The Triumphant Return of Cheese In Your Stocking: Christmas Town

Those with excellent memories or systems that abuse alcohol far less than mine might recall that at this time last year, we were knee-deep in covering made-for-ABC-Family-Channel movies about the spirit of Christmas, i.e., that successful career women should abandon any ambitions they have to move to small towns, marry blandly handsome local artists, and end the day wearing Santa hats. 

No wonder why Billy & Ricky Campbell hate the holidays.

This year, I didn't quite get around to the complete Hallmark archive, but I did manage to cram in a few festive watches, including today's tale about a successful career woman who learns to abandon her ambitions, head to a small town, fall in love with a local (diner owner), and end the day (SPOILER ALERT) in a Santa hat.

Quick Plot: Liz is a superstar real estate agent and single mom to a bratty 10 year old son Mason. Less than two minutes in, we're told that she is indeed lacking the Christmas spirit, and if you're wondering, that's essentially the 8th deadly sin in holiday cinema. When she learns that her formerly rigid banker dad has quit his high-paying job and moved to a quaint little circuit called Hollyville, she throws Mason in the car to spend Christmas checking in on pops.

Oh, and along the way, they stop at a hotel. Then continue on the journey.

I tell you this because the movie pauses to do so, so I figured it must be important.

Once in Hollyville, Liz and Mason notice some strangeness. Despite the fact that everyone wears t-shirts, the town seems to be oozing in holiday cheer from the mysterious N.P. Enterprise Corporation that seems to be guarded with maximum security to the local diner where Liz's dad is a greasy spoon line cook and Days of Our Lives first Austin (or Starship Troopers brain-sucked pilot) Patrick Muldoon is an overly friendly waiter. Yes, go ahead and assume that N.P. stands for North Pole and the town is the headquarters of Santa himself.

Who, sadly enough, apparently stations his workshop in a dank gray-walled factory where the only real hint of holiday charm comes from the kind of green-tinted light bulbs you can find in Party City.

Compared to overly gooey fare like The Christmas Shoes, Christmas Town is slightly less offensive. At the same time, the very ho-hummness of it makes it far less fun to watch than something as weirdly misguided as A Christmas Wedding Tail or aggressively preachy like Christmas With a Capital C. The production values are on par with your average made-for-some-offshoot-of-the-Family-Channel-and-filmed-in-Canada original, with mildly fresh-faced C-listers rushing through their scenes so they can check their voicemail on break to see if their agents remembered their names.

Look, I won't lie: I watched Days of Our Lives during the Second Wave of Supercouples and had quite the schoolgirl crush on Patrick Muldoon. While he's aged as well as any Hollywood regular making weekly virgin sacrifices on Mullholland Drive, Muldoon has never been a good actor, and listening to him force enthusiasm in his scenes makes me more uncomfortable than enamored. Nicole de Boer (whom genre fans will remember as the math whiz in Cube) doesn't have much to work with, but it's still worth noting that her style of line delivery makes you wonder if whoever she’s talking to just stuck gum in her hair or stepped on the back of her heel.

It’s a tad grating.

Lessons Learned

You can sell anything at Christmas if you know the right buttons to push

Never interrupt a mechanic when she’s enjoying her (possibly crack laden) hot cocoa

Contrary to popular belief, Santa prefers to work in warm climates

When your prop department is really out of ideas, take no risks. 555-555-HOME is a perfectly acceptable stand-in phone number for a real estate agency, right?

Montage Mania

Sadly, the meager budget doesn’t allow for one, unless you count the very quick driving-to-dad’s-while-the-annoying-kid-sings-Christmas-carols quick scene

Sass Factor

Not much. Liz’s assistant has a squeaky voice and does speed dating, so I guess that’s the closest we get

Stocking Stuffer or Stuffed With Coal?

Eh. Christmas Town is less offensive than some other holiday fare, and unlike most movies about dedicated career women, it doesn’t overtly end with Liz forsaking her job because the movies told her to. Still, without the bizarre quirks of something like Snowglobe (remember, the movie where a woman gets sucked into a snowglobe) or the heart of the genuinely sweet Cancel Christmas, Christmas Town just sorta happens. 

Much like Patrick Muldoon's career

How Do You Say 'Bridezilla' In Spanish?

Although it doesn't feel quite as original today, 2007's REC made a well-deserved splash on the genre world at the time of its debut, less for its then-new concept (found footage fast running zombies in a quarantined apartment) than for the simple fact that it was a well-made, well-acted, effectively staged and ultimately scary little movie. Its sequel proved to be equally ambitious, especially in expanding the mysterious nature of its viral-infused cannibal killers and finding fresh ideas to keep the occasionally nauseating first-person camerawork working within the context of its story.

While REC and REC2 were co-directed by Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza, REC3 sees a split, with Plaza (he the man behind the wonderfully fresh The Christmas Tale from the 6 Films To Keep You Awake series) taking solo reins.

Apparently, he's the funny one.

Quick Plot: Koldo and Clara are enjoying a very loving, slightly tacky wedding on the Spanish countryside. Among the guests is Koldo's genial uncle Victor wearing a conspicuous bandage over his wrist. When asked about his wound, he innocently explains that he was bit by a dog at a veterinarian's office, a red flag alert for anyone who's watched the first two films in this franchise.

After the cake is cut (with a conveniently intimidating samurai sword no less), the guests notice the seemingly drunk Victor hanging over a bannister on the second floor. When he topples over, they rush to his aide only to, you know, become immediate victims of a fast moving zombie rabies possession virus.

Our story then divides itself between our bride and groom, who are frantically separated in the chaos on the quickly bloodening dance floor. Both vow to find one another again, especially following the not at all expected revelation that Clara is expecting.

If you have seen the first two REC films (which surprisingly, you don't actually need to do to enjoy this one) there are certain series tropes you've probably come to expect. Most notably would be the found footage style that defined the first film and was utilized with some creative tricks in its sequel. The biggest gripe from many a viewer regarding REC3 will probably come here. While the first twenty or so minutes are shown to us--quite effectively and very humorously--through the lens of a wedding guest's camera, the film abruptly abandons this style when the real action kicks in. Following that, we get spurts of other media--night vision mode on a camcorder, security footage in black and white--but ultimately, the bulk of REC3 is filmed in a standard manner.

I am okay with this.

Narratively, it's a cheat. Why bother giving us a wedding guest's POV if you have no plans to follow through with it? you might ask. Well, says I, mostly to spare your audience a 50 minute headache and lingering sense of nausea. I've come around on found footage and admit that it now defines some of this generation's best independent horror cinema, but at the same time, I still find it, on a physical level, rather unpleasant to sit through. Like District 9, REC3 breaks its own rule with no real excuse but when the benefit lies in the viewer, how can you really complain?

The other major shift comes in the general tone, which is almost all-out horror comedy. Director Plaza never hesitates to give us heartfelt deaths or moments of genuine tragedy, but most of the action is done with a wink. The film doesn't quite cross Evil Dead 2 lines of bonkers, but it flirts with the barrier in a fresh and fun way. It's both tense and gross when a wedding guest starts chewing on a bridesmaid's face, but when you throw in a drunk man dressed as a knockoff version of SpongeBob Squarepants wielding a shotgun, you can't not laugh at the absurdity. 

I'm not sure that Plaza perfectly balances the gruesome violence with the humor, but the result is ultimately a truly enjoyable 80 minutes of high energy zombie fun. Grounding it all is the sweet central romance that manages to keep us strongly invested in the leads' fates.

High Points
It's always nice to see a strong female lead in a horror film, and Leticia Doler's Clara is a pleasantly pro-active (and impressively resourceful) surprise

As much as REC3 feels a tad more comedy than horror, it still manages to produce some genuinely unnerving moments, including the beyond tragic fate of a shuttle bus captured in hauntingly black and white security footage

Low Points
The aforementioned found footage switcharoo should have been a tad more justified

The Jury's Out
I'm sure I wasn't alone in cheering on Clara as she slashed at her now bloodied wedding gown with a kickass chainsaw. It's a wonderful moment that yields a grand poster-ready sight. But aside from it referencing Alice's asymmetrical red number in the first Resident Evil film, is there any reason she wouldn't circulate that cut for full mobility?

Lessons Learned
When choosing your wedding venue, be sure to consider such important factors as its number of decorative armored knights

Fire hoses are the most versatile of all zombie hunting/escaping weapons

The term 'MILF' transcends language barriers

Rent/Bury/Buy
While REC can nudge its way onto the always arguable lists of best modern horror films, REC3 will probably be the one I and other movie fans revisit more. This isn't a great genre film, but it has so much fun with itself that by the end, I couldn't resist it. Don't expect the frantic pacing and horror of its predecessors, but check it out when you're in the mood for lighter (but equally bloody) fare.

Needs More Katt

I seem to have bad luck with the House sequels.

See, you probably don’t know this, but quite a few months ago, I sat down to watch The Horror Show with the full intention of sharing my thoughts in this familiar place. I was even more enthused when I realized it was occasionally considered an in-name-only threequel to the bouncy William Kattastic House. 

(Random thought: the next installment should indeed be about a haunted bouncy house)

For whatever reason, I just couldn’t get a review written. I bumbled around a little bit, learned one lesson (“If a foot’s frying in one deep fryer, you can probably guess the rest of the parts are frying in another”) and decided to abandon ship, leaving Lance Henrikson and Michelle Pfeiffer’s less famous sister on their own.

Cut to a few months later when the horror comedy mood struck me hard enough to queue up the ACTUAL House sequel, a film that proves its pedigree by a) sharing its predecessor’s theme and b) also featuring a barfly from Cheers. Although House II: The Second Story (possible favorite subtitle ever) doesn’t actually connect to the original in terms of character, it is a little more official in terms of its franchise pedigree.

And once again, I feel incredibly apathetic writing about it.

Quick Plot: Our prologue introduces us to a married couple handing off their infant son to another while they return to their Victorian style home to confront what can only be described as a ghost cowboy looking for a crystal skull.

Already better than Indy 4

When the pair refuses him, our ghost cowboy shoots them both and sends us 25 years later to the rocking ‘80s present, where Jesse (Ellen’s Arye Gross) and his girlfriend Kate (the telepathic heroine of the seventh Friday the 13th) are now moving into the long-abandoned home. Before they even have a chance to find the nearest pizza delivery, their pals Charlie and pre-Problem Child Amy Yasbeck drunkenly drive on over to open up all sorts of house secrets, including the burial location of Jesse’s namesake and great grandpa.

Because alcohol generally makes us do really awesome things, Jesse and Charlie grab some shovels and exhume Gramps (played with the same bumpkin swagger as Royal Dano’s one year later role in Killer Klowns From Outer Space) in the hopes of finding the famed skull. Gramps turns out to be rather spry--if a bit crusty--and turns into the life of the Halloween party, stealing the show from a young Bill Maher. When a big beefy leotarded giant crashes the festivities to hijack the relic, Jesse and Charlie end up traversing the alternate dimensions hidden within the house.

Stop motion animated monsters wander, weird dino bird things squawk, and the cutest worm since Labyrinth barks its way around to help protect Gramps from the ghost cowboy he apparently killed a hundred years or so earlier. There’s also a random time warp into an Incan virgin sacrifice (maybe?), a blond being traded for another and back again, a whole lot of slapsticky skull dropping, and time travel.

You might say this is a busy film.

House II: The Second Story shares the same horror comedy vibe as its original, minus the whole PTSD Vietnam veteran angle and dead kid thing. In other words, it’s a little lighter. With its cartoon violence and colorful creatures, House II actually feels more in line with an episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse than The Evil Dead.

I should like House II, and I’m fairly certain that on another day, I just might. Like the original, it boasts a gleeful assortment of bizarrely fun practical monsters, plus an even goofier tone that just begs to be contagious. For whatever reason though, I found the antics somewhat tiresome. Most days, the sight of a prehistoric worm dog would make me smile. Today, I just yawned.

High Points

Prehistoric worm dog!

Aside from the prehistoric worm dog, House II’s best moments come courtesy of Cliff Clifton himself, John Ratzenberger playing the world’s most efficient electrician who also happens to have Michonne-like skills when fencing Incan spirits

Low Points

A gal can only watch so many interceptions via dinosaur of magical crystal skulls before she just stops caring

Lessons Learned

Even in the late 80s, car phones got no reception in haunted locations

Neither mummies nor baby pterodactyls make for a good excuse when caught getting friendly with your ex

‘Sir’ is a term reserved for politicians

All old folksy men played by Royal Dano in the late '80s had a lot of questions for tarnation

Rent/Bury/Buy

House II fits a very particular niche of ‘80s horror comedies, and by those terms, it’s a fun watch. I would certainly recommend fans of that era check this one out via Instant Watch, even if I seemed in this viewing to be immune to its considerable charms. I’ll chalk it up to the weather, because on a typical day, I fully endorse old grizzled zombie prospectors going on Abe Simpson-esque rants while being fueled by endless liquor. Maybe I’m the weirdo in this scenario.

This Old (Dark) House

When someone with the pedigree for detecting hilariously flawed genre films suggests I watch something, you can bet a solid block of sharp cheddar cheese that it will be done. Today's such recommendation comes courtesy of Night of the Living Podcast's Amy, and that folks is some true horror royalty.

Quick Plot: As a young girl, Claire entered a creepy home known for its redheaded spinster keeper raising foster kids inside. As the lady of the house sticks her arm inside the garbage disposal, Claire discovers a dozen or so children slain.

Flash forward some years to Claire, now a college student with a crappy therapist and the hilarious dream of becoming an actress. At school, she attends class with a bevy of other attractive young people to play the world’s worst theater game (if putting two students on stage and having them be mean to each other is considered a theater game). 

As blond, black, and gay jokes swirl about, Dark House finds itself tiptoeing on a fine line between insufferableness and joy. Thankfully, just as the characters were getting too awful for our own good, Jeffrey Combs waltzes in like a national treasure to deliver one of the film’s many amazing lines:

“Is this the...advanced acting class?”

After I cluck like a chicken in imagining how amazingly awful the introductory class must be, Combs lures the (gaaaaaahahahaha) advanced actors to his haunted house attraction for an honest day’s work. Despite their misgivings of not getting Shakespearean dialogue, Claire convinces the stars-in-the-making to take the job, mostly because it will give her a chance to confront the very same house she’s been afraid of since, you know, discovering 14 dead kids in as a child.

To give Dark House some credit, its haunted house attraction is actually fairly nifty. Combs’ Vincent Price-y character has, you see, recruited the services of a super IT nerd to program a batch of realistic holograms to follow patrons. Naturally, a computer virus (or DEMON, um, virus) sneaks in when the doors are locked, releasing a gaggle of axe-wielding clowns, iron maiden closing executioners, and acid-throwing scientists on the next generation's Oscar seat fillers.

You have to kind of love a movie like Dark House. Like an off-brand Hostess Snowball, it's made of crap and induces the same result, but the quick journey towards it is not without pleasure. Writer/director Darin Scott is clearly enthusiastic about throwing a lot of stuff onscreen, and while some of its effects are laughable, there's also a lot of charm. Jeffrey Combs has a ball with his free reign, while the variety of monsters keeps things interesting. Sure, the kids are all unlikable, the twist is silly (then sillier), and CGI looks as good as any college level computer science major can render, but when heads are flying so gleefully, I can't be unhappy.

High Notes

Any straight-to-DVD horror flick that ends with its own theme song has to get a fist pump from me

Low Notes

Though I’ll laugh over some of the lesbian jokes shortly, I also have to point out that Dark House has a rather mean streak of homophobia running through it, using any chance it can get to force sapphic overtones that might have been intended as edgy but come off as cheap

So about that twist...nah, nevermind

Lessons Learned

Acting is the art of communicating with the audience through the use of realistic and authentic behavior

If a lesbian saves your life, you will then be expected to do her (her words, not mine)

Half of the best actors got their start in horror movies

You shouldn’t go to houses where weird kids live

Boyfriends are for driving you to childhood memories

Rent/Bury/Buy

The second entry I’ve watched in Fangoria’s Frightfest (the first being the okay Hunger) continues to be fairly mediocre. At the same time, I had a blast watching Dark House at 7 AM before going to work, and I can only imagine how much better that experience would be with alcohol. Throw it on the instant queue for one of those drunk/dumb nights. If nothing else, you get one of the most random jokes at the expense of Windows Vista to ever pop up in a horror film. So far...

The Best Way to Study = Not Being a Jerk

Remember when nerds took vengeance via panty raids and peeping tommery? Thems were the good old days...

Quick Plot: Fed up with being teased and occasionally abused, a group of outcast teenagers plot an intricate night of vengeance against the popular kids. The nerdy ringleader just so happened to inherit a rural farmhouse, making it oh-so-easy to throw a mysterious costume party where only the jocks and cheerleaders are invited. Before you can say pig's blood and ruffled collars, the nerds have the pretty people drugged and shackled for an evening of face melting, finger chopping, and paralysis.

The Final is a tough film to review. As the directorial debut for the industry experienced Joey Stewart, it's certainly well-made and far sharper than a whole lot of Netflix Instant's other horror offerings. Jason Kabolati's script is also better than expectation, giving us a few stand-out characters (including a genuinely nice guy clique circulator played in a refreshing touch by a black actor) with maybe self-aware dialogue that generally falls flat ("All's fair in sex and high school" is clearly something a screenwriter, not 17 year old would say). There's also a fun black and white framing device that sets a unique stylized mood. I would have rather seen more of that within the body of the otherwise fairly by-the-numbers The Final, but any breath of fresh air is appreciated when you're dealing with high school horror.

That being said, I can't really say I 'enjoyed' The Final. See, it does that thing that I generally despise in movies: it acts MEAN. 

Our outcasts-turned-killers offer very little in terms of sympathy. Yes, they're unfairly bullied, but unfortunately, we're never given any real glimpse into who they are. The ringleader is just cold, and while actress Lindsay Seidel brings a warm vulnerability to her Strangers-masked victim, there's nothing else to really know about her. There are about three others who blend in with hardly any screentime and no backstory. On one hand, I could write this off as the movie trying to make us see only what their cruel tormenters see. On the other, I feel like I'm just making an excuse for poor character development.

High Points

In addition to the retro framing device, there are a few more interestingly styled choices that makes The Final stand out from the herd of high school horror flicks, including a Charlie Brown/Muppet Babies* approach to never showing any parent in full frame

Creepy masks!

Low Points

In a film that has its unloved characters make such a point about their bullies not getting to know them, I guess I just really wish that the film, well, got to know these kids

Lessons Learned

Red meat is for people who don’t care how they look

Never attend a party if you didn't get an invitation

If you're feeling sick or fat, just remember: things always perk up after a night of drinking and hot sex

Chekhov's Rule of Bear Traps

You can't set one up without seeing it go off in the third act!

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Final is perfectly fine a low maintenance stream on Netflix Instant. As a teen horror film, it's decently made and offers some new touches that you don't normally find in what can be a very rote genre. By no means is it anything particularly groundbreaking or perfectly executed, but in this day and age, it's nice to see some energy from new horror filmmakers.

*An Aside

Remember when any popular form of children's entertainment could be seen ON ICE? As a child, I recall seeing an advertisement for such a program featuring Muppet Babies and longed to see for myself what Nanny's head actually looked like, considering the cartoon would only give us glimpses of her kneecaps down. In my mind, they HAD to have an actual FIGURE SKATER playing the part, meaning I would finally learn the truth about her face or lack thereof. Though I doubt the show actually revealed this, allow me to use this space to make a 25+ years in the making plea:

IF ANYONE SAW MUPPET BABIES ON ICE, HOW DID THEY SHOW NANNY?!

Thank you for your time and consideration.