King Ellis' Christmas Movie Thing

[King Ellis]

Day 12

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

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Ah, the disembodied head of Vincent Price. What a guy.

Here he plays an eccentric millionaire who invites a special few guests to spend a night at the eponymous house. If they can last until the morning they’ll be $10,000 richer for their troubles. But what’s the catch?

I like these older black and white horror movies, there’s a certain sense of respectability to proceedings. Everyone is very prim and proper, I’m sure the remake of this is just a bunch of rowdy kids expecting to be paid 10k to get drunk off their ass and trash the place. Though, that one does have the piano genius from the movie Shine.

Things are less pleasant behind closed doors for Price’s character, Frederick Loren, and his wife. What starts as a seemingly spiteful but ultimately harmless quarrel as they trade barbs about divorce ultimately turns a shade darker when Loren gets a little more ‘handsy’.

It’s easy to assume there’s a trick up Loren’s sleeve somewhere, $10,000 just for a sleepover? “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” and all that but the wife too is up to something as well as she tries to sway one of the gentlemen guests against her 'insanely jealous’ husband. So, much like the unsuspecting guests, you’re left rather unsure as to what the real story behind this whole thing is but whilst you’re along for the ride, you do see some curious sights.

Like the wine cellar that comes equipped with it’s own pit of acid. I hear that’s all the rage in modern architecture these days.

And it’s own ghoul!

It’s not all to dissimilar to Lugosi and KARLOFF’s 'Black Cat’, unsuspecting house guests caught in the crossfire of  two warring sides that are all smiles when eyes are upon them but are just itching to get at each others throats when they’re not.

So, this one is OK but I’d still plump for Dr Phibes when going for my Vincent Price fix.

[Pogue Mahone]

They used to put House on Haunted Hill on terrestrial television at like 3am during my teens (so like 2000), Such an odd film.

The first half of the remake was absolutely terrifying, but then the last half turned into a clusterfuck of awfulness. I used to believe it was terrifying anyway, havent seen it in years so not sure how tame it actually is in comparison to todays horrors.

[King Ellis]

Day 13

Graveyard Shift (1990)

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Meanwhile, in Maine…

Has it been two years since I did my whole thing of dedicating half of this month long movie marathon to Stephen King adaptations? Time flies.

Through that month and the other King related films outside of the ‘horror’ realm (Stand By Me, The Running Man, The Green Mile) that I’ve seen, I think his works do serve to make for enjoyable experiences. Even the lesser efforts still have that 'so bad it’s good’ quality, your Silver Bullets, Dreamcatcher etc etc.

Graveyard Shift however fits neither of these categories, instead finding itself stuck in the purgatory of 'meh’ alongside Children of the Corn and, to a lesser extent, Firestarter.

A worker on the eponymous graveyard shift at a cotton mill has a captive audience in his rat infested workplace and decides to give them all a show.

Forcing them all to watch as he dangles one of their brethren perilously over one of the machines before dropping it in in order to serve as an example for everyone else. But turnabout is fair play as they sit back and watch as someone…or something…pushes him in.

Where there’s blame, there’s a claim.

Enter the drifter, in much the same mould as Roddy Piper (RIP) in They Live only infinitely less interesting. He’s new in town and looking for work. You know, this would be a very interesting time to use the 'How did this vacancy come about?’ question during interview.

This movie is so dull that I spend more time thinking who each character looks like. Take Shane from The Walking Dead here playing the site foreman.

Or Baron Corbin and his fat mate.

Or Patient X. Wait, it’s Brad Dourif! Hooray! He’s just as intense here as he was in Exorcist III, shame he’s not featured more prominently though.

Actually, this really is like Children of the Corn in that it has a barely explained monster that is also rarely seen. You might easily think this is some giant mutated rat that is somehow causing the infestation that has plagued the mill but no, it has wings. It’s a bat. At least a giant rat would fit into the story. That opening scene with all the rats just staring as that guy gets killed, huddled together like some hive mind, the way they’re targeted throughout the film by pest control or the mill workers.

Brad Dourif and the foreman’s accent, kind of like that old guy in Pet Sematary, are the only good things in this movie.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Funny you mention Children of the Corn, Graveyard Shift came about from the same book of short stories as Children. Did you ever watch Cat's Eye, or any of the anthology horror stuff? Creepshow? I think you may have watched Creepshow or Creepshow 2, I can't remember.

[King Ellis]

Cat's Eye, Creepshows 1 through 3, The Twilight Zone Movie...yeah, I've had my share of anthologys. MAYBE THERE WILL BE MORE.

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Day 14

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

 

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It’s sequel is showing in cinemas across the land right now so what better time to dip into the first. After all, what’s not to love? All the classic monsters back together again and under one roof:

All the classic monsters back together again and voiced by Adam Sandler, Kevin James and David Spade…:

In spite of the potential for derailment right there, I rather enjoyed this one. For starters, it looks really good.

Whether it’s beautiful shots like this…

 

Or the expressions of all the different characters.

They even got the Dracula stare in.

And you get the occasional nod to the roots of these characters, even if Dracula is usually throwing someone down the stairs, not saving them from falling.

The tone of this Nightmare at 20,000 Feet reboot is way off…

Ending kinda sucks though. It just glosses over a lot of stuff in order to reach it’s warm and fuzzy finale. And that’s just the actual story, they then cap it off with a song that is truly the stuff of nightmares. Horrendous lyrics and more auto tune than The Gregory Brothers and Cher put together.

[King Ellis]

Yes yes, it's December now. We all know how this works. Let's not mention that whole missing 17 days of October, eh?

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Day 1

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

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As is tradition, I begin the festive season by bridging together both Halloween and Christmas with a yuletide horror movie. After seeing both the remake and the original over the past few years, why not finally discover the genesis of 'GARBAGE DAY!' by checking out the sequel.

I sure hope you enjoyed the first movie because you're gonna see a lot of it here. 40 minutes...40 minutes of stock footage from the first movie before we even get started on this one. Sure, there's the occasional snippet of Ricky, the now grown up younger brother of the killer from the first movie, as he frames all the flashbacks as him telling his story to some doctor but still...40 minutes!

Not that I don't appreciate the chance to relive some of the gems of that movie, most notably that most glorious of scenes when the deaf priest gets gunned down as he visits the orphaned children whilst dressed as Santa. Of course the film makers here couldn't resist the urge to fuck it up royally by retconning it as actually being the janitor in the suit. Bullshit, I distinctly remember it being the priest, that's what made it so great!

And even with the reminder there's still shit I don't remember. Like since when was the Mother Superior's face half melted off? I don't remember that from the first movie, did some bratty orphan do that off screen sometime between then and now?

When the movie does get started doing it's own thing, it's really just disjointed moments of Ricky snapping because he sees the colour red or a nun or someone being 'naughty'. Like when he chokes a guy out in the back of a cinema for talking too loudly! God, even here they're using clips from the first movie as their 'movie within a movie'. Maybe it wasn't the murderous Santa that set him off this time, maybe Ricky is just as mad at all the shameless copy pasting.

But sitting through this nonsense is so very, very worth it just to see Eric Freeman. I have no idea what this guy's deal was, was he just that bad of an actor? Was he directed this way? From the way he delivers his lines, his facial expressions, the way he suddenly flips from his death stare to cackling away...the whole thing is just beautiful. You're guaranteed a laugh every time he opens his mouth.

I'm just really torn right now, I can't decide if this is the greatest thing ever or the worst. 'So bad it's good' is such a cliche but I can fully understand why this is would be a cult phenomenon, 'Garbage day!' is just the tip of the iceberg.

[King Ellis]

Day 2

Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

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Because no good idea can lay dormant for too long, Miracle on 34th Street comes roaring back some 47 years after the original. I didn’t even realise there were TV movies made of this over the years, two in the 50’s and one in the 70’s. And a Broadway musical!

And because inebriated Santa isn’t disturbing enough for the Santa, this one shows off a little plumbers cleavage for good measure.

Like in the original, little Susan Walker is watching the parade from the warmth and comfort of their neighbours apartment but rather than maybe telling her mother this or leaving a note, she leaves a video message! Can’t help but feel that coming home to an empty apartment, your child nowhere to be seen and her image paused on your TV screen and hastily arranged video camera still erected in your front room….this probably looked a lot worse than it is.

This version is no longer a simple case of two rival stores out to one up each other by ever increasing acts of charity, ‘Shopper’s Express’ is out to take Cole’s down by any means necessary. Yeah, no Macy’s and Gimble’s here. But what else can you expect from the villain from both Lethal Weapon 2 and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey?

It’s a change that makes it feel very much of the 90’s as the no good Victor Landberg, in his dark, depressing office despatches his minions to discredit the good name of this talk of the town Kris Kringle. That’s just mean, the guy is doing you a favour by sending all his customers your way by telling them of your cheap prices and you still want to take him down? I guess he’s got to do something, even when he’s undercutting Cole’s by half they’re still shopping their instead.

Those free bubble gum guns aren’t working either. You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!

Ah, the late Lord Attenborough. Only a year removed from his crazy plans to reintroduce dinosaurs to the world, he now gets a chance to redeem himself by donning the fabled red suit. He had some big shoes to fill after Edmund Gwenn’s turn as Kris and this attempt brought some changes.

For example, gone is the singing of 'Sinterklaas’ and in is the signing of Jingle Bells. That’s not a typo, Santa displays his knowledge of sign language when he is visited by a little deaf girl. Probably best that they dropped the whole Dutch thing anyway, wouldn’t want to be associated with the kind of rampant racism on show during their festive celebrations. Still, in spite of these changes, Kris still has all the sweetness and love that he did back in 1947.

But not the kind of love that’s being suggested by the salty old Santa that got kicked off the float at the start. He’s received a back-hander from the good folks at Shopper’s Express in order to provoke this perceived 'nutcase’ of a Santa into lashing out. In doing so he goes so far as to suggest that Kringle has 'a thing for the little ones’. Nice subject matter for this U rated movie…

Unfortunately, Santa takes the bait, bad guy takes a dive and the conveniently on hand photographer takes the mugshot.

Ok, sure, it’s no getting shot in front of orphans, but the arrest of Santa being broadcast on the jumbotron in Times Square has to rank pretty highly on the old list of unfortunate Santa moments.

Santa is of course defended once more by the next door neighbour of Mr’s Walker, just as soon as he’s done screwing up any potential romance. Yeah, propose at the end of your first date, that’s a good move.

This guy can’t even rally the US Postal Service either, all he has is one little girl to deliver the mail to the judge, this could take weeks! At least she got off her feet, I was just expecting her to use her evil mind powers to move the envelope up to the bench.

Trying to bribe an elected official? Very naughty!