Despite having once co-created a Hallmark movie generator, I had never actually seen one until this ill-advised double-bill – and I possibly still haven’t as the provenance of these festive Netflix movies is a mystery (no production company appears willing to claim them), but I assume they all come from the same studio and Christmas tree farm in Canada.

Angel Falls Christmas (2021)

First up, Angel Falls Christmas – a typically nonsensical title for a genre that loves to slap the word Christmas onto grammatically inappropriate phrases, e.g. Last Train to Christmas, A Welcome Home Christmas and Lights, Camera, Christmas!. It sees Ally (Jessica Lowndes) dumped by her boyfriend (David Reale) for not being Christmassy enough, which in Hallmark terms means she might as well be Hitler.

In the great tradition of A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life and Ghosts of Christmas Always (guess the Hallmark one), she is visited by an angel (Chad Michael Murray) who teaches her the true meaning of Christmas: marriage. The fact she is a devoted ER doctor whose parents died in some mysterious Christmas tragedy be damned; it’s time for her to get into the Christmas spirit or the woodchipper.

Ally is not some Scrooge who needs to learn compassion, but the most selfless person in a town full of busybodies deriding her for not having enough decorations (though if she had any more her house would be reported for hate crimes). Nor does she need to spend more time with her family, since she doesn’t have any kids – and therein lies the problem as far as Hallmark (or whatever) is concerned.

But if you put aside politics (isn’t that what the holidays are all about?), this is perfectly serviceable Christmas wallpaper. The acting is fine (apart from Chad Michael Murray who makes the angel way creepier than he needs to be), the humour amiable and the production as efficient as you would expect from a studio that churns out between 40 and 60 Christmas films each year.

Christmas With a View (2018)

Christmas With a View continues that opposition to modern ideas such as women being unwed and having jobs. It follows Clara (Kaitlyn Leeb), the manager of a restaurant at a fancy ski resort (it has a fireplace on a TV screen so you know it’s classy). She soon finds herself torn between two men who both want to buy her a restaurant, a problem that proves just as gripping as it is relatable.

Clara meets Shane (Scott Cavalheiro), a celebrity chef with a “hidden past” – which sounds like he poisoned a load of dogs or something, but it turns out to be that his parents died in some mysterious Christmas tragedy. No skiing takes place but they quickly bond over the lack of oxygen to their brains, and they fall in love faster than you can say, “I can’t believe I’m kissing a celebrity!” (which she does).

Nothing else happens other than the late introduction of a town-planning subplot to really get the blood pumping from your eyes. Even compared to Angel Falls Christmas, this is low effort. None of the cars have number plates, and at no point does anyone think to look cold. Clara even wears her own name on a necklace, though it is unclear whether this is for the benefit of the audience or the actors.

While they won’t be winning any awards for originality or taste, these Netflix fillers are no worse than plenty of cinematic releases. Of course they are formulaic, simplistic and deeply conservative, but they avoid the obnoxiousness of many comedies by being gentle to the point of mind-numbing blandness; painless background viewing for those who like their Christmases white.