2022 Holiday Movie Marathon Part III: Holiday Horror

You won't find any romance in this part of the marathon, but all three films I watched had a lot of cheese.

Black Christmas (1974) 🎄🎄🎄
This could have easily been edited down to a 43-minute TV movie and really didn’t have an holiday theme, it was just set at Christmas time. The original Black Christmas was an otherwise enjoyable 70s slasher: Think Halloween + Scream. A sorority house is being terrorized by serial killer, but it takes everyone so long to figure out what’s happening that many of the house’s occupants are killed. There’s an undertone of a feminist theme: How women often go unbelieved because they are accused of easily taking to hysterics and then there’s the big decision by one of the housemates to have an abortion despite the father’s wishes to keep the baby.
The cast was full of familiar-to-me faces such as Andrea Martin who I recognized from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Olivia Hussey from the old Romeo & Juliet movie and John Saxon who I know from Enter the Dragon, but he’s been in so many other movies/TV shows, I’m sure I’ve seen him elsewhere. I found myself down an Internet rabbit hole reading about this movie and found this interesting article about the Call is Coming from Inside the House trope.
Upon further thought and reading, I was fascinated by the 70s-era telephone wiretapping and tracing technology that was featured in the movie. I didn’t really appreciate the quality of this film while I was watching it because I was watching it with a holiday theme in mind. But this film has a lot of the elements that make a great horror movie in my opinion. This might make it onto a future horror movie compilation list.

Production: Standard, 70s slasher: Authentic location and styling. Cheap-looking camerawork. Cheesy acting.
Tropes: Call is Coming from Inside the House • Stalk & Slash
Diversity: If you’re talking about featuring men and women equally in the cast, yes, but no POC.
Production Co: August Films
How’d you watch it: Kanopy

Black Christmas (2006) 🎄
What is similar to the 1974 version is that the story is set in a sorority house during Christmastime. Another similarity is the subplot of an issue of the day: In 2006 one of the sorors discovers that her boyfriend is posting sex videos on the internet. While in 1974, one of the sorors was fighting with her boyfriend about the decision to abort an unwanted pregnancy. The drunk soror character in both films gets murdered using a glass unicorn. Oh! Andrea Martin, who plays one of the sorority sisters in 1974, returns in the 2006 film as the house mom.
Notably different is the inclusion of the story of the killer, Billy, who used to live in the house. Whereas in the 1974 version, the identity of the killer was unknown to the audience. There are flashbacks that reveal Billy’s awful childhood, which include Billy + his mom = incest child, Agnes, storyline (Barf🤮). Depravity: Cannibalism. Incest. An obsession with eyeballs. Beyond that, the 2006 version was full of so many dumb decisions, wrong turns, and nonsensical actions, even more than your typical horror movie.
One positive thing I can say about this movie, is that it looked good, but they lost all cool points because of a story that’s goes too far.

Production: Looked well-funded.
Tropes: Call is Coming from Inside the House • Stalk & Slash • Escaped Mental Patient/Convict
Diversity: Still no.
Production Co: Dimension Films
How’d you watch it: Kanopy

Jack Frost (1997) 🎄🎄🎄🎄
A serial killer is being transported to his execution when his transport collides with a tanker full of an experimental acid. His body dissolves and he is reborn as snow, and using the form of a snowman, he goes back to terrorize the small town and sheriff who originally captured him.
This is the perfect B-horror movie and it just so happens to be set around Christmastime. This has been one of my favorite movies for years. I own the VHS which has a fantastic holographic cover. I know you’re just green with envy now.
Fun fact: The town square was filmed on location in Fawnskin, CA, a two-hour drive from Los Angeles.

Production: The perfect blend of authentic and cheesy. There was so little real snow and the fake snow looked funny. Special effects?! Ha!
Tropes: Supernatural Stalk & Slash • Small Town Sheriff- often seen as not being able to handle higher-level crimes
Diversity: Nope.
Production Co: Frost Bite Films Ltd.
How’d you watch it: Amazon Prime

And now its time to settle down for a long winter's nap. The End. 

2022 Holiday Movie Marathon Part II: Non-Theme Holiday Movies

Not everything I watched fit the music theme and I rewatched a couple of my old favorites. Wanna hear about 'em? Here ya go!

A California Christmas (2020) 🎄🎄🎄
A developer sends her spoiled son to convince a farmer to sell her land. He pretends to be her new farmhand in an effort to influence her. To be convincing, he gets a quick tutorial and lifeline calls from his butler and the actual farmhand. Of course, the son and the farmer fall in like, but brace yourself for the identity reveal. This was a cute story, but boy, did they skimp on the script and some of the actors. If it wasn’t for the comedic efforts of the butler and the actual farmhand, I would have tapped out on this within the first 15 minutes. Turns out the writer and the female lead are one and the same.

Production: Budget. The locations looked authentic. At times the camera was in and out of focus, and the lighting was uneven. Plus it looked like they had a weird filter over the daylight scenes.
Tropes: Disguised Identity • Forfeit the Player Card - One character is known as a player, but is now interested in monogamy • Ghosts of the Past • Enemies to Lovers • Save the Business- Similar to shared goal, one character is faced with a failing business and is able to save it with the help of the other character
Diversity: A couple people in the main ensemble are POC
Production Co: ESX Entertainment
How’d you watch it: Netflix

A California Christmas: City Lights (2021) 🎄🎄
The sequel to A California Christmas, this time the farmer-vintner goes to the city and gets to experience the rich son, now her fiancé’s life of luxury and privilege. This time around, the writing was terrible, the acting was terrible, and the production was cheap. Parts of the story were just nonsensical. What CEO would cancel a gala a couple of hours before it started and tell guests to go to the soup kitchen next door?

Production: See above.
Tropes: Jealous Third Party Interference • Shared Goal • Career vs. Love
Diversity: A people in the main ensemble are POC
Production Co: ESX Entertainment
How’d you watch it: Netflix

2022 Holiday Movie Marathon Part I: Music Themed Movies

Another year, another set of holiday romance movies (and miniseries), or as I lovingly refer to them, HolRoms. This year I decided to try something different: A theme! I chose the theme Music and searched through my normal sources to find movies that fit. I also watched some non-theme movies because it’s always nice to let other people choose and I try to play well with others. I took a detour from HolRoms and watched a few holiday horror movies. That was fun.
Takeaways: Netflix needs to release a compilation of songs from their Christmas movies. There are some catchy tunes in the movies they produced.

I’m sticking with last year’s rating scale of Christmas trees:
🎄🎄🎄🎄 Favorite!
🎄🎄🎄 Good.
🎄🎄 Alright. I was able to finish this movie, but, yeah.
🎄Not good.

Christmas with You (2022) 🎄🎄🎄🎄
A middle-aged pop star is a-looking for some inspiration to help her write a Christmas song when she ventures to meet a teenage fan. Teenage fan’s dad just so happens to be a music teacher working on a new Christmas song… can you predict what’s going to happen from here?! Starring Freddie Prinze, Jr. The song they write is cute and catchy and I would listen to separate from the movie.
Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable, charming, feel-good, and sentimental holiday movie that requires a good deal of suspension-of-belief, but it’s worth it.
Some minor complaints: There’s a scene with a weird POV as dad and daughter walk through the high school hallway. Why did they shoot it that way? Also, I don’t think it would have hurt the story had Angelina just told her agent, boyfriend and promotional team that she was going off to find inspiration instead of just disappearing and dodging contact attempts.

Production: Filmed on location with real snow! The concert scene looked a bit janky, but otherwise authentic-looking locations.
Tropes: Shared Goal- A shared goal pushes two people to work together and fall in love/like • Opposites Attract • Celebrity Life- Fortune and fame causes problems real and potential
Diversity: The cast was almost totally Brown and Black
Production Co: GMT Films
How'd you watch it: Netflix

Movie: A Very Country Wedding (2019)

This movie is unique to me in that it is a non-holiday sequel to a holiday romance movie: A Very Country Christmas. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as that holrom, in fact, it really suffers from bad writing and bad acting. After meeting and falling in love in the first movie, Zane and Jeannette are finally getting married - actually minutes from walking down the aisle, when mean record exec from the first movie calls and says Zane needs to ditch his wedding in order to make it to a gig on time and if he doesn’t go he’ll be in breach of contract. There is soooo much wrong with that premise and the multiple plot lines that follow. I fast-forwarded through unnecessarily long dialogue and was able to get the gist of this movie in less than 30 mins. 

I only watched this to set up the next installment in the A Very Country movie series, which is another Christmas movie. Hopefully it’s better than this one. 

How did you watch it: DVD