Red Christmas

Happy Holidays, folks! Be it Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Wookie Life Day; people are out and about doing their shopping and making cards. So naturally we have to get in on a Christmas slasher flick. You were expecting Frank Capra perhaps? So we have have a widow and her slightly estranged family are all gathered to a remote estate for Christmas Eve. So of course there's a killer roaming about. This is Red Christmas.

Well the hills do have eyes but they have cataracts.

Filmed in Australia, our favorite 80s horror/sci-fi mom is back! Diane (Dee Wallace of The Hills Have Eyes, The Howling, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Cujo and Critters) gathers her squabbling family up to her home and boy doesn't that sound fun? Like trying to shave public hair with a chainsaw kind of fun.

Our Mouseketeers are all set for a Christmas Eve as they bitch, whine and complain to the levels I am praying a man nuttier than squirrel poop deals them all in. Minus Dee of course. Love this woman. Let's meet the family shall we? Yes this will be as warm and cozy as a flaming straight jacket. 

I SLIPPED!

There's boozy, quite pregnant daughter Ginny (Janis McGavin of Comedy Inc., The Mansion, The Urban Monkey, The Elegant Gentleman's Guide to Knife Fighting and Red Christmas) and her baby daddy Scott (Bjorn Stewart of Black Comedy, Red Christmas, True Murder, Chasing Comets, A Chance Affair, KGB and Spread the Word), Diane's cold-blooded and child barren sister Suzy (Sarah Bishop of Skit Box, The Great Gatsby, BedHead, In a Woman's World, Crushed, Red Christmas and Find Your Voice), her born again, pervy Preacher husband Peter(David Collins of You Can't Stop the Murders, All Saints,Me & My Monsters, Maya the Bee Movie,Oh Yuck!, The Umbilical Brothers: Not Suitable for Children and True Murder), Diane's idiot, spliff smoking, hillbilly bearded brother Joe (Geoff Morrell of Murder Call, Grass Roots, Rogue, Cloudstreet, Top of the Lake, Nippers of Dead Birdy Bay and Harrow) and Diane's son with down syndrome who constantly quotes Shakespeare, Jerry (Gerard O' Dwyer of Be My Brother, Heartbreak & Beauty, Red Christ, Kairos, Little Monsters and Way Out Assistance).

This shindig should go down quicker than a lead balloon. The festivities are interrupted due to a pounding at the door. Looking outside to find a deformed man, Cletus holding a letter addressed to Mother. Diane invites the man in with some degree of hesitancy, allowing him to warm his bones.

Diane gives the letter a gander, refutes these accusations and shuns Cletus (Sam Campbell of Dirty Bird, Johnny Beretta, The Tail Job, Red Christmas, Bin Chickens, Small Town Hackers, Fresh Blood Pilot Season) from her doorstep and denies anything to do with him. With a bit of rambling and grumbling the family calms down. Yeah this didn't chuck a live grenade in the room at all.

Well it goes the stereotypical route as these slashers go. An assortment of elaborate weapons used to dispatch the family with ease. Yeah to go into greater detail will technically spoil the movie.

Let's get that damn squirrel!

Our mood music is fair, the cast is decent, the story is drek and filled with the tropes of old. We have a typical villain done wrong so will have bloody revenge story arc that holds no new surprises. There was a bear trap death that was interesting at best and mildly bloody. I think this may have been a TV movie in Australia. The POV shots were giving me a headache, so photophobic folks should skip it. You all may want to skip this.

If you're bored and found nothing else to watch, have at this movie. If you need background noise while doing the dishes or washing the floor, hey this movie exists. If you wanted a potential thriller horror mystery, this is definitely...not the movie to watch. Dee Wallace was honestly the only shining beacon in this hackneyed attempt to scare me. You guessed it, jump scares. And no male readers that ask me this too often, no titty. While I did not consider this a good horror movie, at least it wasn't the 2006 Black Christmas.

Consequences of sex? Who knew.