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?

If a Tale From the Crypt Doesn't Have a Cryptkeeper, THEN WHAT IS IT?

PEOPLE! Are you aware that in 2001, Jennifer Grey, Craig Sheffer, and Tim 'Best Actor of All Things Ever' Curry starred in a Tales From the Crypt movie? A TALES FROM THE CRYPT MOVIE?

Now before you go a'swoonin, I have some bad, bad news.

This is not really a Tales From the Crypt movie.

But words don't lie! you shout with fervor, jabbing your pointing finger to the dreadklocked Cryptkeeper looking over the cover art's action. See? The movie is called Ritual and it's clearly Jamaican based and hence, THE CRYPTKEEPER HAS DREADLOCKS! Surely he'll open the film wearing a happy face t-shirt while making some inappropriate jokes about ganja and adding t's to all his words. I mean, THAT'S WHAT TALES FROM THE CRYPT MEANS.

Unless the year is 2001 and Miramax was scared off by Bordello of Blood's poor box office performance, thusly removing all references to the Cryptkeeper from  A TALES FROM THE CRYPT MOVIE.

Not that I'm bitter about that or anything...

Quick Plot: A gooey opening scene in Jamaica gives us an incredible melting character actor investigating the mysterious illness that befell his patient, rich land owner Wesley Claybourne. But then he melts.

And we still haven't had a Cryptkeeper pun.

Back in the U.S., Dr. Alice Dodgson (aka Nobody Puts Baby In the Corner With a New Nose) attempts to save a dying young patient with experimental medication, losing the kid's life and her medical license in the process. Jobless, she accepts the now vacant role of personal physical to the aforementioned Wesley on a sprawling Jamaican plantation as ratlike older brother Julian (Nightbreed's Craig Sheffer) looks on suspiciously.

Helping out is Caro, the Claybourne's sexy childhood friend, and Jennifer Grey's Left and Right Nipple, which should have at the very least earned their SAG card for the amount of work they have to do under a tight white camisole. You know what else works hard? Dream sequences. All 972 of them.

See, there's an art and craft to using the 'shock! scare! dead main character! oh, it's all a dream!' trick. When handled correctly, it's an outstanding little device that almost every basic horror movie requires. On the other hand, when about 40% of your film's running time is composed of said 'shock! scare! dead main character! oh, it's all a dream!' sequences, they lose their power rather quickly. This is especially evident when Nobody Puts Baby's Prominent Nipples In the Corner With a New Nose recaps her most recent nightmare with the line "I just had the most horrifyingly real dream of my life!" Just try to watch that scene and not respond "as opposed to the 12 other horrifyingly real dreams we've witnessed?"

That being said, Ritual isn't a terrible movie. Filmed on location in Jamaica, it looks gorgeous, and the actors are all more than adequate. Does it feel like a Tales From the Crypt episode? Somewhat. Greedy characters get their karmic slap, bodies get melted or zombified, breasts get displayed and jungles get trod upon.

But the puns? Ah, what I wouldn't do for a pun...

High Points
If nothing else, this movie includes copious doses of Tim Curry petting cats and making lecherous smiles at women. That in itself sort of puts this into the 10 range

Low Points
Aside from the obvious--THIS IS A TALES FROM THE CRYPT MOVIE WITH NO CRYPT--Ritual ends on the sourest, meanest, most unnecessarily misogynist note that in no way was warranted by its otherwise fine 100 minutes. I was absolutely disgusted by the final shot of this film. Now one could argue that it's the usual comeuppance doled out by any Crypt morality tale, but it's not really the case. Let's get into SPOILERY specifics:

So the villain is, in a worthy twist, revealed to be Caro. It's fine for her fate to be zombiehood, since she was planning on doing the same to her friends, but then Ritual decides to get playful by showing her as a zombie bride being lain on a bed by the film's OTHER still-living villain, a corrupt and cruel policeman whom she had previously insulted for being fat. So as punishment, she'll get to spend the rest of his life being raped. He, keep in mind, was as much of, if not MORE of a villain (WHO KILLED TIM CURRY DAMNIT) but you know, he's fine. I understand the idea of throwing in a final punch, but this one is so miscalculated that it almost ruined the otherwise unoffensive and slightly entertaining film on the whole.

Lessons Learned
Everyone in Jamaica carries machetes for work and protection

Voodoo is like disco, but with less poom poom

It is customary for hospitals to fire surgeons via snail mail

If naming a character Wesley, consider how the line "As you wish" might sound and whether you're looking for a Princess Bride reference in your voodoo zombie horror movie

Bonus Material

As I watched this on Netflix Instant, I was denied the apparently extra of the Cryptkeeper segment tagged onto the DVD. HOWEVER, IMDB has kindly provided the dialogue spoken by everyone's favorite ghoul on the quotations page for Ritual. Do yourself a favor and take a look. It's oozing with mons and is written phonetically. 

The Internet is a wonderful place.

Look! It's...

Everyone's favorite Pennsylvanian insurance salesman/Glee sex offender Stephen Tobolowsky in a small role as Alice's boss

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you're looking for some throwback Tales From the Crypt action, then Ritual really isn't it. That being said, those in the mood for some voodoo horror along the lines of The Serpent and the Rainbow or, as the credits claim as a basis, I Walked With a Zombie will find plenty to enjoy. The story and characters are better thought-out than a lot of other straight-past-your-cineplex offerings, and there's an added bonus of pretty people and pretty kickass practical effects. Plus, Tim Curry petting a cat while being smarmy. 

That's all this gal needs.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Jewish Saint

We’re told a lot of lies in our youth. The ice cream truck is empty. Long division is important. Sparky moved to the farm.  Worst of all is the master conspiracy that is Santa Claus. It’s bad enough that children are forced to live in constant fear of an all-knowing magician obsessed with judging their character, only to eventually discover (often at the cruel insensitivity of cooler kids on the playground) that such an entity is a mere illusion created to separate the gullible geeks from the faster developed in-crowd.

But let’s just say there really is a portly gentleman who spends one night a year breaking into billions of homes to deposit a few new toys and eat lots of sugar cookies. How does HE feel about his image being encapsulated in snowglobes, having his name tossed about in lazy lyrics or receiving constant junk mail written in crayon? 

For a new spin on the 2000 year old holiday, there’s Santa’s Slay, a black comedy directed by newcomer David Steiman,  the former long-suffering personal assistant to Brett Ratner (I don’t know he actually suffered; I’m just going with conventional wisdom that Ratner is kind of a drag). Starring proudly Jewish WWE champ Bill Goldberg, this 2005 horror features plenty of pile drives and Nutcracker antics for the whole family, especially if you like your family well enough, but don’t want to spoil them with something overly wonderful.

Quick Plot: We open with a star-studded Christmas dinner for two wealthy families, connected perhaps by an affair or, more likely, the amount of famous names Steiman could assemble in one room for a day of shooting. Don’t get too attached to Rebecca Gayheart, Fran Drescher, Chris Kattan (because of course, you were totally in danger of that) and James Caan (yes, James Caan), as they all receive festive slayings within five minutes.

We’re soon introduced to our young teen protagonists, Nicholas Yuleson (get it? of course you do. Cause you’re not an idiot) and Mary (Lost’s Emilie de Ravin), employees of the world’s friendliest kosher butcher’s shop. Nicholas has lived his short life sans Christmas spirit, mostly because his wacky old grandpa knows the truth behind December 25th. See, back in ye olden days, Santa (Goldberg) was pretty much a jerk, possibly because he had to share his immaculately concepted birthday with golden boy Jesus Christ. Fed up with watching the grizzly sadist slice his way through innocent humans, a kindly angel wagered Santa 1000 years of hellish torment (i.e., burning in Satan’s estate or delivering joy across the world) to be decided in a friendly match of curling.

As any Miracle on 34th St. shopper might deduce, Santa’s curling could have used some coaching. 2005, however, marks the end of his losing conditions and thus, it’s time for the big guy to ride into Hell Township on his one-bison sleigh and celebrate his newfound freedom with a massacre in a strip joint possibly co-owned by Rob Zombie. Ornaments impale, wreaths strangle, pomeranians are hurled into ceiling fans and 80s style street punks die at the pointy ends of candy canes. 

Santa’s Slay is a fun film built on a pile of regifted presents and best enjoyed with store brand eggnog. Watching Santa Claus use ring-worthy moves on burly bouncers and electrocute bartenders with a stripper’s pole is exactly as amusing as it sounds. While no actor is gunning for a Golden Globe, the performances are good-natured and well-aware of how best to deliver the material...

...which is by far the weakest part of Santa’s Slay. While some lines land with clever holiday cheer, there are a lot more that thud loudly without sharp nuance. It doesn’t mean Santa’s Slay isn’t funny; it’s just not quite as funny as it would like to be and for those such as myself who are deeply annoyed by forced comedy, Santa’s Slay toes a thin line between naughty and nice. 

High Points

While not overly memorable, the score is quite a pleasing mashup of well-known carols, humorously modern Santa jingles, and touches of ambition, such as the one measure nod to Fiddler On the Roof cued as a group of Hasidic Jews pass by

A well-placed stop-motion animated flashback to the origin of “good” St. Nick is wonderfully reminiscent of classic Rankin/Bass specials of yore, straight down to the Cornelius Vanderbilt expression on Santa Claus’s face

Low Points

Sorry Mr. Steiman, but contrary to your commentary track, old people swearing and fart jokes are not necessarily always funny by themselves

While I loved the over-the-top insanity of the opening scene, why, why I ask with fists raised to the sky, did Chris Kattan receive the least offensive death?

Although there are plenty of memorable one liners (see below for my favorite), some of the dialogue is just one draft short of snapping. Example: “I’m as happy as a Make-a-Wish kid,” our hero says upon receiving a pretty kickass pistol Transformer. If you think about it, a Make-a-Wish kid isn’t actually happy. He/she is probably in a lot of pain until a wish is actually granted. Edit: “I’m happier than a Make-a-WIsh kid cutting the line to Space Mountain.” A mere reference isn’t funny in itself. It requires honing.

Lessons Learned

Santa Claus and Jesus Christ are birthday buddies

Jewish butchers are closed on Christmas but like to hang out in their shops to make sure people know that

If you live in hell, you shouldn’t use the lord’s name in vain so indiscriminately 

In the 364 days he’s unemployed, Santa Claus spends his time working out and studying the Crypt Keeper's how-to book on the art of punning 

The going rate for a rocket launcher in 2005 was one lung

Winning Line

“Christmas can sure scare the Dickens out of people!”

Funny because a) it’s shouted with such enthusiasm by a WWE champion and b) he’s holding a copy of A Christmas Carol as he says this

Rent/Bury/Buy

Having now watched three homicidal Santa Claus cut their way through the naughty in the last week, my rosy cheeked glee at watching carolers scream in fear is beginning to pale. Still Santa’s Slay is, much like ThanksKilling, a film that understands why holiday horror is such a beloved seasonal tradition. It’s a bit of a mess made by someone still learning the trade, but there is a lot of wackiness to give you a pleasantly offbeat 90 minutes. By no means is this a new classic along the lines of Jack Frost (yes, I’m aware that I’ve just called the mutant killer snowman movie a “classic”), but it’s enjoyable enough to get you through an evening of gift wrapping. You could certainly do better than stale writing and multiple uses of foul-mouthed senior citizenry, but hearing Bill Goldberg try to deliver a monologue in medieval Nordic is something many a connoisseur of cheese can enjoy.

JUST a Popularity Contest?

The polls are open and my pride is more vulnerable than a grizzled character actor in a slasher film.

That's right you lovely literati: The Ms. Blogosphere voting hath begun, and as the petroleum jelly slowly erodes my pearly whites, I kindly request your support in the form of one click from your index finger (or, as Fozzie in The Muppet Treasure Island would say, the man who LIVES in your finger).

This is a friendly competition run by the blogging superbeasto B-Sol over at The Vault of Horror intended to honor and celebrate female horror bloggers for all our movie musings, thrilling introspection, and Bruce Campbell adoration. You can catch my original interview here and vote once (just once total; it's just like a REAL election...in some countries) between now and December 4th by going to The Vault's homepage .

Any help would be appreciated, especially since we really should be focusing more on building up our future for our children and like, some people don't even have maps.

Wait: wrong competition. This is the one where I'm Mimi Rogers and I'm supposed to kill Kathy Ireland, yes?

I'm all confused. Just vote once. Then check out some of my fellow bloggistas for all their bloody wisdom. And leave Kathy Ireland alone.

I'll just be over here, warming up for the talent portion of the evening, wherein I'll be performing MacArthur Park on the tablah.

No, I am serious.

Have a Yabba Dabba Doo Death

Stephen King may be the mainstream go-to for horror literature, but when it comes to fiction that digs into your soul and chips away at your sense of what’s right in the world, pick up a Jack Ketchum book. From vividly gruesome novels riddled with torn limbs to stories that break your heart in less than ten pages without a drop of spilled blood, his work never fails to make me reach for reliable reassurance with a hug from my cat or cuddle with the old Pound Puppy. 

In theory, much of his work comes ready-made for film adaptations. Early novels like Off Season leap off the page with visceral violence screaming for some handy makeup effects, while The Lost could easily be a good actor’s dream role along the lines of De Niro’s Travis Bickle. 2009‘s Offspring marks the fourth attempt to bring Ketchum’s words to the screen, and like The Girl Next Door and The Lost (I can’t speak for Red as it’s still making its way up my queue), it works on some levels while failing to capture the true horror of its source material. 

Quick Plot: The ominously named Dead River, Maine, is about to be revisited by a clan of savage cave cannibals who made their mark eleven years earlier (for reference, read Off Season, Ketchum’s 1980 debut novel which for rights reasons, couldn’t be filmed) by snatching a few babies and devouring a lot of adults. After a gooey prologue introduces the hungry clan, we meet The Brood’s Art Hindle as a weathered policeman coming out of retirement to lend a hand to the helpless police force. Meanwhile, our civilian protagonists are introduced as genuine nice people. The omnivores include Amy and David Halbard, a nerdily sweet young couple with a cute newborn, their visiting friend Claire Carey, and her resourceful son Luke. The latter two are in the midst of dealing with financial woes caused by Stephen Carey, an alcoholic, abusive, and tax-evading father who abandoned them months earlier but is now en route to do even more damage. 

What makes Offspring work--both on page and screen--is the attention given to developing its characters. In most cannibals-hunting-normal-people films, humans exist as mere meat just waiting to be served. Here, the Halbards, Careys, and, to a lesser extent, Hindle’s George Peters are actual people well-deserving of our sympathies. This makes the first attack incredibly effective. Watching feral children gut innocent suburbanites is always going to stir up some emotions in its audience, but when we actually like said victims, it’s truly horrifying. 

One of the most disturbing elements of Offspring, however, is its civilized villain, Stephen. Actor Erick Kastel gives this yuppie sadist a nice sense of misogyny that toes a line between forced evil and true psychopathy. Like in the novel, one of the strongest scenes has nothing to do with hunting knives or hatchets. Stephen picks up a perky hitchhiker, only to quickly unnerve her with nastiness. It’s a nice early twist that further infuses Offspring with a sense of wrongness, much in the way The Girl Next Door features a creepy ant war that works to unsettle the audience before digging into the main action. 

The sense of savagery inside Offspring is at times aided by its low budget and lack of studio rating. Children are shot, babies are tossed, and many a stomach is torn apart in a manner that would most likely have had the MPAA seething. The biggest complaint a lot of viewers will mostly likely have is the low quality camera work that feels nearly homemade. Occasionally, this works for artistic reasons (such as Stephen’s first meeting with the demolition-happy cannibals as he storms away in his Porsche) but unfortunately, some of the actual editing stunts the action by lingering in all the wrong spots. Director Andrew van den Houten doesn’t seem to have any real eye for shooting scenes or building suspense. It’s possible to defend some of the visuals and lack of build-up as modern exploitation, but as you watch Offspring, it feels much more along the lines of sloppy filmmaking.

But as far as the horror goes, Offspring works at grounding itself in one awful night of slaughter. Ketchum himself penned the script and it’s obvious he retained most of his own character work in shaping the victims. The clan, on the other hand, is a mixed bag of effectiveness: evil and athletic children are sufficiently rotten, and  schoolteacher Ed Nelson’s performance as Cow (the crazed and imprisoned sex toy of the group) is quite creepy. Pollyanna McIntosh comes off best as the leading matriarch, but the entire look of these horrific man-eaters feels...well...costume store sponsored. I was more impressed by the fact that Second Stolen’s metal rock wig stayed on when she tossed her hair than I was by her self flagellation. I understand that a limited budget wouldn’t quite capture the nipple belt so well described on the page, but it’s a shame to see these potentially nightmare-inducing creations end up looking like a family dressing up like the Flintstones for Halloween, but forgetting to take their costumes off come Thanksgiving.

High Points

All the gore--and there is a lot--is quite well done, always grossing you out and never inspiring you to pass the ketchup

You can’t underestimate the importance in fleshing out (no pun intended; I need to stop this Crypt Keeper business before I corn myself to death) the characters. With a few gaps here and there, the lead performances are all very solid in creating actual people, thus making their brutal attacks as sad as they are frightening

Low Points

So much about the technical filmmaking misses the mark. For one, the coloring never seems to make up its mind. The hellish cave is too orange, creating a campfire feel rather than a disgustingly bone-filled home base of killer cannibals

Even though I read Offspring less than a year ago, the motivations of the clan were hazy at best. I only remembered the fact that the older children were named “First Stolen” and “Second Stolen” because of the IMDB listing. Knowing that these horrid creatures were once kidnapped babies is a huge part of the novel that adds weight to the newly kidnapped children, but in the film, none of this disturbing backstory comes across. 

Lessons Learned

If you need to escape from an entire town’s police force, simply trot into the woods while they watch you waving their fists

Everybody in New England carries a full flask

Kicking a corpse will not bring it back to life

Don’t expect the 16 year old babysitter to successfully defend your newborn against a feral clan of baby-eating cannibals

Knives are very noisy when pulled out of stomachs

Rent/Bury/Buy

Word of mouth has been pretty turgid for Offspring, but I found it to be an entertaining little slice of 90 minutes. In no way does it fully capture the horrific nature of the novel, but it does offer more than a few moments to unsettle jaded DVD renters. I can see many a cynical horror fan picking more bones with the look and general feel of this film, but I guess those who want to like it will find more than enough to enjoy in a sitting. Whereas The Girl Next Door remains a chilling and troubling film with each subsequent viewing, Offspring’s power lays more in its action, making it most likely a one-watch for the majority of horror fans. The loaded DVD includes a detailed behind-the-scenes featurette, commentary, and a few more little goodies worth checking out. I’m partial to the making-of documentary, where we get to watch the final kid-on-kid battle in a split screen with the child actors’ parents looking on with pride, horror, and gum snaps.