Red Christmas

When I read the synopsis for this movie and saw that Dee Wallace was in it, I did decide to give it a go, because the movie had the potential of actually being a fun movie.

As it turned out, then "Red Christmas" has a very poorly written storyline, and was equally poorly executed on the screen. The storyline was so generic and predictable that it was insulting to the audience.

The cast were doing good jobs with whatever little material they had to work with, and as expected it was Dee Wallace that carried the movie most of the way.

"Red Christmas" had adequate special effects, although it made no sense that a woman could be chopped in two by a single blow with an axe.

The characters were generic and one-dimensional, and you didn't really connect with any of them.

This was hardly a memorable movie in any way, and it doesn't have the contents to support more than just a single viewing. All in all, don't really bother with this movie unless you have nothing better to watch or if you are a die-hard fan of anyone on the cast list.

I generally like aussie horror films a lot, quite a few gems in the outback and such & this one, despite the ratings, was a very intriguing choice - A directional debut by an aspiring filmmaker who put his all, financial and mental, in making a low-budget slasher about an aborted fetus seeking revenge on his family. How did it go? Considerably well, I'd say.

"Red Christmas" is, overall, quite the messy amateur horror flick, a comic slasher that's, for the most part, self-conscious enough. The plot is morally questionable, I suppose that's where some of the bad ratings come from - the movie tackles subjects of abortion and down syndrome in not exactly the most sophisticated ways. However, I'm not taking points away from it because of those themes. I take points away for the entirety of story simply being average. The first half an hour is decent, the dysfunctional family theme works, the introduction of the villain is decent - but all gets more murky as the movie goes on. Basically, in the core it's a Slasher, so, everyone's familiar with the tropes. I thought the cast did a pretty good job, there were definitely enough over-acting moments and the characters can be cartoon-ish, but the performances provided some entertainment. Dee Wallace gave her best as the life-tired and caring mother, confronted by her past traumas. "Red Christmas" has some cool and creative kills while also managing not to rely solely on violence - gorehounds will find something to their liking. Visually it was equal parts good and chaotic, muddled - we got dynamic and creative camera work that sometimes goes well overboard, candy-colored and contrastive cinematography with lighting that raises an eyebrow every now and then & inescapably, a vibe, a sense of student-like filmmaking.

I believe that by any general/objective standards "Red Christmas" is average at the most, but for the genre fans & b-movie fanatics it can be a fun holiday horror that smells like independence, effort and both defeated and lost filmmaking challenges. My rating: 5/10.

Most Christmas horror movies revolve around psychopathic killers dressed up in Santa suits or feature mythological Holiday season creatures. Some others feature dysfunctional families butchering each other over Christmas dinner, and a few noteworthy exceptions deal with satanic elves. "Red Christmas", on the other hand, has a totally unique premise... In this bonkers movie, Aussie family members gathering around the matriarch's Christmas tree are getting slaughtered one by one by a freak in bandages and a cloak who turns out to be an aborted fetus!

All this may sound awesome (and the main premise most definitely is), but "Red Christmas" is nonetheless a huge disappointment of a Christmas horror movie, and this also despite a couple of gory kills and the presence of a bona fide horror cinema icon; namely Dee Wallace ("The Howling", "Cujo", "The Hills have Eyes"). What went wrong? Mainly the awful editing, shaky camerawork, and the dreadful overuse of hideous green-red-blue color patterns. The screenplay often makes bizarre leaps in logic, and creating suspense or atmosphere never seems to be a priority for writer/director Craig Anderson. Two or three great murders and colorful decorations aren't enough to make a good holiday-horror classic, unfortunately.

I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 400 Christmas MOVIES.

BEWARE OF BOGUS REVIEWS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION. NOW I HAVE NO AGENDA! I AM HONEST! I REVIEW Christmas MOVIES AS A WAY TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT I HAVE SEEN!

Horror legend Dee Wallace (The Hills Have Eyes, The Howling, E.T., Cujo, Critters) stars as the stressed-out mother of a squabbling family, gathered together in a remote Outback estate on Christmas Eve. When a mysterious, deformed young man named Cletus appears at their door, things soon change from petty insults to bloody, imaginatively orchestrated violence as Wallace attempts to protect her family from the vengeful intruder. The film deliriously infuses comedy, dark family secrets with outlandish gore and adds the always controversial subject of abortion in its blood-stained mix.

This film is amateur hour. The camera work is terrible. The director thinks his low angles and weird color schemes add mode but they are a distraction.

If you want to see a good horror film that has a Christmas setting then watch the original "Black Christmas"

Red Christmas features a memorable character in the form of Cletus: rescued as a fetus from an abortion bin and raised to adulthood by a pro-life priest, he hides his deformed appearance under bandages and a big cloak, and goes in search of his mother, Diane (Dee Wallace), looking for some maternal love. But when mom rejects him (again), he picks up an axe and takes revenge by hacking his way through her dysfunctional family.

Like the elephant man, only uglier, Cletus is a sympathetic character driven to kill when all he wants is a motherly hug and some loving words; this makes him a rather unique movie maniac, but one deserving of a much better film. Writer/director Craig Anderson might have created an impressive killer, but he doesn't do the slobbering freak justice, his film suffering from a weak script and dreadful dialogue, crappy acting, horrible lighting (unnatural green, red and blue colours) and duff direction. Dee Wallace used to be a Hollywood A-lister, and it's a real shame to see her appearing in such rubbish, but she's only got herself to blame: she is the producer of the film, after all.

As for the whole Christmas setting, it is purely incidental, having no real bearing on the plot: Cletus could have turned up on Shrove Tuesday and it wouldn't have made much difference (except that the title wouldn't work so well and Anderson's garish lighting scheme would feel even more out of place).

3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for the scene where a guy has his head pushed onto some kind of spinning device (it was hard to make out exactly what it was) and his eyeballs turn to mush and burst out of the sockets.