A Star Is Unborn

*Note: I had every thrilling intention of littering this review with screenshots, but sadly, my computer seemed allergic to the DVD. That’s probably a good thing. In place, I’ve decided to have a few of my Puppet Master and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves action figures, promotional toys from baseball games, creepy nun dolls found at thrift stores, Russian matryoshkas, and cats reenact some of the film’s key scenes. *

No month of the Vertically Challenged Villains! would be complete without the presence of at least ONE angry spirit of an aborted fetus. In full disclosure, I actually planned to screen two but even I--who as you’ll see, can handle a whole lot of bad cinema--couldn’t get through the dull grossness that was Hanger. Instead, we’ll cut the budget to about a buck fifty for today’s very special, very bad, and weirdly lovable feature, 

Quick Plot: An afterschool counselor or teacher or something (don’t worry) brings over two lovely little girls to her boyfriend’s house for him to babysit while she runs errands. How else does a total stranger entertain new kids? Why, with a ghost story of course!

Now here’s the thing: The framing device of Unborn Sins is actually promising. The two child actresses are perfectly natural and charming, and the very idea of an irresponsible babysitter filling their little heads with awful tales of abortion and vengeance is neatly twisted.

Don’t get your hopes up.

So the real ‘story’ of Unborn Sins follows Theresa, a pretty young woman on her way to a sad, eh, whatever abortion. 45 minutes later, she’s done, mildly depressed (though I hesitate to call her such as the actress only displays one emotion for the entire film, so she may actually be constipated or cranky, who knows?). More importantly, the guy who drove her to the clinic (who may or may not have been the baby daddy, I don’t remember/didn’t pay attention) is about to begin the least sexy love scene in cinema history with the most unenthusiastic booty call of all time when the gods of eyesight step in to spare us from their nudity.

I’ve never been happier to see a short man with a painted white face carrying Halloween store knives.

So this creature, later dubbed Bowlegg, turns out to be the angry spirit of Theresa’s aborted fetus. We know this because someone, at some point, for some reason, narrates the mythology of how such creatures are born and live for 24 hours to get vengeance on any person involved in the procedure.

So why does the film seem to span what feels like years?

Wally Backman before and after watching Unborn Sins

Anyway, Bowleggs hunts a doctor, nurse, and other people that I guess had something to do with Theresa’s decision. It's mildly tense.

I wish I could say this with confidence, but there are three things that forbids this:

1-The audio, which varies from zero to eleven throughout the film and is never easy to understand (and of course, not aided by the absence of subtitles)

2-The video quality, which makes me suspect the lens came with some little strip of plastic protection that the cameraman never thought to remove

3-The fact that it’s really hard to stay focused on such a bad movie.

Now don’t get me wrong: I kind of enjoyed Unborn Sins in a way akin to Black Devil Doll From Hell. It’s an atrocious movie, made by amateurs who didn’t even think a framing narrative needed to return to ...you know, frame the narrative. It’s shot by a person I assume is slowly going to a Bjork in Dancer In the Dark style blindness.  Acted in an impressive variety of awful styles of acting (they range from trying reallllly hard to stumbling over every line). In other words, it’s awful. Feeders awful. Feeders 2: Slay Bells awful. 

Except for the fact that for some reason, the Feeders series made me want to poke my eyes out and eat them with barbeque sauce while Unborn Sins simply kept me in giggles. 

A few reasons why:


-There’s a 3 minute dancing sequence by a chubby dude. Alone. For no reason other than...I don’t know, maybe, in the way a lot of ‘80s horror films HAD to incorporate zombies, modern urban horror REQUIRES solo dance sequences, even if it's by a man with considerable girth?

-In what may be the best director cameo of all time, writer/director Elliot Eddie inserts a scene in which a newswoman announces the success of ‘superstar director and producer Elliot Eddie.’ Good on him.

-Chubby Solo Dance Guy’s death note:

Player Player

What a Slut

(f)Or Being An ass

You got to get cut

(Note: I didn’t see the ‘f’--probably because it wasn’t in frame--and was very confused trying to figure out how the word ‘or’ fit in. It makes SO MUCH MORE sense now)

-During Chubby Solo Dance Guy’s big scene, he picks up two plastic guns to hunt Bowleggs. This goes on for about a minute (less than the amount of time for his solo dance) and then he gets bored, goes to the fridge to grab a bottle of water, and gets killed

-The time cards that appear throughout the film gradually start to do more work, filling in plot holes and reading much like script notes

I don’t know what else to say. The high point? Perhaps the fact that a scene involving a mirror did NOT show any cameras? Or the fact that a character describes the villain as “the spirit of my child turned into a midget freak with homicidal tendencies?” The entire film is a low point, but...you know, a low point in which the main villain is a midget freak with homicidal tendencies. So there’s that.

Lessons Learned

Abortion is a very touchy subject (this is directed primarily towards the doctors that perform them, in case they forgot)

Always get two purses in the same design (make one beige) so you can sneak out the window when scared of midgets

Stone, it ain’t your fault. It ain’t your fault Stone. I know that because your friend has just repeated this line more than Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting

Rent/Bury/Buy

So. How do I say this without incurring the wrath of the viewers who actually rent this, only to despise me later for daring to recommend it? Unborn Sins is a terrible movie. Deadly Little Christmas terrible. Santa Claws terrible. Made by those guys that sniffed a lot of White-Out in fifth grade terrible. And yet...and yet...I found it hilarious. Especially as it gets progressively worse with each reel. At the end of the day, I don’t know who lived, who died, where the midget with homicidal tendencies evaporated to, or what the heck it meant. But...I had fun.

Sometimes I’m convinced that I really am a bad person.

Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas

Having now sat through three film equivalents of reindeer poop, i think I’ve figured something out:

Christmas horror is the new zombie movie.

Somehow both subgenres seem to attract the least talent when it comes to cinema. Flip through Instant Watch for dozens of examples of Romero ripoffs or, with a little more work, compare the ratio of of good to atrocious yuletide horror. For every Christmas Evil, there are three times as many titles like Feeders 2: Slay Bells, Santa Claws, and today’s ever so painful (yet not without its charms) Deadly Little Christmas.

Quick Plot: 15 years ago-

Yes, you read that right. The movie technically starts in the past, rather than beginning, then flashies forward 15 years later. I’m already confused.

Anyway, a dark-haired family is enjoying Christmas morning as the three rugrats wrestle in wrapping paper, mom Felicia Rose (Sleepaway Camp) snaps photos, and dad (as Santa Claus) sneaks off to the bedroom to get naked with the housekeeper, quickly being stabbed to death in a scene my DVD decided to skip. Thankfully, the film later gives us a 5 minute flashback of the very first five minutes, which is quite thoughtful.

In a scene that offends John Carpenter’s Halloween far more painfully than anything Rob Zombie ever did, middle child (whose name I can't remember, so eh) slowly walks outside, a bloodied knife in his little hands. Fifteen years go by with Middle Child Whose Name I Can't Remember living in a mental asylum, escaping on a fateful Christmas night as his now-grown sisters Taylor and Noelle are rehearsing a community theater production.

Stop everything for this plotline, please. Sure, there’s a masked madman on the loose, but really, we need to talk about this play, especially since every character onscreen says the word ‘play’ or ‘director’ at least three times in every scene. Taylor is directing a PLAY, a PLAY about Easter being performed on Christmas Eve, being DIRECTED by her this PLAY is. 

How does a young woman DIRECT a PLAY, you might ask yourself. Taylor’s method is quite Scorcessian. It involves advising her cast to run lines and do their best, sometimes to do their best and then run their lines. For the PLAY. 

The PLAY she DIRECTED.

Before we get to the actual performance of The PLAY Taylor DIRECTED and many actors RAN LINES for, we need to meet a few more characters. Two actors who smoke weed (or really, in their words, weeeeeeeeeeed cough cough cough) are murdered by that pesky madman (who would dare to be in conflict with Taylor’s PLAY). That doesn’t seem to have any effect on the PLAY though, which goes about as planned despite missing two of its actors. Taylor is that good of a DIRECTOR.

Also, there’s the greatest police detective in cinema history, a man who can barely look another person in the eye or complete a full sentence. Instead of a business card, he writes his number on looseleaf. Instead of solving crimes, he lets emotional mothers search for escaped homicidal mental patients on their own so that he can watch Taylor’s PLAY. Which is actually quite nice of him since he’s one of eight people in the audience. Also, he dresses like a waiter, which I imagine might be the actor’s night job which he was headed to after filming his two scenes.

Despite a missing mother and brother, Taylor and Noelle put on a PLAY about the Last Supper, which, did you know, involved folding chairs? And graduation robes. And three people.

 After the PLAY, other stuff happens but were we supposed to care? There’s a twist that my cats saw coming and a hilarious showdown with one of the easiest to defeat villains of all time.

I just realized that I’ve been writing for a few pages now. What am I doing? In all that time, I never once RAN MY LINES. Reindeer poop for me.

High Points

Well...with their dark hair, at least the female actresses in the film look like they could potentially be related

Low Points

Clearly the whole movie, but to not be petty, here’s an example of why this movie is awful (yet still not Santa Claws awful): when the two ill-fated actors smoke their pot, they make incredibly crass comments about how they’d like to have sex with Taylor. While I don’t disbelieve that a pair of 18 year olds would talk the way they do, their conversation is just ugly. Not funny, not sexy, not with any point whatsoever. 

Lessons Learned

Family is supposed to protect family

The main rights of passage in turning into an adult include having sex, doing drugs, and directing a play

After killing a villain that has destroyed your family, take comfort in knowing there will be no more bloodshed (also, run your lines)

Rent/Bury/Buy

Deadly Little Christmas is a deadly little awful movie, but as you might guess, I had some fun watching it. The set design gets as advanced as a lamp on a snack table (I have the same one in my apartment, so hollah that) and the performances seemed to have been given without the actors ever once RUNNING LINES with each other beforehand. Sadly there’s not nearly a strong enough xmas element to make this any kind of seasonal tradition, but hey...there is community theater. You can’t find that in any town!

Oh wait. You can. But Taylor didn’t DIRECT it.

Yup, I guess I sort of loved this movie.

Santa Roll Call

As some of you know and others don't care about, I spent the last year or so contributing to Pop Syndicate, a recently renovated website that lost all its past content (and writers). The following article appeared in 2009 and since you can't find it anywhere else in InterWorld, I'm rerunning it here, with a few edits. Apologies for the deja vu.

As I sprinkle my sugar cookies in anticipation of a certain cheerful home invader’s arrival, it seems fitting to consider, judge, and rank some of cinema’s Santariffic incarnations. Naturally, we’re not talking about Tim Allen (although that’s a horror in itself) 

7. Wayne, Santa Claws

Unless you really dig C-movie actresses rubbing teddy bears over their artificial bodies to one electronically synched beat playing on loop OR have a serious fear of garden weasels, there’s not much to love in this John A. Russo directed “horror” from 1996. Yes, that’s the same man whose name graces the screenwriting credit of Night of the Living Dead, but he’s seriously etched his name onto the naughty list with this soft(er than a fleece blanket)-core porn/autistic community theater production of a slasher film about a lonely man harnessing a fatal crush on Debbie Rochon. His way into her heart? Donning aforementioned garden weasel, dressing as Santa, spray painting his costume black, drugging her children with sedative-laced hot cocoa, and strangling a few of her competitors for the Scream Queen Christmas Calendar. It’s far worse than it sounds.

6. Bill Goldberg in Santa’s Slay

Little known fact: Santa is a gambling man, child hater, and crappy curling player. 1000 years ago, he lost a somewhat cheated bet with a claymation angel an as punishment, was forced to bring presents to all the well-behaved Christian kids of the world. A millennium’s worth of ho-ing breeds an awful lot of resentment in a man, so it’s not overly surprising to watch him slaughter his way through Rob Zombie-esque strippers and grumpy old ladies the second his spell wears off. Former WWE champ Bill Goldberg has a sort of Bill Mosely on steroids feel that works for the ridiculous character, but this Santa loses a point for a) not being a well-written film and b) stabbing the kindly Jewish butcher, who by any logic, should be one of the only characters a disgruntled Santa tired of giving gifts would spare. 

5. Mike McGavin, Elves

I’ve probably discussed this 1989 bottom feeding flick with far more energy than the one time I watched it fifteen or so years ago, but one can’t draw up a Ho Ho Horror list without citing Grizzly Adams himself donning the hopefully dry cleaned mall Santa suit and battling (sadly sans costume) a genetically engineered homicidal Nazi elf. How can you not root for a guy with naturally pruned facial hair that puts all polyester beard to shame?

4. Rebecca, Cuento de Navidad

Roseanne Barr shocked the television waves with the in-your-face realism of her small screen family, but we also can’t forget her glass ceiling shattering insistence on donning the big man’s suit for some extra December cash at the Lanford Mall. Paco Plaza’s The Christmas Tale features a similar twist: a mysterious dark-haired woman clad as Santa Claus has stolen $2 million and now finds herself trapped in a deep and lonely forest ditch, where her only salvation is a group of ‘80s infused children with mixed morality. I’d hate to spoil this excellent little offbeat thriller (found on the Spanish series Six Films to Keep You Awake), so just know that Rebecca does get to prowl the lonely woods with a sharpened axe and serious lack of Christmas spirit.

3. The Chapman Bros.Silent Night, Deadly Night 1-3

Gifted with one of the easiest psychologically explained motives in slasher history (crazy grandpa’s insistence that Santa’s purpose is to discipline sinners; parents’ subsequent murder after cursing; an abusive nun wielding a switch at the sight of premarital sex) and one of the best one word mottos ever (PUNISH!), Silent Night, Deadly Night helped to set the popularize and polarize Christmas massacres for all time. Billy himself is something of a drip, but he does earn points for innovative slayings (including one involving a slay) and honoring the honor system by trusting “nice kids” and improvising presents. Yes, the knife you just used to kill a little girl’s older sister’s boyfriend may be a slightly inappropriate stocking stuffer, but it’s the thought that counts. Little brother Rickey is a little less effective as Old St. Nick (although his eyebrows alone could possibly steer eight reindeer solo). We’ll give him a pass for being an infant at the initial Chapman family tragedy, especially since he still managed to remember and recount that and the entire rest of Silent Night, Deadly Night to take up 60% of the running time of his first sequel.

2. Jack Skellington/Santy Claws, The Nightmare Before Christmas

When we really consider Jack’s Kringle skills in this stop motion animated masterpiece, we can’t be kinder than A for Effort, D for Execution (especially since all the kids seemed to survive--I mean...carry on). Mr. Claws, on the other hand, is kind of a pompous jerk with a sense of self-importance as big as his bloated waistline. Still, the little booted big man should be commended for cleaning up Jack’s mess with such speed and efficiency, not to mention introducing the concept of snowballs to Halloweentown. 

1. Harry Stadling, Christmas Evil 

He makes high quality presents. He’s a smooth dancer and thorough spy, but it’s Harry’s innocent yearlong yuletide spirit that really earns him the top spot. Sure, his standards for the Nice List are a little controversial (bad breath could be genetic and being “just darling” seems a little surface), but of all the cinematic characters to ever don a homemade wool jumpsuit, it’s Brandon Maggart’s Travis Bickle after too many candy canes from this 1980 low budget classic that makes the holiday. Although the stress of non-believers does eventually drive him to multiple homicide, Harry follows his own dream and is never happier than when donating a van full of handcrafted toys to a needy children’s hospital. He’s a taker of unworthy lives, but a giver of true joy. 

You Know You've Made the Naughty List When You Meet Santa Claws

One of the difference between films and flicks (according to Emily Intravia's Encyclopedia of Filmic Knowledge, copyright pending) is that a film stands on any ground while a flick is made--sometimes exclusively--for a very specific audience. I often look to movies classified in the children’s section as prime examples: I wasn’t charmed by The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, but the kids I babysat for in the 90s could easily watch it all day long, while WALL-E and The Muppet Movie remain triumphant masterpieces for viewers of any age. As much as I'd like to, I find it hard to tear apart something like Beverly Hills Chihuahua; some films simply aren’t mine to destroy.

Santa Claws, a 1996 direct-to-video release, was not made with someone like me in mind, mostly because I’m not fourteen, male, or a Cinemax subscriber. It may be directed by none other than Night of the Living Dead’s screenwriter John A. Russo and feature several familiar horror faces, but this is not, I repeat, NOT the kind of film any old genre bug should rent on a whim and expect satisfaction.

Quick Plot: Scream Queen Illustrated is branching out for the holiday season with a new video series starring busty models rubbing gift boxes over their tanning booth certified skin. Star Raven Quinn (Debbie Rochon) is a tad distracted by her crumbing marriage to a greasy photographer. Thankfully, her kindly neighbor Wayne is harnessing a fatal attraction so he’s always around to babysit her daughters and sedate them with spiked hot cocoa.

Now surpisingly, Wayne’s infatuation grows to homicidal proportions. This has something to do with him once witnessing his mother and a Santa hat-clad stepfather doing it on Christmas Eve and promptly shooting them dead. Such a childhood experience will apparently inspire young men to don Street Fighter’s Vega-esque gloves made from a garden weasel and hunt down softcore porn stars with a fiery (eh, slightly warmed) hatred.

This is the kind of film with interesting enough cover art that any attentive video store clerk would simply refuse to rent out. There’s a mildly interesting (in theory) story thread about horror conventions and the potentially dangerous fandom/adoration they birth in lonely men, but you have to pretend that gigantic glass of heavily rummed eggnog is more than halfway full to consider any of the film worthwhile. It's not. In any way. At all.

High Points

Debbie Rochon is no Cate Blanchett, but she does put forth an enthusiastic energy that makes at least some of Santa Claws watchable enough, and her interview in the DVD's extras do prove her an intelligent and articulate performer deserving of far better work in film

Don’t be fooled by the two hour running time listed on the Netflix’s DVD jacket. If Santa Claws has nothing else going for it, at least it only clocks in at 80 minutes (about 30 of which are devoted to naked women gently violating stuffed animals,  another 15 to low rent Christmas songs played while characters drive, and 80 to a film that just should not be viewed)

Low Points

I didn’t really need elaborate striptease sequences, but if the whole appeal of the female cast is that they’re “scream queens,” wouldn’t it be more appropriate if the nudity had something to do with horror? A witches hat and broom don’t count.

There’s just about nothing remotely clever regarding any of the dialogue. Sample villain’s threat: "Seasons greetings. Santa Claws is coming to town!” Really? That’s all you got? 

Lessons Learned

Children are easily entertained by rather tragic stories of alcoholics stalking their mothers

A lot of people like looking at skin, especially when it’s mostly artificial and dry humping a teddy bear

Uptight in-laws have nothing better to do than wait at home to judge you

When your Santa suit needs some badass makeover, grab a can of spray paint

Rent/Bury/Buy

Um. I guess if you like watching women throw packing peanuts over their fake breasts as electric music plays on loop, this is the film for you. Plain old fashioned horror fans should stay as far away as absolutely possible, as there’s nothing but an uncomfortable actor muffling dialogue under a ski mask and occasionally hugging lax security guards to death. Even porn enthusiasts should be worn: while the writing seems catered to establishing boring conversations that will quickly escalate into X territory, there’s no actual sex scenes to not enjoy. Unless you need to stuff some DVD equivalent of coal in someone’s stocking, stay far away.