will strike next.  She’s pretty quick at putting things together. Too bad the rest of the FBI seem to be idiots.   

Questionable plot points abound:

1. The mother and daughter in witness protection attend the the funeral of someone from their old life
2. The FBI is fine with them going as long as the FBI scope things out 
3. How does Courtney know where Jennifer lives? 
4. No one is suspicious when Santa’s wife says she swallowed razor blades while is jail. She’s not in pain, there’s no blood, and she has no cuts.  Did they not search her when admitted?
5. The FBI agent in his first week out of the academy will be guarding one of the top 10 most wanted.
6. None of the FBI agents know the Santa killer is in the area, even though they have his wife 
7. Why were they not briefed that her partner is on the loose?
8. Why aren’t they suspicious of a car blocking the road?
9. How does Santa take out five cars of FBI agents? Wouldn’t the first agents deaths prompt the other agents to shoot Santa?
10. Wouldn’t it be a conflict of interest for the serial killers former prison psychologist to treat one of his victims?
11. In what world does it make sense for the lead FBI agent to shoot someone who is thinking of shooting the serial killer? Isn’t it better to try to talk them out of it and if you can’t, at least only the murderer is dead?

I didn’t like the first movie and I don’t like this one either. I’m surprised there was a sequel. Then again, I’ve watched them both. I hope this isn’t going to be a trilogy.

The result of a chemical process which exposes the
ink from paper previously hung on the wall. 

No one is alarmed at the filthy, bloody faced Santa

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (2020)

Jeremy has a crush on Amanda, who is dating football star Trent. When the couple gets in a fight, Amanda agrees to go out with Jeremy but stands him up instead.  When his best friend Minka finds out, she takes him out to cheer him up. But when things get romantic, she leaves saying she loves him but she doesn’t want to be a consolation prize.

The next day they find out Amanda has disappeared. Trent and his friends blame Jeremy since he was supposedly the last person to see her.  But there are rumors it’s the Santa Slayer who died eighteen years earlier but somehow seems to be killing again.

Meanwhile Amanda’s father, the chief of police, thinks Jeremy and Minka are responsible for the murders and have kidnapped his daughter.  Blaming them doesn’t make sense since a deputy pulled u to help their teacher who was being threatened by someone in a Santa suit and then Jeremy and Minka came running from the other direction.

Due to the student deaths, the school dance is cancelled.  The students are bummed so Trent sends out a mass text about a party at his place. His girlfriend is still missing and there’ve been multiple deaths. So you’d think the kids would worry about being killed, but they hoot and holler because they just want to party.  For some reason Jeremy and Minka go to this party, even though both are considered geeks and Trent previously wanted to beat up Jeremy because Amanda was missing. I would love if just once the geeks didn’t feel blessed to be included in the popular kids party and just blew it off.  But since the final act is going to sum it all up, we’ve got to put them in this douchey party.

While this is a slasher, it’s fairly lightweight and appears made for teens.  The main characters are likable, unlike so many recent horror movies.  Jeremy and Minka are decent people and do well in school. And Minka is the stereotypical geeky girl we aren’t supposed to realize is attractive because she has glasses.

Continuity - his hair is long, then short, then long again.

She’s got glasses so she must be a geek

The Santa Slayer is like a James Bond villain who
wants to talk instead of making quick work of things.

The police station with the paper signage

Killer Christmas Elves (2021)

Tommy is less than thrilled to be forced to spend Christmas with his estranged father.  James is excited to see his son, but after being given the cold shoulder he stoops to Tommy’s level by being a baby about his cold reception. It’s not clear if Tommy has a legitimate reason for being upset with his dad or he’s just being a jerk.

James lives in a neighborhood with an HOA. His neighbor Bret thinks his decorations aren’t up to par and gives him a gift basket which includes an elf doll. But what Bret doesn’t know is a temp worker in the doll factory was a witch who cursed the elf dolls.

When the tree gets tipped over, James blames Tommy until they start hearing noises and discover the doll causing havoc and trying to kill them.  Now they’re banding together to take out the doll before it murders them.

The problem with low budget horror comedy is it’s never clear if the effects are supposed to be as bad as they are. Did the filmmakers enthusiasm and lack of experience lead him to think these were good, or did he just kind of shrug and say this is the best I can do based on my budget?

Elves attacking

Elf with a flame thrower

She Walks the Woods (2019)

Dennis, Brad and Mike have a channel called Ultimate Survival where they go exploring and gives tips on camping and survival skills. They’re getting ready to shoot their latest video, where their home base will be a small cabin deep in the woods.  

Accompanying them is Hope, who went to film school with Dennis and whose parents own the cabin.  Dennis and Mike admonish Brad to be on his best behavior once they pick up Hope because Brad is kind of a pig.

The cabin turn out to be tiny and off the grid up in the mountains.  Behind it up the hill are remnants of a tipi and an old VW bus. People used to live in both.  Hope says the cabin was rented out, but the people staying there disappeared a few months ago and left all their stuff behind. They owe her parents money but the tenants can’t be found anywhere.  None of them are concerned, consider this alarming, or question why Hope’s parents didn’t report them missing since they could have been the victim of a crime.

The tipi is torn apart and I believe Hope said the person in the van vanished one day as well.  None of this stops them from traipsing off into the woods the next day with a plan to camp in the wilderness. And from the beginning of the movie, we know more than one thousand people go missing in national parks every year and there is something on this mountain that’s killing people. 

Yet another found footage movie where not much happens and someone has a light on in the dark while trying to hide.

Cringe inducing dialogue

Just a friend, huh? You sure you didn’t bang her back in the day?

Where are we picking up this chick?

It’s completely off the grid. So there’s no electricity, no power, no running water and no cell service.

The Last Thanksgiving (2020)

Lisa Marie is not happy the diner where she works is open on Thanksgiving. She’d prefer to stay home, even though she doesn’t get along with her parents.  Her boyfriend is going to be working at the movie theater. She doesn’t seem to get along with him either. In fact, she’s unpleasant to everyone.

The diner has a full staff as the owner expects a crowd, but only one customer shows up.  Do they usually have a crowd on Thanksgiving?  They don’t even seem to have a Thanksgiving meal, just their regular menu.

It’s unfortunate they’re open because a family of cannibals live nearby and spend their day killing those who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. So basically they victimize those who have low paying jobs and are forced to work on the holiday. Everyone in the diner would have been celebrating if they could.  

Also by their own definition, the cannibals aren’t celebrating either since they’re out driving around searching for people to kill. Just as they plan to eat later in the day, their victims do too since the diner was going to let them go early if no one showed up to eat.

The lead character is not likable. Also you’d expect the weirdo in the pilgrim mask to get more screen time, but he’s under utilized.  Not good by any means, but better than the other Thanksgiving horror movies I’ve seen.

The staff at the diner and only one customer shows up

Lisa Marie’s typical expression