Many Reasons For the Season

So I queued up Red Christmas via Netflix because hey! I like a good seasonal horror flick. With Christmas looming, why not devote that Monday to a new yuletide slasher?

Then I slogged through the mean-spirited coal that was Red Christmas and thought to myself, you know Emily, this year has been ugly enough without ending it on such a negative, punishing, anti-choice, mixed garbage statement of a movie. Let's find a happier note to play, something seasonal but positive.

So here are a few random things to love about horror movies during the holidays. And if nothing here works, just screw it all and queue up The Muppet Family Christmas for the 9,00th time. No judgement here. 

The Crypt Keeper Singing Holiday Jingles

Easily the best item ever to be purchased in the '90s by a teenage Emily at the Spencer's Gifts, this album (originally on cassette tape, natch) includes a dozen holiday tunes with the lyrics rewritten to be more fitting of the singer, John Kassir's pun-wielding, tale-spinning Crypt Keeper. Can't get your Walkman working? Revel in the kindness of strangers with YouTube accounts.

The Very Fact That There Exists Not One But Two Killer Snowman Movies

And yet, the unrelated but weirdly similar Michael Keaton family film of the same name is somehow far creepier

The Choice to View Christmas Evil As a Magical Tale of a Lonely Santa-Loving Man Ascending to Angel Status

My (and John Waters) favorite holiday genre film can be viewed as a lot of things: a an early entry into the slasher Santa trend, tragic tale of mental illness taken to extremes, the chance to spot a way-pre-Home Improvement Patricia Richardson in a tiny role. For my money, it's something even more special (that's also all of those things). The key to keeping Christmas Evil on the right side of your heart is to make the conscious decision that SPOILER ALERT! Harry Stadling's van doesn't crash and burn after his killing spree is over, but rather, transcends into the heavens, transforming into a magical sleigh and changing our sad sack factory worker into the real deal Santa. 

Margot Kidder In Black Christmas, Goddess

Easily on the top five list of Film Characters I Want To Lost a Drinking Game To. She. Is. Divine.

Vincent Cassel's Insanity In Sheitan

The movie itself? Somewhat insufferable. The MAN himself? 

A god. Or, well, technically agent of the devil. 

The Most Feel-Good Pop Montage In the Least Feel-Good Slasher

I've said it again and I'll say it an estimated 781 more times before I die: Silent Night Deadly Night is memorable for a bevy of reasons, but none more so than the weirdly placed, tonally mismatched "The Warm Side of the Door" sequence, wherein a sweet country tune cheerfully plays as our soon-to-be-mass-murderer learns about friendship, work ethic, and the joy of having alcoholic bosses.

Eric Freeman's Case For The Academy Awards Adding a Category for Best Performance By a Pair of Eyebrows

I mean...

Clint Howard's Phallic Coven Mask

Everybody forgets Silent Night Deadly Night Part 4 because it doesn't have The Warm Side of the Door or eyebrows, but you what it does have? Murderous roller blades. Also, this:

Ray Wise & Lin Shaye In Dead End

A good but flawed little Christmas Eve ghost story, Dead End deserves to be seen more, mostly because, you know, Ray Wise and Lin Shaye. 

Disco Cameo Greatness

Don't Open Til Christmas is filled with a lot of wonderful things, among them, a smily plastic mask, Halloween costume holiday parties, charmingly innocent peep show conversations, a sleazy male flutist, and insanely slow motion overwrought flashbacks. But you know what REALLY makes it exciting? That it has Caroline Munro randomly performing a disco number. Because if that's not the real reason for the season, what is?

Drugs Are Bad, M'Kay?

Sometimes the generically named Instant Watch horror film you've never heard of just seems to call your name, begging with shy low expectations to be streamed with an open mind. Today, that generically named Instant Watch horror film I've never heard of is 2007's Dead of Winter.


Quick Plot: Young lovers Kevin and Tiffany stop by a stoner friend’s New Year’s party, toasting with an unknowingly LSD spiked shot and driving home like the responsible leaders of tomorrow they are. It takes a few quick hallucinations to drive the pair out of their vehicular safety and into the cold, lonely, and snow covered woods oozing with rusty barbed wire and dormant plows.

A confusing 911 call alerts the small town authorities. Concerned dispatcher Nancy senses something amiss, though the sheriff seems more worried about his love interest deputy following their trail. The film rotates between the two groups.

Dead of Winter (aka Lost Signal) is a surprisingly well-made little thriller, but it lacks just about anything to make it stick. Comparing it to another snowy set, generically named holiday horror like Dead End shows how something just isn’t there. Where Dead End took a cliche plot and spun it into a funny, scary, and oddly memorable tale, Dead of Winter just sort of happens. Leads Al Santos and Sandra McCoy are fine enough, but their characters never show an ounce of intrigue to really make us care. Give them a dog that needs walking or a cute in-joke they can chuckle over, something other than the fact that they’re young and pretty to make us actually want their love and lives to last.

The other half of Dead of Winter doesn’t fare too much better (it’s hard to invest too much in overly inept policemen) but the film salvages itself with a surprisingly touching coda. Avoiding spoilers, I’ll simply say that it’s rare for a modern dead teenager flick to think to consider the guilt and mourning of its adults.

High Points

First-time director Brian McNamara (also a veteran character actor) does a decent job of establishing some of the paranoia of our leads. Demonic voices and hallucinations could easily be laughable, and even though we as the audience are always pretty aware what’s not real, we can absolutely see why Tiffany and Kevin would get so freaked so fast

Low Points

The final “twist” doesn’t do much. I suppose it tries to make the audience rethink what they’ve just seen, but considering our heroes are already working with altered minds, what difference does it even make?

Lessons Learned

If your boyfriend’s friends are stoner jerks, avoid drinking anything they hand you not in a sealed bottle

A little knife can do big damage

In the absent night light, a cow is about the equivalent of a non-English speaking farmer

Rent/Bury/Buy

For a quick view on Instant Watch, one could do a whole lot worse than Dead of Winter. The performances are passable, cold night atmosphere effective, pacing nice and brisk. In other words, it’s perfectly fine...just not that special. Enjoy it on a light night when you feel like 80 minutes of mild entertainment. Or take an LSD laden cocktail* and have an even more interesting time.

*Note: The Deadly Doll’s House does not condone the use of hallucinogentic drugs. We’ve (okay, I’ve) seen Jacob’s Ladder and do not in any way wish to upset Macauly Culkin into becoming The Good Son.

Motion Sickness Is the Least of Your Problems

A shorter than usual review of a better than average film:

Somewhere in the mid-levels of hell is an endless family road trip complete with tone-deaf sing-a-longs, backseat driving, and epic parental bickering sparked by minute issues such as someone having packed the wrong flavor of sugar wafers. While I don’t think the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer or Adolph Hitler will experience this painful, if not quite Salo-esque torture, such a place would most likely be reserved for sinners who deserve eternal punishment with minor glimmers of relief sparked by winning some rounds of 20 Questions or spotting a license plate from Alaska.

I’ve taken my share of vacations via the highway.

One of the great things about Dead End, a small festival veteran from 2003 that never quite found its audience, is that the film is fully aware hell is not just other people, but more specifically, your family after too many hours in a moving motor vehicle.

Quick Plot: It’s Christmas Eve on the road as the Harringtons make their way to mom (Lin Shaye, giving her all)’s family of gun and good liquor loving relatives. Daughter Marion (Alexandra Holden) is a psychologist with her boyfriend in tow and teenage son Richard is an obnoxiously horny and homophobic Marilyn Manson (not Branson) fan. Things take a turn when Dad takes the scenic route and comes upon a young woman toting a suspiciously quiet baby on a quiet and lonely open road. Mystery is in the winter air.

It doesn’t take long for bad things to happen. An ill-advised detour to an abandoned cabin leaves one passenger alone long enough to end up banging on the back window of a passing Rolls Royce, only to be discovered in a gooey and burned state icky enough to send a family member into inconvenient catatonia. Clearly, this holiday is on its way to being far worse than the time Dad drank too much eggnog and the kids gathered round to watch Jingle All the Way*

I rented Dead End on a whim due to the random discovery that it takes place on Christmas Eve. Following Cuento de Navidad , this is another refreshingly low profile pleasant surprise filled with interesting nastiness and a wonderfully twisted sense of humor. I was reminded slightly of The Signal ’s second chapter (minus the head-in-a-vice and blood-spattered helium tank), where black comedy seems to be banging on the door (or car windows) and sending tiny minions inside to twist a rather traditional horror narrative. 


Writer/directors Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa haven't made a masterpiece, but Dead End is a far more interesting ride than its bargain bin title and heard-it-before premise would lead you to believe. With solid performances, surprisingly effective jump scares, and a playfully wicked script, Dead End finds its own voice and delivers a fun enough 90 minutes that makes for a truly enjoyable alternative Christmas. Maybe next year I'll pair it with The Ref for a dysfunctional family double feature worthy of my eggnog toast.

High Points

Although each character doesn’t quite have the time for genuine in-depth development, it’s refreshing to see a family composed of normal, everyday people prone to selfishness, neuroticism, and a begrudging sense of familial love.

All the performances are marked by a nice and steady level of high energy, with Robocop’s way too cool Ray Wise standing out as the patriarch trying his best to save those he cares about.

Low Points

Perhaps it’s just that I’ve seen to many ghostly night-of-terror direct-to-DVD titles that utilize this type of ending, but the final explanation--even though it’s not quite it appears to be--feels like well-worn territory too tacked on for a rewarding finish

Similarly, the half-hearted attempt to toss in a haunted backstory so late in the film feels like a line of filler that doesn't really do anything to enrich the already engrossing narrative

Lessons Learned

Here’s a surefire relaxation technique taught across the nation by college baseball coaches: breathe in deeply through your nose. Now slowly let it out through your mouth. Done.

Always choose a Secret Santa with an NRA membership


In order to ease your sister out of shock, try to avoid confessing to murdering her pet hamster a few years back via such an unpleasant and unsanitary means as the kitchen microwave

Lab coats are so comfortable, many doctors wear them on the drive home.

Rent/Bury/Buy:

While this isn’t hauntingly grim holiday horror along the lines of Inside or totally unique territory like Cuento de Navidad, Dead End is far more worthwhile than its low profile and dull title would have you believe. The mix of dark family humor with a standard horror setup makes for an experience that doesn’t quite take the direction you’d expect and in the modern age of remakes, teens in turmoil, and torture porn, it does its job with gusto, innovation, and a joyously off-kilter Christmas spirit.

*If I had the time I’d review this Arnold Schwarzenegger epic fail of 1996 because holy Christmas is this a terrifyingly bad film. I didn’t think the Action Star On the Decline period could get worse than Batman & Robin, but between Jake Lloyd’s practice rounds to destroy the Star Wars saga, Sinbad’s awful turn as an offensively disgruntled mailman (complete with a bomb scare plan), the wasting of Phil Hartman as an oily neighbor sexually harassing a married woman, and a horrifically commercial message at its heart, Jingle All the Way may be the most frightening Christmas movie of all time. Without question, my kids will be watching Billy Chapman hack his way through the naughty well before seeing the future governor of California punch a reindeer in the face.