‘Tis the season… for cheesy horror movies! It’s something of an annual tradition here at Kaedrin, though the pickings are getting a bit slim these days. Two of the three movies below are only slightly related to actual holiday scares. That being said, I always seem to have fun with these movies, even if they aren’t so great:
- Sheitan – So some morons go to a club on Christmas Eve, get kicked out, then decide to spend the holiday at the country house of a girl they just met. Little do they know that the caretaker, Joseph, has other plans for the crew. Satanic plans! Yeah, so the film’s big problem is that the protagonists are complete and utter douchebags. French douchebags! Sometimes this isn’t the worst failing in a horror movie, but there’s a distinct lack of horror here as well (at least, until the end, when things get a little better). Vincent Cassel actually turns in a fun, scenery chewing performance as the satanic Joseph (and apparently he also plays Joseph’s wife!) The film is shot well and there’s something interesting in the general story. Unfortunately, it’s all ruined by our douchey protagonists. **
- Films to Keep You Awake: The Christmas Tale – Ahh, now this is more like it! Still not tremendously holiday focused, but at least there’s a Santa-suit-wearing criminal in this one! 5 kids discover a woman (the aforementioned Santa-suit-wearing criminal) trapped in a well. It turns out that she’s a bank robber on the run, so the kids attempt to blackmail her into giving them her stolen money. Things don’t go as planned. Also: Zombies (kinda).
It’s far from perfect, but it’s fun and actually pretty tense at times. The kids all put in good performances, and the Santa-suit criminal manages to be pretty menacing after a while. There’s a weird movie-within-a-movie thing going on that I’m not sure entirely works, but the general story works well enough and the ending is sufficiently satisfying. ***
- Demonic Toys – Yeah, so I don’t think this one has any relationship to the Holidays at all, except that a bunch of toys are attacking everyone, which is actually pretty cool. Don’t get me wrong, this is not fine cinema, but it’s fun schlock, and while there’s a silliness to the proceedings, I did like the backstory. Something about a demon who wants to be reborn and needs to possess a pregnant woman, who happens to stumble into said toy warehouse. Ok, fine, there’s not much to the story or, well, the movie, but I had fun with it. I mean, Baby Ooosy Daisy? Awesome. It’s actually a pretty bad movie, but fans of bad horror might enjoy it… **1/2
Well, there you have it. There are still a few more Holiday Horror movies in the queue, including Don’t Open Till Christmas (though this is apparently no longer available from Netflix) and Santa Claws (get it?) Well, there’s always next year!