Emily's Christmas Show: LIVE (and streamed)

It's a Christmas miracle!

Last year, I co-wrote/co-directed/co-hosted a fever dream of a Hallmark Christmas movie for a live reading in Brooklyn. And guess what? It's back, better, bigger, and soon to be streamable.

If you're in the New York area, you can come see it (AND ME) onstage at the Caveat in lower Manhattan on December 7th at a friendly 2:30 PM matinee. Get $5 off your ticket with code EMILY

OR, if that trip is a bit out of the way, you can watch it on demand via our live (and later-) stream. 

Tickets for both are here! 

And if you're thinking, "Lady, I come here to read about terrible horror movies, not holiday romance," I would like to calm your worries by pointing out, without spoiling too much, that said Cozy Cardigan Christmas Movie just might involve bloodsucking vampires. 

Okay, not might. It does. Our heroine is a vampire. 

Did I mention I'll be ACTING?

The show will be streamable up through December 26th, because what is Boxing Day without a Hallmark parody?

Tis the Seasonal Horror

Wait...that's not it.

Okay.

For a rough stretch in the mid-aughts, Christmas horror had become the new zombie movie in that amateur filmmakers could make them cheaply, slap on a clever title or cover art, and find some form of distribution. The mere keyword of having the holiday on a virtual video shelf would often be enough for a spot. 

This seems to have passed, though today's feature feels very much a throwback. 

Quick Plot: Cole is a crappy teenager who would rather play video games rather than help his little sister Carol install the Christmas lights. Considering it's pitch black outside and snowing, he's not necessarily wrong for feeling that way, but he still shouldn't handle it like a little jerk (with an incredibly irresponsible mother). Carol climbs up the roof, quickly slips and finds herself dangling in front of Cole's window, a string of lights cutting off her circulation. 

Twenty years later, Cole is not good. He stayed in town and works as a mechanic, living a solitary life with his only companion being the titular Christmas Spirit, embodied by a masked wrestler with holiday leanings. Cole is pretty sure his buddy is the manifestation of his guilt by way of unmedicated schizophrenia, but it's still hard to resist socializing with the only other creature that seems to want anything to do with this gross, sad man.

The Christmas Spirit, however, has goals. It's convinced that Cole's guilt has trapped him in this form until Cole can restore the meaning of Christmas by way of a sacrifice. 

Enter Maggie, a social media superstar teenager (is there any other kind these days?) who loses her own love of the holiday when she catches her married mom in bed with her very own piano teacher. The fact that Maggie bears an uncanny resemblance to Carol gives The Christmas Spirit an idea: Cole must repeat Carol's accident on Maggie to...save Christmas?

Yeah, I never quite got it. Written and directed on what I must assume was a shoestring budget by Bennet De Brabandere, The Christmas Spirit is a clunky but earnest horror comedy that seems to be in battle between how much it actually wants to say about mental illness. Cole is pretty sure that his companion exists purely in his head, though the film suggests another boy (possibly suffering from similar symptoms) can see him.

It doesn't come together, though it's hard to not appreciate the energy that goes into the full product. The cast is game to do the ridiculous, straight down to the keystone cop sidekicks who make The Last House On the Left's characters look like the model of law enforcement. Maybe De Brabandere was a little too ambitious in trying to explore mental illness when his material would have worked better as a sillier, less complicated joke. By trying in half measures, the final product feels a tad...icky.

High Points

This is one of those cases where you have to imagine the cast had to do a lot of heavy lifting, and while not gunning for Oscars any time soon, Zion Forrest Lee gives his all as the pathetic Cole, while Matia Jacket shows very promising comic timing as Maggie. 

Low Points

Aforementioned muddiness regarding, "Is this funny?" or "Is this tragic mental illness?" And yes, I say this as someone who would throw her body in front of a sleigh to defend the honor of Christmas Evil

Lessons Learned

In no scenario is it smart parenting to let your young teenager install holiday lights on the roof when it's dark and snowing

The only upside about catching your mother having an affair around the holidays is that it will give you free reign on her credit card

The true meaning of Christmas is sacrifice (as in, human)

Rent/Bury/Buy

There's definitely a contingent of genre fans who appreciate unusual low budget horror that will find some things of interest in The Christmas Spirit. I don't think the film gets anywhere near where it's heading, but as a small, seasonal effort, there are certainly some things here I haven't seen before, and more importantly, it feels as though the full team was invested in making something unique. If you're in that very specific demographic, give it a low expectations try via Shudder or Tubi. 

Keep the Deadly Games, You Filthy Animal

Over the last decade or so, there have been more than enough articles and video essays on how Home Alone can be interpreted as an extreme horror movie. Whether you see it as a John Jigsaw Kramer origin story or nightmare about adults abandoning children, it has some pretty notable darkness lurking just under the crowd-pleasing exterior. There's a reason it inspired the excellent and twisted pure horror flick Better Watch Out some twenty years after its blockbuster debut.

And yet, just one year before Macaulay Culkin became a household name and millions of kids broke limbs trying to sled down their own stairway, there was an even darker Christmas story about an intrepid little boy enlisting his own gaming skills to protect his mini-mansion from an invader. Long known in the genre film community, Rene Manzor's Deadly Games was one of those hard-to-find legends that now finally has a streaming home on Shudder. In honor of the season, let's roll the getting ready montage and have at it.

Quick Plot: Thomas Fremont lives a charmed life with his wealthy business owner mother, ailing grandfather, and loyal dog (don't get attached). A computer genius who still believes in Santa Claus, Thomas fires up his Minitel to summon the big guy, only to actually engage in dialogue with a psychotic vagrant. Later that day, that same nameless man gets a quick job as a mall Santa, only to be fired for lashing out at a child in front of Tommy's mom.

Bad Santa doesn't take this lightly. When he overhears the Fremonts' address, he makes his way there with blood on his mind. Once Thomas figures out that the white bearded man outside isn't there to give him gifts, he springs into full booby trap-setting action.

That's all you really need to know about Deadly Games, aka Dial Code Santa Claus. Manzor nails a very tricky level of horror that puts our child hero in full harm's way but also gives him plenty to fist pump about. Thomas may be a bit of a spoiled prodigy, but he's also, at the end of the day (in this case, Christmas Eve), just a child. Manzor makes the danger real but never quite mean, which keeps the tone in balance and the energy just right.

I don't know that I'll put Deadly Games on the same seasonal rotation as my beloved Christmas Evil or any Silent Night, Deadly Night (though this is a far superior film to anything in that franchise) but I can fully understand this being a holiday tradition for a lot of genre fans. It's a weird little combination of sweet and naughty, as Christmas should be.

High Points
As Thomas, Alain Lalanne is so perfect at channeling the full gamut of emotions in a kid his age. Bratty, cute, playful, smart, and most importantly, just a little boy who needs his mother

Low Points
It's needed to spur Thomas into action, but by golly, I could have done without the beaten to death dog

Lessons Learned
Once you start doubting Santa Claus, the history of man is next

Nothing moves a plot faster than a need for insulin

Life-sized knight statues are the original panic rooms

Rent/Bury/Buy

I had a good seasonable time with Deadly Games, and will likely add it to the loose list of Christmas-set films that I cycle through every few years. Any genre fan (or Home Alone enthusiast) has no reason not to give it a go. Papa Noel orders it. 

Different Kinds of Holiday Horrors

Throw away your high heels and work cell phone, put on your dangerously oversized earrings, and add some whipped cream to your cocoa. It's Cozy Cardigan Christmas Movie Time, and I've got BIG things planned.

Over at my podcast, The Feminine Critique, I'm shooting out mini-episodes faster than a strict career woman can change her ways and save Christmas in a charming small town. On deck is a whole bunch of Hallmark, Lifetime, UP, and FreeForm originals wherein, well, a strict career woman changes her ways and saves Christmas in a charming small town. There's also one about Nick Lachey's younger brother as a rock star who, well, saves Christmas in a charming small town. Oh! And Daphne Zuniga saves Thanksgiving in a charming small town AND she starts as, you know, a strict career woman. 

I have a lot to say about these movies. You can download at iTunes or figure it out here.

If you prefer to SEE me when I talk about Candace Cameron Bure saving Christmas in a charming small town AND you're in the New York area on Friday, December 9th, then come on down to Brooklyn's Alamo Drafthouse. I'll be participating in a very special Kevin Geeks Out comedy show about, you guessed it, holiday specials. You can get all the details here. 

Hope to see you there!