December to Dismember: MASSACRE ON AISLE 12 (2016)

Dang, it was starting to look like a black Christmas as we were 0 for 4 in terms of recent holiday horrors. Straight trash like ELVES and MOTHER KRAMPUS 2: SLAY RIDE had us curled up in the corner of our respective homes, frantically rocking and repeating over and over “it’s only a terrible movie...it’s only a terrible movie…” But these digital potholes actually served a purpose. Much like a car needs recalibration and alignment after rough roads, these films helped us course correct and see the road more clearly. Sure we were still swerving all over the place, but we at least could now appreciate a section of the road where the folks actually put some effort. And so the low budget horror-comedy MASSACRE ON AISLE 12 shines in our glazed eyes by actually giving a damn.

The film opens with affable Dave (Michael Buonomo) showing up for his first day at Mr. Beaver's Hardware Store. As he enters the break room, Dave sees a report on the television about an armored car robbery that was done by the Santa’s Hat bandits. Obviously this will be important information. Dave is shown the ropes by assistant manager Jack (Chad Ridgely), who is introduced smashing a baseball bat against a vending machine to get his beloved fritter. “This vending machine is like my ex-wife. Took all my money and didn’t give me any pie,” Jack remarks. That will let you know the level this film is playing at. Dave is quickly introduced to a cavalcade of goofy characters that include pill popping Tara (Melissa Saint-Amand); Black Jack (Aikido Burgess), the surly black guy always writing in his notebook; Otto (Jim Klock), the nutzo war veteran; Mr. Kipper (Doug Burch), the manager who always wants to measure Dave’s inseam; Pharms (Mike Capozzi), the resident drug dealer who creates marijuana strain in the attic; and the store Santa (William Mark McCullough) and his scantily-clad assistant Barbie (Amber Jean).

It is Christmas Eve so things are pretty dead...and they are about to get deader. While four guys are trying to move a rather heavy box, they unlock it and find a dead guy inside. Not only is he dead, but he is holding onto bag filled with tens of thousands of dollars. Obviously he is one of the robbers, but no one knows how he got in there. Or do they? With lots of dollars at stake, the situation devolves into chaos rather quickly. Jack thinks they should keep and split the money, while Black Jack thinks they should notify the authorities. The disagreement ends with Black Jack punching White Jack, which pushes the latter over the edge. He breaks all of their cell phones (in a nice move by the writers they have the manager demand they are in his office while working), smokes some of Pharms’ tainted stash, and barricades all of the doors.

The events go south (souther?) almost immediately while the group is voting about what to do with the money. Jack returns with a crossbow and accidentally shoots Otto with it. This starts of a funny recurring gag where everyone accidentally smashes, beats, stabs and maims the helpless Otto throughout the film. Proving he is on the naughty list, Santa grabs the crossbow and orders Barbie to grab the loot. Unfortunately for him, a dye pack explodes in his face and sends him back to get impaled on some gardening equipment. Others start dropping like flies as Barbie gets electrocuted and Pharms gets shot dead after Mr. Kipper absconds with the bag and tries to escape through the ventilation shafts. Dave, Tara and Black Jack reluctantly team up to find and stop Mr. Kipper all the while the deranged Jack is stalking everyone because he wants the money and his revenge too.

Jeez, why is it easier for me to write 2000 words about a film I hated versus one I enjoyed? Shot in Georgia, MASSACRE ON AISLE 12 was a pleasant surprise. Now let me preface that by saying this is a low budget feature, so anyone expecting something on the technical level of a Hollywood Will Ferrell comedy will be sorely disappointed. Actually, this is quite different than a Ferrell comedy because it is actually funny. The credited writers are co-lead Ridgely and A.J. Via and they fill the script with funny, if often crude, jokes. I’m sure they watched BAD SANTA (2003) a bit as there are lots of “fucks” thrown about and nearly every stereotype is thrown out there. The funniest joke, however, for me was probably the cleanest one. It arrived toward the end where Mr. Kipper is about to be crushed by an elevator by Jack.

Jack: Bye, Mr. Kipper. Merry Christmas!

Mr. Kipper (whispering): There’s something you should know.

Jack: Yes?

Mr. Kipper: Corporate prefers you say “Happy holidays!”

So, yeah, that gag alone gets a thumbs up from me. Yeah, I’m easy, but it is hard not to be after the previous films you reviewed had people who couldn’t even remember their lines to deliver properly. The cast here is game and I can’t think of a bad one in the bunch. My personal favorites were Aikido Burgess as Black Jack and Ridgely as Psycho Jack. Ridgely reminds me of a combo of Bill Moseley and Mark Metcalf and is actually really funny in the role. I also appreciate that Ridgely and Via actually put some clever twists in their screenplay. The film resolves the “how did this dead guy get here” mystery rather easily and has a clever bit at the end showing the events might happen to a new group. If the film has any flaw, it is that co-directors Jim Klock and William Mark McCullough didn’t have a proper budget to pull it off fully. The hardware location is far from the antiseptic aisle presented on the DVD cover. I imagined how cool this would have been if the location looked like one of those sprawling big chain stores after hours. Also, the filmmaking style isn’t as zany as it could have been. If it had the wild early Sam Raimi/Peter Jackson/Alex Winter style, it could have been a hands down Christmas classic. In the end though MASSACRE ON AISLE 12 was amusing enough to be the lone (so far) light on our 2018 journey through Christmas films. The cast and filmmakers were game and you can appreciate the effort. Sometimes all it takes are the little things like a fun plot and a camera operator who knows how to keep things in focus. Like I said, I’m easy.

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December to Dismember: SECRET SANTA (2015)

Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm a bit too stringent with modern low-budget horror films. They are so easy to make, these days, and require so little money to produce, that every douchebag who thinks they are hilarious while doing shots with their asshole friends (see 2018's MOTHER KRAMPUS 2), can crank out a "horror" movie and actually make a couple bucks doing it. Wading, nostril-deep though these movies can make one pretty cynical, so when something comes along that is just shy of the mark, it makes it all the more painful.

Decidedly falling into the category of "a group of college friends make a movie", SECRET SANTA (not to be confused with the forthcoming film from Adam Markus of 1993s JASON GOES TO HELL), has trouble hitting the mark, but gets lots of points for trying.

A couple of college girls, Jenny and Clarissa (Keegan Chambers) come home early from the bars. Since Clarissa is chundering drunk, Jenny dumps her on the floor and goes to her room to find a secret Santa gift on her bed. Opening it to find a filthy, well-used power drill, she opens her door and shouts "whoever is screwing with me, it's 10pm on a Friday and I'm sober, so I am not in the mood!" Finally, someone has written a character that my college-age self can relate to. After taking a shower, because that's what girls do, she returns to her bedroom where the gift giver turns out to be a black clad, balaclava-wearing nutbar who proves to her that the drill, while dirty, is in fine working order by drilling out her eye. Damn, I was just starting to like her.

Fortunately for the viewer, as well as the killer, this appears to be a sorority house of sorts, except it is completely free of obnoxious Greek letters. So I guess it's just a house with a bunch of girls in it.

Cute and peppy Nicole (Annette Wozniak) in order to pay for her school tuition, has a sideline business involving lingerie, large vegetables and a web-cam. Her boyfriend Bryan (Brent Baird), is completely unaware of this as he is totally devoted to her. Well, aside from that one night with Clarissa, of course. There is also Liv (Nicole Kawalez), who is secretly dating Professor Ramsey (Tony Nashed), who is supposed to be significantly older, but is pretty much the same age. They plan on announcing their copulation-ritual bonding at a Christmas party that the girls are having at the house later on that night where they will do the old secret Santa thing. Ramsey is briefly flagged as a potential killer as he has a secret Santa gift in his drawer. One of a few weak attempts at throwing out some red herrings. There is also the hyper-active Dwayne (Geoff Almond), who doesn't study for tests, drinks lots of coffee and snorts white powder leading to comically erratic behavior. Surprisingly, he's not as annoying as he sounds.

Most of the running time of the movie is character pieces, such a Dwayne getting wired and sitting down to cram for the next day's test. Of course everything that can go wrong does and he ends up totally unprepared and tweaking in class, at one point hallucinating that Nicole's face is contorting like a bad Blumhouse horror movie. This finally leads us to the lame Christmas party in which Liv makes hors d'oeuvres out of Nicole's erm, used vegetables and we get lots of awkward silence after Liv's new BF and everyone's teacher, Ramsey, shows up. While the movie cruises along amiably enough on the cast's likability and some fun throw-away jokes, once your jokes turn into a '90s "Saturday Night Live" sketch in which everyone sits around in uncomfortable silence, my holiday generosity starts heading for the door. If I want to watch a movie that has long moments of silence, I'll watch a creepy Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie, thankyouverymuch.

In addition to bringing the movie to a screeching halt, this silent night plays with the awkwardness of Liv's new boyfriend being not only everyone's professor, but significantly older and a big fan of tweed sports jackets with elbow patches. While the role was clearly written with someone like Martin Mull in mind, what we get is a guy who is pretty much the same age as Liv and is very clearly not the stiff, whitebread type. Making things worse is the fact that Nashed seems even more lost in the role than his character. This really hurts the film's latter half, but the most glaring problem is... c'mon, everyone say it with me: "I thought this was a horror movie!?"

While written and directed by one man, Mike McMurran, the film is about a schizophrenic as they come. The majority of the movie is a rather enjoyable, low-budget college student comedy. Occasionally, first timer McMurran suddenly remembers he's trying to sell a horror movie and throws in some jarringly out of context gore sequences that I think he might be trying to play for laughs. Annoyingly he also feels that the whole thing needs to have the faux-grindhouse video filter with fake scratches, lab-marks and faded color. Personally I find this a major drawback on a horror film, but on a movie that is essentially a light comedy, featuring modern technology like cell phones and laptops, it's just absurd.

We do get a slasher film in the more traditional sense, clumsily shoehorned into the ass-end of the movie, however. People start opening secret Santa presents finding odd household tools and are killed with them. In one scene we get a little comedy when Clarissa attempts to seduce Dwayne out of sheer boredom and after discovering that doing massive amounts of stimulants *ahem* restricts male bloodflow, decides to take a bath (because that's what girls do). The killer who, amazingly is unseen or heard by anyone in the house at any time, had previously given her a hairdryer. Cackling maniacally, he throws it in the tub. Or he would have, if the cord hadn't been so short that it drops harmlessly on the floor. Having to resort to doing things the old fashioned way, he then clubs her to death with it. The old too-short-powercord gag is not a new joke, by far (it was even used in the porn slasher parody CAMP CUDDLY PINES POWERTOOL MASSACRE, back in 2005), and it's a fitting metaphor for this part of the movie as the joke falls short and the punchline is rather blunt.

The effects are occasionally executed with simple prosthetics, but typically we just get gallons of red Kayro syrup being splashed all over the place. While McMurran tries to keep the audience guessing as to who the killer is, it is all rather half-hearted, and the reveal isn't very interesting and is obnoxiously over-acted. It seems like yet again, this Christmas, we have another movie that really doesn't want to be a horror movie. In an unusual turn of events, I rather liked their oddball group of college students who, for once, actually seem like people I knew in college, instead of the idealized, hyperbolic, 25 year old college students we see in bigger budgeted slasher movies. Also, because it is a Canadian movie, there is actually snow in the exterior shots. As a Californian, I frequently don't even notice when a Christmas movie lacks snowy vistas, but I always appreciate it when they do. It's a free special effect and adds immeasurably to the ambiance. Imagine GHOST KEEPER (1981) without the powder; you'd just have some people lost in a house on some grass.

Hopefully McMurran can find his groove, I think he has potential to make a solid movie. Even, maybe especially, if it is just a comedy and not trying to be a horror film.

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December to Dismember: ELVES (2018)

It was approximately a year ago that some dumb ass (yours truly) got hypnotized by the awesome cover for THE ELF (2017), which ultimately led to a love-hate affair with Redbox rejects. I just wanted a good ol’ Christmas horror movie. What I got was a horrible Christmas movie. High off the cash pilfered $1.75 at a time, Redbox quickly got a sequel from Justin Price’s Pikchure Zero Entertainment out just in time for this year’s holiday season. Now THE ELF was truly an abomination against filmmaking and I can’t imagine something being worse. “Hold my eggnog,” said the production company. Just as the titular creature multiplied, ELVES has somehow expanded on all the errors and ways to make a movie unbearable.

We open in the same small Texas town of Alton (I know this because of the end credits, not due to any filmmaker insight of establishing locations) as two young boys dig through a box of Christmas stuff. One of them hears a noise and goes to investigate in a bedroom, where he discovers a variation of the elf doll from the first film. It apparently possesses him and makes him put his younger brother in the oven. Lucky kid, out of the film by the five minute mark. We then cut to a title sequence so drawn out with every actor in the film listed that even Charles Band would complain of it being flagrant padding for length.

The main story kicks in on December 21st with a bunch of friends having a party in a dilapidated warehouse where they just sit around in lawn chairs. Apparently they are all there to celebrate Clover (Deanna Grace Congo), who one man toasts as being a “local hero, activist and lifesaver.” Now what this praise is in relation to is anyone’s guess because plot details are not a strong point for Pikchure Zero Entertainment (more on that in a bit). After plaudits are exchanged and liquor shots downed, Chance (Norma Mendiola) decides to introduce her friends to the “Naughty List” game that involves the creepy elf doll from the opening. According to the rules, you put your name on the list and “once upon the list, the only way to survive is to do what the elf tells you.” Wow, sounds like a real fun game. First on the list is Cali (Melissa Vega), who sees the elf magically appear in her hands. This amazing bit of cinema is accomplished by her holding the elf doll in her hands, pulling it up into the frame, acting shocked, and going, “Who put this here?” Yes, the same trick you did with your friends when you made movies with a video camera when you were twelve. We cut to the next morning and Cali is dropping Clover and Leah (Stephanie Marie Baggett) off. Apparently the curse has really weighed on her as she says, “I’m just ready for this to be over.” You and me both, guuuuurl! The elf shows up in her backseat, causes her to grin evilly, and hit a guy with her car.

Next up we have Randy (Loren James Haskins) working at a bar where the elf shows up on a shelf with a note telling him to poison a customer. This freaks him out so he meets three friends at the library, where they watch a news video stating Cali killed herself in a crash after driving over that guy (who, as the film reveals, had killed her younger brother in a hit-and-run last year). This leads to one of many dialogue scenes that had me questioning my sanity.

Clover: I got a text right before it happened.

Randy: What did it say?

Clover: I don’t know, I guess around 8.

WHAT? Oh, just wait my dear friends. It’s going to get loopier. Apparently the group becomes concerned for Tiffany (Erika Martinez) as she is next on the list and Clover gives her a call. Too late as the elf is in her house now and makes her snort a bunch of drugs in front of her mom. She survives her overdose and, later surrounded by friends, she wakes and asks, “Am I dead?” to which Clover responds, “Not yet.” Uh, thanks? The friends decide they need to have a big group talk where they relay their information and how it is similar to films like TRUTH OR DARE (2018) or IT FOLLOWS (2014). No better way to establish your pedigree than to have characters name films that are muuuuch better than what they are watching. Hey, at least I know someone who had a hand in this mess watches movies.

Okay, so far, so tedious. But this has been pretty normal stuff so it is time to shake up things as only Pikchure can. We randomly cut to three goth girls sitting in a pentagram with the original elf doll from the first film. They are doing some ritual and it causes one girl to stick a barbeque fork in her neck to end her life (oh how I envy her!) and the red-headed goth beats the other girl to death. Now, sit down for this, the killer girl is Sky (Amy Jo Guthrie), the goth best friend from the first film. So, yes, we finally have a connection between films outside of location. Now how do I know this? Well, because I recognized her and saw the character name in the end credits. Yes, once again, the film steadfastly refuses to establish trivial things like character names. Still with me? Good cuz I’m gonna lose your ass. We then meet a random guy out in a snowstorm who is having car trouble. He finds a Christmas ball in his car seat and then is killed by someone wearing a Krampus mask in his backseat. Wait, who the heck is this killer? Who is this guy? Who am I? What the hell is going on? As much as I hate to resort to posting a meme, this is wholly appropriate:

With their friends dropping like plot points in the script, Clover and Leah decide they need to investigate. They go to visit Chance and she fills them in on the history of the elf before shooting herself in the head. Smart lady. Our investigative duo then visit an “old” lady named Clara for more info about this curse. Wait...who the hell is Clara? No idea as the filmmakers never bother to establish who she is. Okay, if my talk of dumb dialogue has gotten you all worked up, get ready because we are about to reach the peak. I present the mother of all nonsensical exposition exchanges I’ve EVER encountered in any movie. This is Clara explaining why the elves do what they do.

Clara: The biblical Magi. They’re also referred as [SIC] the Three Wise Men or Three Kings. They were in the Gospel of Matthew or traditional Christian ideals. There’s a group of distinguished foreigners that visited Jesus after his birth bearing gifts. I don’t know, the Gospel of Matthew was the only one out of the four chronicled gospels to mention the Magi. See, Matthew reports that they came from the East to worship the King of the Jews. The gospel never mentions the number of Magi. But the Western Christian denominations, they just traditionally assumed them to be three.

Leah: The Three Wise Men, yes. What does this have to do with the elf?

Clara: Only a number because of the statement that they brought three gifts. But the Enochian translation it was seven. Psalm 72, Chapter 11. May all kings fall down before him.

Clover: Why seven?

Clara: Pride. Greed. Lust. Envy. Gluttony. Wrath. Sloth. All of them major sins, but also virtues.

Leah: You mean that there are seven of these things? These elves.

Clara: Just two.

Seven deadly sins, two elves, many confused viewers. Now as if my brain wasn’t scrambled enough, this scene ends with the “old” lady - who looks to be in her thirties- pointing toward a wall that she has a “Class of 2016” mural on and Leah goes, “Oh...my...God! She’s only 20.” Now I can take from the reactions of the folks on screen and music that this reveal is supposed to be a shocking moment. It is only shocking in the sense that I have no idea what is going on.

To add to the building confusion, we then see Sky and the original elf kill four people who are in a Christmas support group called Santa’s Helpers. Don’t get too excited for an elf attack as this just involves Sky throwing it to a person, them catching it and then holding it to their neck while they scream. We then see the Krampus killer again as they beat Tiffany to death with a plastic tree (!) and then stalk and kill John (who?) in the library. Finally, the two plotlines converge when Clover and Leah are just randomly sitting in a car and Sky randomly jumps in the backseat with a gun and forces them to drive to her apartment. It is here she has the elf’s chest, reveals something about the elf causing a hunt, and is quickly shot dead; presumably because someone asked her “why are you doing this?” and that was too tough a choice for the filmmakers. It is then revealed that Clover was the Christmas killer all along and...fuck it, where are my keys? I need to get this shit out of my house and back in the Redbox ASAP!

Okay, I’m officially gone, lost, no bars, service unavailable. I’ll be honest, this movie might be one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. If you know my viewing habits, that is a bold statement. How bad is it? The Dan Haggerty ELVES (1989) is now not the worst movie with that title. This is not a movie, it is a flagrant attack on all things cinema. It is actually funny the film has a fleeting plot point about the seven deadly sins because I went through the seven stages of grief with this sumbitch. Actually, I might be stuck in the anger stage as I’m still fuming over how awful this is and how it could get made. Now THE ELF was truly terrible stuff, but even its muddled storytelling could be forcibly mapped out. No chance with ELVES as debuting director Jamaal Burden (which may or may not be a pseudonym for Justin Price) fails even the most rudimentary elements of film storytelling. Burden obviously wanted to live up to his last name as it is up to viewers to suss out who these characters are and what motivations they might have (if any). And trust me, that is hard work! For example, the kids at the party may have been celebrating Clover helping capturing a killer named The Holiday Reaper (which, in turn, may or may not be the Krampus masked killer). Now I know this information not from the film itself, but by reading the film’s press release. Yes, the filmmakers can’t be bothered to include dialogue as to just why their hero is heroic. Echoing the ineptness in the direction and scripting, one has to marvel at the technical aspects of the film. We have some of the worst CGI to grace my screen in a long time complete with terrible CGI blood (see pic above) and this time they don’t even bother to animate the title creatures. We also get plenty of moments of camera accidents. My personal favorite was a moment during the meeting with Carla where the camera suddenly tilts down and they left it in the film.

Another example of the film’s boneheaded-ness is in the special features on the disc. There is an interview with lead and co-producer Deanna Grace Congo. She seems likeable enough and you can’t discount her enthusiasm. Now here is the interesting thing - Congo mentions she is a magician and performs some cool sleight of hand tricks. Now think about this for a second - they have someone capable of doing something cool...and never once think to try and find some way to work this into their scenario! Doubly criminal since Congo was a co-producer. How can you not choose to work in something that could only be an asset? Even if it was a throwaway gag at their party, it might be something to get viewers involved. Nope! We will have nothing interesting in our film. ELVES is a true abomination: A film made by rank amateurs and shoved out onto the market by a cynical company with all the love and care of a disgruntled Santa’s little helper on that toy assembly line in the last five minutes of their final day. I’m not a religious man by any means, but rumor on the street is God hit up the filmmakers after finding out about this end credit shoutout and asked for them to keep him out of it.

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December to Dismember: MOTHER KRAMPUS 2: SLAY RIDE (2018)

What would Christmas be around the VJ HQ without yet another Krampus movie that would drive Carry A. Nation to drink? Maybe we'd dress up in festive sweaters, make egg nogg from scratch, stoke roaring fires without ever shedding a drop of sweat and serenade our respective locals with off-key renditions of "Holy Night"... Naaaaaah, we'd just watch some other crap that would be just as bad and pay penance to the movie gods with our quota of yuletide cinematic flagellation. Some people tithe, we watch terrible movies.

As my second punishment of the season, one that would have even Job crying foul, we have a sequel to a movie that never really existed. If you live in the UK, last year you were "treated" to a no-budget family drama gussied up as a slasher movie, THE 12 DEATHS OF CHRISTMAS (2017). The digitally shot movie, about a witch (supposedly Frau Perchta) that sort of comes back from the dead on Christmas to kill some kids, had nothing to do with Krampus, so ITN Distribution decided that since Uncork'd Entertainment was cashing in on Krampus, slapped the title MOTHER KRAMPUS on the movie for US distribution. To add insult to injury, they even went the extra mile to hire the artist who painted the covers for Uncork'd's Krampus films to do up their cover. This year ITN brings us the sequel to MOTHER KRAMPUS, or at least, the cover is a sequel. The movie, of course, has nothing to do with what is on the cover, nor Krampus, nor MOTHER KRAMPUS, nor THE 12 DEATHS OF CHRISTMAS, and was originally to be titled NAUGHTY LIST. Confused yet? Good. They've got you right where they want you.

The movie opens with a young couple over at the family house getting ready for Christmas. Hipster douchebag boyfriend doesn't want to help with groceries and would rather stand outside smoking something from a pipe that is shaped like a penis. Yep, not even two minutes in and I'm already dreading the next 94 minutes. Fortunately, a bulky person wearing a hospital gown and a mask that looks like Michael Myers crossbred with Leatherface, chops said douchebag down with an axe (don't get excited, the chopping takes place out of frame and behind a fence). After finishing off the other two annoyances in the house, our killer with young, hairy, masculine legs and feet, turns out to be a heavyset older woman named Dorthea (Kris Smith), but is called Mrs. Smith throughout the movie.

A couple of strippers ("we prefer 'dancers'"), Candice (Robbie Barnes) and Gracie (Tiffani Hilton), are on their last day of probation and their probation officer, Paula (Rachel Anderson) has decided that they, along with nice girl Victoria (KateLynn E. Newberry) and plus-sized Santa drag queen Athena (Roger Conners), should spend their last hours of community service at a homeless shelter serving Christmas dinner. We know these people are homeless because they have black make-up smudged across random parts of their faces.

The girls, naturally, are not too happy about this and attempt to bond with the viewers by having one of them pass around a tray of strawberries, insisting one per person, saying "Yo! I know you're homeless and shit, but don't be getting greedy!" This is going to be a long ride to grandma's house, isn't it?

After a touching moment in which Gracie tells Victoria that she's a good kid, the girls (for the sake of simplicity, I'm including the non-binary along with the cisgenders) decide to skip out to a bar for some yuletide spirits. While Athena physically forces Victoria to drink shots, Candice gets in a heated drama scene when she spots her drug-dealer, occasional BF Donnie 8-Ball sitting in a booth with another girl. After which we get another protracted scene of nothing, while Candice and Donnie do some blow and make the car rock in the parking lot. Meanwhile Gracie, Victoria and Athena head back to the shelter and are told to liven up the place by singing Christmas carols. Haven't these poor homeless people been through enough? Athena suddenly decides to do a (thankfully) non-stripping stripper dance to a song called "Naughty Christmas", at which point all of the homeless people jump up and down with their fist in the air, doing that thing that millennials apparently do when listening to music at a party in movies. I guess this is supposed to be better than watching them do straight up carols, but I think that depends on how much you enjoy seeing dudes in drag do FLASHDANCE routines. Uhhh, if that's your thing, and you would like to own a copy of this movie, please feel free to check out my ebay listing. I'll make you such a deal.

I know, I know, you're thinking "what the hell, I thought this was a Krampus movie?!" Ha! In your dreams sucker! This ain't even a slasher movie in between the first and last 15 minutes.

Now that the singing and dancing is over (or is it?), Gracie, Victoria and Athena are volunteered to go make deliveries on their own recognizance. Seeing how their recognizance has served them so well up to this point, there is nothing that can go wrong here, right? God, please let something go wrong, PLEASE! Anything to break the monotony.

Their first stop is none other than the house in which our matronly murderer butchered the family, who as we learn later is hers. I think. It's not made very clear. Before the girls even make it to the front porch, for no apparent reason they stop in the middle of the street to sing the majority of a Christmas carol to a woman out walking her dog. It almost feels as if they were moving the camera gear (ie the iPhone) across the street and they thought it would be funny to shoot the cast singing at a random stranger. Either that or it was just another example of these schmucks trying to fill as much of the running time with random bullshit as possible, so that they don't have to come up with a real script. Once inside the house with Mrs. Smith, the fun begins! That is if you think listening to these assholes sing carols again is in any way fun. Trust me it isn't. The bloody stumps on either side of my head where my ears used to be before I clawed them off with my fingernails can attest to that.

Finally Mrs. Smith... wait for it... sits them all down to have some hot coco and chat. No, I'm not kidding. I fucking hate this movie. Mrs. Smith quizzes the trio about what lead them to their sorry state and the shrill attempts at comedy from Roger Conners as Athena is once again at the forefront "I got in trouble for trying to suck a COP'S DICK! For... COCAINE!" Honestly, if you are going to have a line that obnoxious, instead of saying it as obnoxiously as possible, a subtle delivery, a counter-point, will make it funny. For a guy that apparently prides himself on his comic talents (see his self-scribed IMDb bio, if you dare), he sure doesn't know shit about comic timing and delivery. This round-table discussion, aside from putting the viewer to sleep, provides the seemingly totally stable and articulate serial killer, Mrs. Smith, an excuse to add people to her naughty list. Victoria tells a compassionate story about how she got arrested after driving a drunk friend home... without a license... and drunk. We know Mrs. Smith is nuttier than an orange clown with a Twitter account when she finds that story pulling at her heart-strings and leaving Victoria in the clear. Or is she? Who fucking cares?

We also have Candice and Donnie arriving acting all coked-up; long walks on staircases; Paula arriving to give out some heart necklace Christmas presents (says Paula "I love Christmas, it's just so festive!"); Victoria and Paula going shopping (set to music) for a gift for Mrs. Smith (seriously); Donnie and Candice having simulated, nudity-free sex (again); people eating soup; Candice taking a shower (again, nudity-free) and so on. After winding things down to the final 15 minutes, fiiiiiinally Mrs. Smith gets back into her hospital gown and white-face mask, which also seems to give her a male physique and visible tattoos, to sloooooowly stalk the idiots in the house and kill them, mostly off screen. The shots of the victims after the attacks have some reasonably well done latex effects, I'll give them that. Then again, we also have a scene where one of the girls stabs Leathermyers in the eye with a plastic icicle ornament. In addition to it being through the mask, so there is no need for a special effect, in the next scene we have a close-up of Michaelface where the eye is clearly visible! Classic "no shits given" videomaking.

Looking over the careers of those responsible for this narcoleptic Noel, this seems to be one of very many for Roger Connors (real name Greg Grattan), who wrote about himself on IMDb that he is "recognized as one of Cleveland Ohio's premier independent film actors." His name pops up in the credits under a variety of different job descriptions and if this is the kind of dreck that you are going to crank out (about 3 or 4 of these per year), a little humility would go a long way. It's also worth noting that the Facebook page for the movie has photos of "fans" with MOTHER KRAMPUS 2 DVDs, which if you've seen the movie, you'll notice are actually pictures of the cast and crew holding up copies the disc.

After watching this one, I'm thinking maybe I was a bit too harsh with KRAMPUS: ORIGINS (2018). At least they put some effort into into the production, if nothing else. This feels like someone who owns bar, looking for a tax dodge, decided to get some friends who think they are hilarious after several shots of Jager, and made a gender-swapped HALLOWEEN knock-off for as little money as possible, with as little effort as possible. I am honestly amazed that Redbox isn't leading the holiday charge with this one. They have an awfully low bar and yet seem to have taken a pass. That should tell you something.

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