With snow on the ground and two weeks off, I'm not planning on doing much today. I might head to go visit friends, but I don's know yet. I do hope that everyone reading this will have or had a wonderful Christmas! I wanted to get something reviewed today. I was thinking of watching a movie off my DVR, but I decided to watch Red Christmas (2016) on Netflix's instant watch instead. Why not watch a Christmas horror movie, you know? It isn't very often that I have done that over the years of running my blog and this movie hot Netflix at just the right time.
Diane (Dee Wallace) has gotten all of her family together for one last Christmas in her home. Diane will be selling the house and going on a long trip, so she wants this one last Christmas with her family there. There is her brother Joe (Geoff Morrell), her son Jerry (Gerard Odwyer), her daughter Suzy (Sarah Bishop) with her husband Peter (David Collins), her other daughter Ginny (Janis McGavin) with her husband Scott (Bjorn Stewart), and her adopted daughter Hope (Deelia Meriel). Before they can begin to open presents though, someone is at the door. The man says his name is Cletus (Sam Campbell) and he seems to think that Diane is his mother. Cletus is covered in bandages and wears a black cloak, so it isn't easy to see what he looks like. As he begins to read a letter explaining things, Diane gets very upset when Cletus mentions an abortion clinic that was bombed many years ago. She has Cletus thrown out of her home, which doesn't make Cletus all that happy.
Red Christmas was written and directed by Craig Anderson. This movie is getting a bit of a bad rap for having an anti-abortion message in it. Some have even said that they don't want to see that in their horror movies, but why should a horror movie be limited on the subjects it can touch? Personally, I didn't feel that the message was heavy-handed. There is an intro where the clinic is bombed and in the confusion of the aftermath, we see the baby is still somehow alive. From there it is Cletus wanted to be loved and accepted by his mother. I suppose one could read into that an anti-abortion message, but I didn't see it as any different as a kid who has been adopted wondering why his or her parents gave them up. It wasn't the message that bugged me about Red Christmas, after all, abortion isn't anything new in horror. No, for me, it was the very annoying characters. It really feels like the majority of the family just does things in order to piss off other members of the family. Ginny is especially guilty of this, but maybe we can blame her being close to giving birth on that...if you really want to. Once the deaths start to happen, it just becomes worse. Not so much that they try to piss each other off, but completely refuse to listen to each other and to reason. They end up in a shed at one point and Joe has a great point that they are safe there since there is only one way in and they have a shotgun, but that isn't good enough for everyone else. They want to go get the car and get out of dodge and Ginny wants to find someone even though she knows that person is already dead. All this and more was enough for me to not care if any of them got killed off or not. Another thing that annoyed me at times was the way Anderson decided to film things. When panic sets in after a kill, we get a shaky camera and lots of close-ups of everyone's reactions. Since I was already annoyed by the characters, I didn't much care to see close-ups of their reactions and I'm pretty sure I would have been annoyed by these sequences anyway even if I had yet to be annoyed by the characters.
On the plus side of things, I really enjoyed the gory effects found in Red Christmas. I can't say that things got really gory, but there are still some great effects to be found. One of the women gets chopped in half vertically. I didn't think we would get to see much of that, but there is a quick shot of the two sides falling away. I couldn't tell what caused the death, though I think it was like a bear trap, it showed a bunch of blood squirting out. My favorite kill was the blender death. While it wasn't graphic, it was still the best kill I have seen in a good while. Awesome stuff right there. We do get to see what Cletus actually looks like and the mask looks okay if a bit weird. The acting was pretty good despite my not liking very many of the characters. I was surprised to see Dee Wallace's name pop up and that she was involved some in the behind the scenes stuff. Her acting is just fine here, as was to be expected. Gerard Odwyer was a nice surprise and a stand out for his acting. I had no real problem with Janis McGavin in the role of Ginny. I guess that I found her character so annoying shows how good her acting is.
Since the message that Red Christmas gives, which I didn't find to be much of a message, is the deal breaker for most. I found other reasons as to why I probably won't be watching it again anytime soon. I didn't mind that there wasn't any real character development outside of what we get to know about them in the present day. I did like that there is a pretty good pace that is set for the story. It doesn't drag just a tiny bit in one place, but that doesn't last long thankfully. It would have been a fairly good slasher from Austraila but manages to fall just short. There are some good reviews out there for Red Christmas, so maybe you will like it more than I did. It was nice to watch a horror movie built around Christmas, even though it didn't have a whole lot to do with the holiday, on that very day. Check it out if you think you will like it more.
2 out of 5 No presents for me this year
Diane (Dee Wallace) has gotten all of her family together for one last Christmas in her home. Diane will be selling the house and going on a long trip, so she wants this one last Christmas with her family there. There is her brother Joe (Geoff Morrell), her son Jerry (Gerard Odwyer), her daughter Suzy (Sarah Bishop) with her husband Peter (David Collins), her other daughter Ginny (Janis McGavin) with her husband Scott (Bjorn Stewart), and her adopted daughter Hope (Deelia Meriel). Before they can begin to open presents though, someone is at the door. The man says his name is Cletus (Sam Campbell) and he seems to think that Diane is his mother. Cletus is covered in bandages and wears a black cloak, so it isn't easy to see what he looks like. As he begins to read a letter explaining things, Diane gets very upset when Cletus mentions an abortion clinic that was bombed many years ago. She has Cletus thrown out of her home, which doesn't make Cletus all that happy.
Red Christmas was written and directed by Craig Anderson. This movie is getting a bit of a bad rap for having an anti-abortion message in it. Some have even said that they don't want to see that in their horror movies, but why should a horror movie be limited on the subjects it can touch? Personally, I didn't feel that the message was heavy-handed. There is an intro where the clinic is bombed and in the confusion of the aftermath, we see the baby is still somehow alive. From there it is Cletus wanted to be loved and accepted by his mother. I suppose one could read into that an anti-abortion message, but I didn't see it as any different as a kid who has been adopted wondering why his or her parents gave them up. It wasn't the message that bugged me about Red Christmas, after all, abortion isn't anything new in horror. No, for me, it was the very annoying characters. It really feels like the majority of the family just does things in order to piss off other members of the family. Ginny is especially guilty of this, but maybe we can blame her being close to giving birth on that...if you really want to. Once the deaths start to happen, it just becomes worse. Not so much that they try to piss each other off, but completely refuse to listen to each other and to reason. They end up in a shed at one point and Joe has a great point that they are safe there since there is only one way in and they have a shotgun, but that isn't good enough for everyone else. They want to go get the car and get out of dodge and Ginny wants to find someone even though she knows that person is already dead. All this and more was enough for me to not care if any of them got killed off or not. Another thing that annoyed me at times was the way Anderson decided to film things. When panic sets in after a kill, we get a shaky camera and lots of close-ups of everyone's reactions. Since I was already annoyed by the characters, I didn't much care to see close-ups of their reactions and I'm pretty sure I would have been annoyed by these sequences anyway even if I had yet to be annoyed by the characters.
On the plus side of things, I really enjoyed the gory effects found in Red Christmas. I can't say that things got really gory, but there are still some great effects to be found. One of the women gets chopped in half vertically. I didn't think we would get to see much of that, but there is a quick shot of the two sides falling away. I couldn't tell what caused the death, though I think it was like a bear trap, it showed a bunch of blood squirting out. My favorite kill was the blender death. While it wasn't graphic, it was still the best kill I have seen in a good while. Awesome stuff right there. We do get to see what Cletus actually looks like and the mask looks okay if a bit weird. The acting was pretty good despite my not liking very many of the characters. I was surprised to see Dee Wallace's name pop up and that she was involved some in the behind the scenes stuff. Her acting is just fine here, as was to be expected. Gerard Odwyer was a nice surprise and a stand out for his acting. I had no real problem with Janis McGavin in the role of Ginny. I guess that I found her character so annoying shows how good her acting is.
Since the message that Red Christmas gives, which I didn't find to be much of a message, is the deal breaker for most. I found other reasons as to why I probably won't be watching it again anytime soon. I didn't mind that there wasn't any real character development outside of what we get to know about them in the present day. I did like that there is a pretty good pace that is set for the story. It doesn't drag just a tiny bit in one place, but that doesn't last long thankfully. It would have been a fairly good slasher from Austraila but manages to fall just short. There are some good reviews out there for Red Christmas, so maybe you will like it more than I did. It was nice to watch a horror movie built around Christmas, even though it didn't have a whole lot to do with the holiday, on that very day. Check it out if you think you will like it more.
2 out of 5 No presents for me this year
