Starring: William Shatner, George Buzna, Rob Archer, Zoe De Grand Maison, Alex Ozerov, Shannon Kook, Amy Forsyth.
Director: Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan.
Well, it's a day late, but we'll still get it pounded out. Happy Boxing Day to all! I don't know much about this whatsoever, apparently Shatner is in it(which, y'know, could go either way) and the cover art promises a fight between Santa and Krampus. Y'know, where did all this Krampus love come from? Suddenly it was just everywhere the past couple of years. I'm kind of sick of hearing about friggin' Krampus. But, his titular film wasn't bad this year and this looks like the kind of tongue-in-cheek horror comedy that is self aware enough to be tolerable.
Opening with kinda creepy but kinda cool sounding autotuned Christmas carols is kind of a nice touch. I dig it. It's a little odd that this movie has three directors and four writers, though, and that kind of makes me a little nervous that I'm walking into a trap.
So, Santa Claus looks like Odin and has a big scar on his face. That already kinda makes me like this a bit. An Shatner as a religious radio DJ, which is also kind of pretty fantastic. I'd say that Shatner looks pretty good for his age, but I know a lot of that is movie magic. But, technically, it's still pretty true: the guy is not a young man, be he doesn't look his age.
Outside of All-Father Santa and DJ Shatner, no other character has proven to be terribly interesting: a dysfunctional family, a quarter of teens trying to develop some sort of news video project at the site of a violent tragedy and a black family breaking into a restricted area to cut down a Christmas Tree. Not a lot of personality is given to any of them, nor is there anything to necessarily suggest that they're anywhere near geographic proximity.
The Dysfunctional family visits their elderly Aunt and the kid breaks a figurine of Krampus...the Aunt and her caretaker freak out and we're off to an actually really interesting scene at the North Pole where Santa's elf Shiny gets sick, refuses Mrs.Claus(who is much hotter than most incarnations) cookies and then freaks out, puts an axe through his own hand and dies. This alarms Santa because you don't usually see that kind of behavior in Elves...and, apparently, Elves cannot die. Not sure what all of this has to do with each other but...we'll get there, I think. I hope.
I'd really rather just watch what's going on at the North Pole. Seriously, that movie is interesting...the other movies really aren't. I'm not even sure what's going on in those...is this supposed to be an anthology? I'm now wondering if that's the reason for multiple directors and writers: that this movie is actually cobbled together from three or four films that didn't pan out and all took place around Christmas. There is literally nothing holding these together.
I'd be down with the mildly connecting anthological style (hey, it worked for Trick 'r Treat) but these stories aren't terribly interesting. We have what appears to be a zombie-elf story(which is rad), an evil(or possessed) kid story, a ghost story and whatever is going on with the dysfunctional family getting stuck on the road. They're mostly dull stories that really don't seem to be going anywhere. Hell, the possessed kid story has almost nothing to do with Christmas at all, but at least we have the creepy kid feeling up his Mom or whatever.
Meanwhile, in the family story, Dad just got torn open by a chain or something but is taking it extraordinarily well(almost casually asking "Am I shot?"). It seems they're going to be hunted by Krampus. And then we're back to the North Pole. I just want to stay with this story, movie. Santa vs zombie elves is a movie I'd love to watch in it's entirety. I mean, Santa just walks out of an elevator filled with the zombified corpses of elves he just killed, and it's the awesomest thing ever.
Oh, the story of the black family with the possessed kid is using the mythical Changeling, which is kinda rad. The Changeling isn't used nearly often enough (in fact, not sure I've seen these guys outside of a really creepy episode of Supernatural). The Changeling is a demonic creature that takes a child, replaces it, and then feeds off the life force of the parents. They're creepy little fuckers and I'm glad to see them getting some play here. I wish the movie had a little bit more excitement to back it up, but the heart is there.
Actually, I think I could probably say that about most of the stories: there's sizzle but no steak. With the exception of the teens in the murder convent or whatever, the stories all have some fun elements: Zombie Elves, Krampus, Changelings...mostly boring and underwhelming characters and poorly paced story beats, but good ideas. Krampus doesn't look that bad, either, for a low budget film. Practical effect, clearly a guy in a costume and make-up. Looks a lot like the monster from The Unnamable actually.
Seriously, though: The Santa Vs. Zombie-Elves is easily the best story going on here. It has a fantastic amount of kinetic energy and a fun absurdist quality that makes it very watchable. I just wish it was around for more than five minutes at a time. We went back to the Changeling story...where our lead character has doomed herself in a big way(or maybe not. Eleventh hour plot twist changes things up, but not in any way that makes sense). The Changelings actually look pretty okay, too. Some surprisingly strong practical effects in this film. The Zombie Elves have good gory make-up, Krampus and The Changelings...there's a lot of good in this film. It just fails on every storytelling and directional level, especially the teen ghost story. Just about every element of that segment falls apart. Actually, the Krampus story had a pretty neat ending, despite the awkwardness getting there. The whole thing does have a really fun ending. Pretty grim but entertaining.
Final Thoughts: Lots of fun stuff happening here and there, like small nuggets of fun in an otherwise numb and lumbering, boring set of storylines with underwhelming characters and poor direction. There are great effects, fun ideas, a kick-ass Viking Santa totally ruining the days of zombie elves, and William Shatner just kinda hanging around not doing much. I'd probably call it an interesting failure.
Final Rating: I'm torn. I both love and hate parts of this movie equally. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt on stuff and err on the side of the elements I enjoyed and toss a Three Star Rating at it...but really, I have reservations about that.
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