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Home Alone 5: The Holiday Heist (A Shitmas Post from Nigel Daniel of Terrible Movies for Terrible People!)

December 9, 2014, 9:00 pm
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When I was four years old, my family and I sat down and watched Home Alone together.  Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, was left home alone after a series of unfortunate events led to his parents leaving on a trip for France without him.  Kevin was forced to fend for himself using guile and cunning to outwit Harry and Marv, a pair of thieves known as the "Wet Bandits", played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.  My family and I laughed when Marv was hit in the face with an iron.  When Harry caught Kevin and lifted him up, I remember the very real feeling of being scared.  And at the end of the movie, when the police finally caught the bad guys and the McCallister family was reunited, it felt good.  It felt like the good guys won.
My family wasn't big into the idea of Christmas, and sitting down to watch Home Alone and Home Alone 2 each year was the closest we got to a "holiday tradition".  It may not sound like much, but it meant a lot to me.  We grew older, I moved out, and life just kind of continued.
Recently, I've discovered that Home Alone 5 was released in 2012, as a made for TV movie. This raised many questions for me, such as, "Was there a Home Alone 3 and Home Alone 4?" and "Why does God hate us?"



These answers would come soon enough, as the DVD was less than $10 on Amazon, and I have no real impulse control.




Home Alone 5: The Holiday Heist is the story of Finn Baxter, a young boy who prefers video games to actual human interaction.  The movie starts out with Finn and the rest of the Baxter family moving into a new house.  This includes Finn's mother, Catherine, who has moved the family from California to Maine to further her career.  In an interesting contrast, Finn's father, Curtis, is not given a backstory.  It is never explained if he has his own job or if he's a stay at home dad.  He just exists and tells campy dad-jokes.  He will eventually die and it's very likely no one will care or even notice.  And finally, Finn's sister, Alexis.  Alexis is a teenage girl who doesn't want to do what her parents tell her to do and only wants to chat online and listen to music all day. 
Congratulations, every family role and stereotype has been filled.
We soon learn that art thieves have been casing the house, trying to get to a priceless painting, hidden deep within the basement of the Baxter's new home.  There are three thieves total.  Jessica, played by Debi Mazar, who is likely best known as Sandy from Goodfellas.  Mr. Hughes, played by Eddie Steeples, who will forever be Crabman to me.  And the mastermind of the group, Sinclair, played by Malcom McDowell, who has been in the movie game long enough to know better and has no excuse for what he's done here.



Taking place during Christmastime, the movie is filled with appropriately-themed decorations, snow, and holiday cheer.  There's even a montage of the family going out to buy a Christmas tree where the teen daughter looks up from her phone just long enough to crack a smile and then pretends that it didn't happen.
One day, while the parents are out at a office dinner party, the art thieves decide to start their heist.  Panicking, Finn asks his online gamer friend for advice on how to stop people from breaking into his house.  Thinking that Finn is referring to a video game, the online friend suggests setting traps.  There's buckets of paint, a snow blower rigged to shoot wooden balls, slippery ice, and even a sink that somehow shoots glue and cotton balls onto someone's face to make them look like Santa Claus.  Eventually the police show up to arrest the trio, everyone hugs and says that the real Christmas present is family, and the movie ends.
The original Home Alone movie was a classic because you were really rooting for Kevin to win.  He wasn't perfect, in fact he was mostly a smart-ass, but that was okay.  Kevin's family made a mistake, and Kevin had to fight to survive using his wits and some clever homemade traps.  As outlandish at it was, it still felt like "this is something a clever kid could probably do, if the criminals were dumb enough."  Luckily for us, they were. 


The Holiday Heist tries to capitalize on the aspects of the series that made the original great.  There's a family, a kid, some thieves, some traps, and it's Christmas.  That's really all this new movie brings to the table.  If you've seen the first movie, there is literally no reason to watch this movie.

I understand that this is a "kid's movie" and that may mean they can get away with a little more campiness than usual and can cut a few more corners.  Normally, I'd give a children's movie a pass for most of the stuff in this movie.  However, this is the fifth movie in the series.  They've had five chances to get it right, and each entry in the series after Home Alone 2 just steadily declines in quality.  There is no reason for this movie to exist other than a shameless cash grab using the Home Alone name.
You can get the first four Home Alone movies for about $15 on Amazon right now as a 4-disc set. Buy it and then literally throw away the DVDs for Home Alone 3 and 4.  This is a significantly better use of your money than actually buying Home Alone 5 The Holiday Heist.



- Nigel Daniel
 Terrible Movies for Terrible People
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Midnight Confessions Podcast's "Happy Fucking Holidays" and Top Five Worst Xmas Movies!

December 10, 2014, 3:47 pm
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Catch up with the Midnight Confessions Podcast, this week Rev. Phantom, Fred The Wolf (Full Moon Reviews) and Moronic Mark get into the holiday spirit w/two fun and wholesome Xmas classics, THE CHILDREN (2008) and NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS (1975). Plus the Top 5 Worst Xmas movies of all time. Listen to this episode or Santa gets it! 

Direct Link to "Happy Fucking Holidays"

Top 5 Worst Xmas Movies 1. Santa With Muscles (1996) 2. Silent Night Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out (1990) 3. (tie) The Santa Trap (2002) / Santa Claws (1996) 4. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) 5. Santa Claus (1959)
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Jingle All The Way 2 (A Shitmas Post from Alex DiVincenzo of Broke Horror Fan)

December 10, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Jingle All the Way is a personal childhood favorite. I was 7 at the time of its releasing in 1996, putting me right in the key demographic - even if I barely knew who Arnold Schwarzenegger was. My admiration stems almost entirely from nostalgia, but even as an adult it delivers mindless family entertainment.

My initial interest in the announcement of a sequel was met only by my disappointment upon learning that Larry the Cable Guy would star. I'm admittedly unfamiliar with his oeuvre outside of Cars, but I've been peripherally exposed to his hick persona enough to cringe at the thought of him.

The fact that WWE Studios was behind the effort didn't do anything to quell my reservations. The spotty-at-best company has released some solid pictures (Oculus, No One Lives), but they don't have a good track record with sequels (Leprechaun: Origins, See No Evil 2).

In the director's chair is Alex Zamm, a man who has made a career out of straight-to-video sequels to family movies, including Inspector Gadget 2, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 and Tooth Fairy 2 (also starring Larry). The lone spot of potential comes from screenwriter Stephen Mazur, who previously penned '90s favorites Liar Liar and The Little Rascals - but he alone could not save this sinking ship.
Jingle All the Way 2 stars Larry as - get this - a redneck ignoramus named Larry. He's a divorced father of a young girl, Noel (Kennedi Clements, star of the upcoming Poltergeist reboot). His ex-wife (Kirsten Robek) recently remarried a rich guy, Victor (Brian Stepanek, The Island). The first act consists of a series of "comedic" vignettes in which Larry haplessly competes with Victor for Noel's affection.

After what feels like hours of predicable set pieces, Larry gets wind that his little girl wants nothing more than Harrison the Talking Bear - this year's hot new toy - for Christmas. When Victor learns of Larry's plan to grant his daughter's wish, he hires his company's head of security (Eric Breker) to buy every Harrison in town. With no time for eBay before Christmas, Larry finds himself in a variety of ridiculous situations in his desperate attempts to make his daughter happy.

Even the best of actors couldn't save this mess, but Larry is almost impressively unfunny and expectedly grating in the lead role. Clements, on the other hand, is adorable and a decent enough kid actor; not half as annoying as Jake Lloyd in the original. WWE wrestler Santino Marella shows up sporadically (sans accent!) as Larry's sidekick. Unfortunately, his throwaway part doesn't afford him any opportunities to showcase his comedic chops.

If you have a young child, they may get a kick out of Jingle All the Way 2's clumsy attempts at comedy. Those hoping for a dose of nostalgia, however, are better off rewatching the first. Failing to capture the charm of Jingle All the Way, the one-note sequel delivers little more than the bare minimum "heartwarming" message in a laughless, unimaginative rehash.

Honestly, they should have just made a sequel about Sinbad's character from the original. He has nothing better to do these days.

- Alex DiVincenzo
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I Am Santa Claus (A Shitmas Post by John Squires aka "Freddy in Space"!)

December 11, 2014, 9:00 pm
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In my head is an unwritten list of documentaries I'd like to see, with the subjects ranging from horror convention cosplayers to those old people who call into QVC. Near the top of that same list, for many years, was a dream documentary about department store Santas, which has now been crossed off thanks to filmmaker Tommy Avallone.



'Whose lap is your child really sitting on?' is the simple question Avallone set out to answer with I Am Santa Claus, released onto DVD last month and now available for instant streaming on Netflix. And the answer to that question, it turns out, is quite beautiful, the documentary pulling back the proverbial wrapping paper and exposing the surprisingly magical men that embody the Christmas spirit.


Running 90 minutes long, I Am Santa Claus begins just about one year prior to Christmas 2012, centering on five different individuals who don the red suit every December. We've got Santa Russell, who lives in his daughter's basement and is unemployed the majority of the year; Santa Frank, a tattooed biker who makes a living designing fire sprinklers; and Santa Bob, a real estate agent who's about as professional as professional Santas get.

And then there's Santa Jim, who is far and away the most controversial figure in the documentary. A homosexual who occasionally poses for pictures as a mostly-nude Santa Claus and attends annual 'Bear' gatherings, Jim is one of the true delights of the film, a kind-hearted man whose eyes well up with tears when he recounts his favorite Santa memories. Aside from the fact that his Mrs. Claus is a Mr., Jim is Santa Claus through and through, a jolly old soul who just wants to spread holiday cheer.


But the highlight of I Am Santa Claus, for me at least, is pro-wrestler-turned-Santa Mick 'Mankind' Foley. Whereas the other subjects in the doc have been at the Santa game for a long time, Mick starts off the film having never rocked a white beard, and his portion of the documentary tracks his evolution from ordinary man to mythical icon. As a lifelong wrestling fan, I'm admittedly a little biased, but it is Mick's journey that I found to be most fascinating.


Contrary to what his wrestling persona may suggest, Foley is a guy who lives and breathes Christmas every day of the year, and his love of the holiday, as well as his insight into that love, is the glue that holds the documentary together. Though the subjects are vastly different individuals on the surface, it's their reasons for wanting to embody the image of Santa that unites them, the whole film coming to a head with a scene in the Foley household that will make you believe in the magic they've dedicated themselves to keeping alive.

Towards the end of I Am Santa Claus, Mick surprises his young sons with a late-night visit from Santa Frank, who they seem to genuinely believe is the real Claus. Though his kids are perhaps a bit too old to still believe in magical beings, at least according to unwritten societal rules, their sheer delight upon seeing 'Santa' is pure movie magic of the highest order. If he dies a happy man, Foley says, it will be because he's thinking back on that shared experience. And that's what it's all about.
More than anything, I Am Santa Claus is an inspiring look at the magic of Christmas, serving as a reminder that Santa is not any one person, but rather a feeling in one's heart. No matter who they are in their everyday lives, the men in the documentary are out not just to spread that feeling to others but also to regain it in their own hearts, and remind themselves what it felt like to wake up on Christmas morning and let a little magic filter out the reality of life. And that's a beautiful thing.
I Am Santa Claus is guaranteed to restore a little bit of your faith in humanity, and inject a whole lot of that Christmas spirit directly into your soul. So if your holiday fuel gauge is feeling low this year, or you need a reminder of what Christmas is truly about, pour yourself a tall glass of egg nog, queue it up on Netflix and get ready to feel all warm and gushy inside.


I Am Santa Claus is guaranteed to restore a little bit of your faith in humanity, and inject a whole lot of that Christmas spirit directly into your soul. So if your holiday fuel gauge is feeling low this year, or you need a reminder of what Christmas is truly about, pour yourself a tall glass of egg nog, queue it up on Netflix and get ready to feel all warm and gushy inside.
And hey. If you're just interested in seeing Santa get drunk and wrestle with a mean hangover, I Am Santa Claus has got you covered.

- John Squires
Freddy In Space (Facebook) , (Twitter) , and (Instagram)
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TEN TERRIBLE GODZILLA MOVIES FOR SHITMAS! (Written by Michael Cherkowsky of Vampire Robots)

December 12, 2014, 9:00 pm
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TEN TERRIBLE GODZILLA MOVIES FOR SHITMAS!

So for last year’s Shitmas, Tom asked me to write up a list of the ten best Godzilla films, as I saw them. You can look at that HERE. This year, we agreed it was worth doing a follow up, considering this year is Godzilla’s 60th birthday, and we’ve had a new, actually worthwhile Godzilla film bow in theaters. Let’s face it though, not all of these movies are good. A lot of them are pretty bad actually. Some are downright terrible.  Now just because it’s on this list doesn’t necessarily mean you should avoid it. A couple of them are actually quite enjoyable. I’ll note whether you should bother with it or not.


10. King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)


This is probably the most controversial choice to put on the list, let alone make it number 10. It’s actually a fun movie, and is worth seeing. What tends to be lost on most folks is that it was originally intended to be a satire. It has a top notch Godzilla suit. Unfortunately, when you look at the Kong suits (there are TWO terrible Kong suits at play in this), you wonder if Japanese people had ever actually seen a picture of a gorilla. The Kong suits look like they’re made from rat pelts. There’s also a goofy pro wrestling vibe to some of the action, which worked better for kids than adult audiences. That tendency towards kiddie matinee antics in the Godzilla franchise begins here, and its never really been able to shake it. 

9. Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla (1994)


This one has sort of fallen out of favor with a lot of fans in the past decade. I don’t think it was ever highly regarded to begin with. It makes a half assed effort to throw new things into the mix, like gun play action scenes and a more overt romantic story line. It’s all too little too late however, and the movie shows how out of touch Toho was at the time while pumping out these movies on a yearly basis. However, if you were one of the bozos out there who complained about the lack of Godzilla in the new American Godzilla film, you’ll probably love this one, as it basically dumps its entire plot halfway to be one long giant monster three way fight. Hooray for Kaiju porn! Now shut up! 

8. Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1965)


This was the first of Godzilla’s short-lived excursions to fictional islands off the Japanese coast. Instead of having him raze Tokyo or Osaka, Toho had him making landfall on these random tropical paradises. This particular island is the hideout of a 60s criminal empire called “Red Bamboo” who guard their island stronghold with a giant prawn/lobster/thing called Ebirah (that’s the “sea monster” part). There’s also a giant condor thing that Godzilla fights, and Mothra makes an appearance, and boy is that Mothra puppet shabby looking at this point in time. 

7. Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)


Having found some success by reviving an old Godzilla foe for 1991’s Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, Toho decided it was time to being back their second most famous Kaiju. What we got was this dullard of a movie in 1992. Godzilla is barely in it and a lot of time is spent watching Mothra sit around doing nothing. A “dark” version of Mothra is introduced, known as “Battra”, but like Godzilla, is given short shrift story wise to accommodate Mothra’s lollygagging. This entry is a cure for insomnia. See it only if you must.

6. Godzilla 2000 (1999)


So after putting the series to rest in 1995, Toho decided to revive it for the new millennium! The resulting movie is BOOOOOOOOOORING! In it, Godzilla finds himself pitted against BOOOOOOOOOORING! Now, Godzilla and the humans find themselves aligned against BOOOOOOOOOORING! BOOOOOOOOOORING! BOOOOOOOOOORING! This movie sucks. 

5. Son Of Godzilla (1967)


This movie is infamous, for mostly two huge reasons. One is the absolutely atrocious Godzilla suit. A blunt snout, huge eyes and a body that looks like a bag of mashed potatoes. It’s truly one of the character’s ugliest designs. The second is the introduction of Minilla, or “Minya” as he’s sometimes referred to, Godzilla’s insipid, anthropomorphic adopted son. He is akin to Scrappy Doo. Toho more or less disappeared the character after a couple movies, without any real explanation. 

4. Godzilla Revenge (1969)


This one is truly one of the more unwatchable Godzilla movies. It’s actually not so much a movie, as it is a clip show episode. The story resolves a lonely boy named Ichiro, who day dreams of befriending Minilla and spectating at some of Godzilla’s battles on monster island. Minilla can change size at will and talk! Like Ichiro, Minilla has bullies to deal with, in the form of Gabara, a bumpy skin, bipedal hyena, who can send an electric charge through physical contact. This movie, which was the first Godzilla film fully intended for a children’s audience, has sort of a troubling message, which seems to be “solve your problems with violence”, as Ichiro ends the movie by…STOMPING THE SHIT OUT OF THE BULLY WHO PICKS ON HIM! There’s a contingent of fans who defend this film as a meta commentary on the entire series, as it takes place in “the real world” and not in the Godzilla universe. Godzilla is a work of fiction that Ichiro idolizes. It’s still a rotten, misguided movie. 

3. Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
For a very long time, this one was consider THE worst Godzilla movie. It earned this scorn for very good reasons. When many people dismiss the Godzilla franchise as shitty movies only fit for not-too-swift kids, it’s usually this movie that they’re thinking of. It is a bad film. Godzilla looks like a puppy. Megalon and Gigan are ridiculous looking creature, even by Japanese standards, and Jet Jaguar is a poor attempt by Toho to gain some Ultraman traction. The movie is earnest though. It’s a children’s film, and shouldn’t be taken any more serious than as that. It’s also a fascinating watch as time capsule piece, to see just how desperate and lost Toho was at the time. They were losing tremendous box office ground to TV in Japan. The audience for these movies, or any movies, just wasn’t there anymore, and they were trying anything and everything to try and get asses in the seats. A lot of things are going way wrong in this movie, but two films have come and muddied the waters since 1974…

2. Godzilla (1998)


One of those movies is this ass turd. A movie made by committee, and directed by a hack who proved with this film that the vague competence he displayed with Stargate and Independence Day was a total fluke. He also proved he had no clue what a Godzilla movie is suppose to be about. Imagine some filmmaker today trying to take something with a deep history of source material and turn into something like this movie, and then just shrug when the world rejects it. Some people like to say, “it’s a good movie, just not a good Godzilla movie…” These people are idiots and you should throw the nearest available bottle of liquid in their eyes. This is a movie that thought we were all too stupid to know it was a piece of crap, made by creeps who cared more about Puff Daddy CDs and Taco bell tie ins than an actual goddamned movie. 

1. Godzilla Final Wars (2004)


Hey! Here’s a GREAT idea! Bring back a bunch of fan favorite characters for Godzilla’s 50th anniversary movie, like Gigan, Anguirus, Rodan, Hedorah, etc. Then give them basically glorified cameos in a two and half hour Matrix/X-men rip off. Make Godzilla so ridiculously powerful that he can basically kill you by looking at you and then have Keith Emerson do a really awful soundtrack. Then give MMA fighter Don “The Predator” Frye a speaking role in the movie and give him a lot of really serious dialogue. All these pieces make up the brain dead whole that is Godzilla Final Wars. A movie that you watch and are shocked to find that Toho actually expected foreign studios to want to buy it and release it theatrically. A movie so bad, you wonder if Toho was deliberately trying to kill the Godzilla franchise once and for all. A movie so awful, the only way to sit through the entire thing is while being chemically altered. This is a weeping diaper stain of a movie. It is beneath you, all of you. 

- Michael Cherkowsky 
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The Shittiest Christmas Specials That Ever Got Shat (A Shitmas Post from the Tavern of Terror's Kristopher Triana)

December 12, 2014, 9:00 pm
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December, much like October, is one of those annual occasions when our viewing schedules become a little more rigorous and organized. Instead of just burning out on My Two Dads binge watching via Netlfix, we instead line up our own personal queues of holiday favorites which we simply must fucking watch if we expect Christmas to actually happen. After all, Santa won’t come unless you sit through yet another agonizing viewing of Jingle All the Way. Jesus wouldn’t allow him to.
We all have our merry movie marathons, because we all have seasonal favorites that embody everything we love about Christmas (A Charlie Brown Christmas) as well as hate about it (Bad Santa). These specials become yuletide staples, and they are certainly a more pleasant element to the season than having to see your own family. 
However, somewhere down the road (probably in the 1980’s), big business saw an opportunity to not just suck Christmas dry like the withered tit of a retired Hooter’s waitress, but to also pump every last bit of rancid milk from the Christmas special’s raw and bloody udder. This lead to every cartoon character, sitcom mom, insurance spokesperson, cereal mascot, public emergency broadcaster, college radio personality, 976 operator, wetting doll, foot fetish porn star, weatherman, talking fruit, toilet-bowl-cleaning animated brush, Discovery Channel lions and zebras and shit, infomercial kung fu master, evangelist rapist, reality show dishwasher, hamster whisperer, and hockey referee getting their own Christmas special.
So now, each December, stretched across the dank whorehouse we call network TV, there is this cavalcade of colorful crap no one ever wants to see but is crammed down our throats like a practice dildo. Some are so bad they’ve been vaulted, while others play on endless loops until the New Year. Watchable ones are few and far between, but the truly loathsome and idiotic ones are what I’d like to give the one finger salute to here.



Behold!



THE SHITTIEST CHRISTMAS SPECIALS THAT EVER GOT SHAT




  • THE HE-MAN & SHE-RA CHRISTMAS SPECIAL



I can already hear the protesting groans of every thirty-something nerd squirming in his Batman boxers while reading this on his iphone when he should be working. Yes, I know, my generation loves He-Man and, to a lesser extent, that girl He-Man, what’s-her-face. I too grew up watching these half-hour-long toy commercials, and I had this abomination of a Christmas special on tape. In fact, I now own the DVD of this tripe, just because it is so skull-shatteringly shitty that there was no way I could possibly live without it. 

The plot is simple: BUY TOYS!

Also, some earth kids come to Eternia and teach everyone about Christmas even though they can’t remember the words to Jingle Bells. Orko makes a blunder that isn’t funny, He-Man manages to not be gay while wearing nothing but furry underpants and a dominatrix bandolier, and Skeletor learns the true meaning of Christmas for no apparent reason. Hordack, however, remains a dick. 

I know I’m not the first to say this, but Mattel really dropped the ball with this one. They missed the chance to make a figure of Santor with gift-throwing action, or a transformable Rudolphen with garland covered missiles mounted on its sides. Such a shame.

Let’s just say it takes more than nostalgia to make this watchable. A hefty portion of eggnog shots will help. But it is still better than their Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float, which was also just one big toy commercial.



Seriously. They made the FLOAT into a toy!


  • I WANT A DOG FOR CHRISTMAS, CHARLIE BROWN

We all love the original Charlie Brown Christmas for its heartfelt magic, nostalgia, and ability to be a great cartoon without being remotely funny. We tolerate the second attempt of It’s Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown because the title alone tells you how uninspired they were, and that were in it for the cash only (Lucy needed bail money). However, with this I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown special, Peanuts fans are just thrown up on the pinball machine for a forced pounding by coked-up network executives. 


This special barely has Charlie Brown in it. Instead it stars a newer character (nnnoooooo!!!!) named Rerun, Linus’ identical younger brother, as he pisses and moans about wanting a dog. “Christmas” is hardly even mentioned. Also those of you who thought that Snoopy was the “dog” referenced by the title can just walk into the woods with Daddy’s shotgun and never come back. Rerun wants his own dog and he’s going to have tantrums until he gets what he wants, which is how all little children get their Christmas wishes granted.


  • CHRISTMAS COMES TO PAC-LAND

If I have to explain to you why the Christmas special of a cartoon based off a video game that made no sense at all is a terrible thing, then I’m just never going to convince you. You’re in too deep. Just stay in your Snuggie, eat your Cookie Crisp, and never get laid.



       7. LARRY THE CABLE GUY’S STAR-STUDDED CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

If ever there were a sign that there were too many Christmas specials, it would have to be this one. Talk about the bottom of the barrel. Unfunny, tired redneck stereotype Larry The Cable Guy (a character created by otherwise failed comedian Daniel Lawrence Whitney) hosts a horrendous shindig every fucking year.  He’s one of those “white trash” millionaires - you know, those rich and famous people that poor, underprivileged hicks can really identify with! 



In this gag-inducing fist-fuck, Larry beer farts his way through what he has the unmitigated audacity to call humor while a bunch of has-beens and never-wases cartwheel around his plumber crack. Previous guests in his star-studded line up include Carrot Top. He got top billing. So, you know, there’s that.



6. RUDOPLH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER (yes, the 1964 original)

Yeah, yeah, crucify me for my sacrilege. I don’t give a damn what anybody says, this shit is unwatchable. Keep your little bumble ornaments away from me, give me Glenn Danzig’s The Misfits and not the Land of Misfit Toys, and don’t you dare sing the Rudolph song or it’ll be your own nose that turns red … from me bashing it the fuck in.



Come on! Every time his nose lights up it sounds like Freddy Krueger’s nails on a chalkboard. This alone makes it torture. Plus, the stop motion animation is creepier than the owl in Clash of the Titans. But most importantly, there has never in history been a more annoying character than Hermey the wannabe dentist. He makes Jar-Jar Binks look like Brad Pitt and his songs are enough to make you want to weld your ears shut with a hot poker.

Despite the order of this list, I would watch any other Christmas Special before watching this. Even number 5…


5. SANTA WITH MUSCLES


Yeah, I know, this is a movie not a “special”. But you know what? This is my list so there is nothing you can do about it. Besides, calling this a movie is like calling a fortune cookie literature. I reviewed this Gatling gun of turds for a previous Shitmas (HERE)

But for those of you who hate reading, let me summarize.

Hulk Hogan plays a guy who gets knocked on the head and thinks he’s Santa. He doesn’t do any wrestling. There you go. Sound good to you? Of course it doesn’t, don’t be an asshole.

This movie created a legacy of failure for itself, being panned by critics worldwide to the point of now being infamously wretched. It is on IMDB’s list of bottom 100 films. Total Film ranked it as one of the top 50 worst children’s films ever made and it also made it onto both Atlantic City Weekly’s and Virgin Media’s lists of worst holiday movies of all time. 

The problem it poses for us bad movie lovers is that Santa With Muscles breaks the good-bad movie rule by being a comedy. Bad action, horror, sci-fi, and just about any other genre can be enormously entertaining when it is poorly done because it becomes laughable. But bad comedy doesn’t become laughable - it just stays bad. 



4. A TWISTED CHRISTMAS

I’m a big fan of 80’s metal; as big a fan as you can get without turning into Otto from The Simpsons. In addition, I can get into some Twisted Sister tracks (“The Beast” and “Burn in Hell” are my jams). 
So, I’ll admit that when they took the Christmas Carol “O Come All Ye Faithful” and set it over their big hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, I was a very happy headbanger. I still enjoy this track on repeat every December. And even the video is a wacky joyride for lovers of hair metal and camp alike.



Problem is… they didn’t stop there.

One song was perfect. It worked and it was wanted. But instead of quitting while they were ahead, Twisted Sister got into their banged heads that a full album and tour was a good idea. 

It wasn’t.



The Twisted Christmas Live DVD is entertaining for about ten minutes. After that you’re just enduring crunchier versions of Christmas songs you’re already sick of, being spat out by a drag queen that would make even Divine blush. Dee Snider Claus frolics around with giant candy canes while the rest of the band churns through one jingle after another, each sounding the same as the last one, and yet somehow worse.



3. PEE WEE’S PLAYHOUSE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

I love Pee Wee. I think he got a raw deal too. A grown man masturbates to regular porn and gets crucified for it just because he hosts a kid’s show. Umm, I would rather have a guy who likes regular porn around my kid, because I’d be less likely to think he wants to make porn with my kid. It’s the asexual guys who shudder at the sight of a boob you need to worry about. I mean really, who’d you feel more comfortable leaving your kids with? Hugh Hefner or Michael Jackson?

Chops my hide!

I’m sorry, what were we talking about? Christmas? Oh, right, that thing.

Pee Wee’s Playhouse was one of the greatest kids shows of all time, based off of the hit film Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, a true treasure.  It is only proper that Pee Wee got his own Christmas special, and to be fair, he is not the reason this lands on the list. He is as ADHD as ever and never runs out of tape for his nose. All the regulars of the playhouse bring the noise, as usual. 



It is the tornado of terrible guest stars that turn the playhouse Christmas special into a Yule log birthed from Krampus’s black anus. I guess they just thought it wouldn’t be Christmas without Grace Jones, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Frankie Avalon and Dina Shore (all people that kids in the 80’s apparently adored).  But the clusterfun doesn’t stop there! Little Richard pops by, making Pee Wee the straight man for once.  K.D. Lang gives her worst performance ever as she belches out a bloodcurdling rendition of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”, and some nobody named Oprah Winfrey pops in to spread cheer too. Not enough? There’s also Magic Johnson, Cher, Whoopie Goldberg, and a lot of other irrelevant people normally restricted to the Late Show couches.

This one is tolerable as long as you stay close to the mute button.


2. A CHRISTMAS DREAM (A.K.A. THE MR.T AND WEBSTER CHRISTMAS SPECIAL)



Have you ever wanted to see child-impersonator Emmanuel Lewis sing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” to a sidewalk Santa played by history’s greatest living human being, Mr. T? Well that prayer was answered in 1984, along with the added stocking stuffer of David Copperfield. Just save David and re-gift him next year. I only wish I could find footage of Mr. T’s humbling monologue about the true meaning of Jesus or whatever. Instead, here’s this clip of Webster putting Alvin and the Chipmunks to shame. 



Nuff said.


  • THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL

Behold, the alpha of shitty Christmas specials. 
This piece of aborted rat fetus is the stuff of legend. It aired only once in 1978 and was slammed by critics and audiences alike. Starring all of the actors from the original Star Wars film (which I refuse to call A New Hope. It’s not A New Hope. It is fucking STAR WARS), and introducing us to Chewbacca’s sexy housewife and his other relatives, this hallucinogenic massacre has been permanently vaulted by an ashamed George Lucas, but unrelenting Star Wars nerds will forever bootleg and stream it. Funny though how he wishes he could erase this from history and yet he has no problem with The Phantom Menace.

Han and Chewbacca head back to Chewy’s home planet to celebrate “Life Day”, because that is all the writers could come up with as an alternative to Christmas. We get to meet the whole wookie family, which is a nice precursor to the puppetry cuteness that would befall the second half of Return of the Jedi. There are actually long scenes of just wookies honking at each other in their language that we can’t understand.  Thrilling. Then they do a Skype chat with Luke and R2, cause they’re all so close, apparently.

Imperial hooligans tail them in pursuit of rebels, but Han promises to get Chewy home in time for Life Day so he can visit with a singing Bea Arthur at the cantina (yes, Bea Arthur) and trip out with Jefferson Starship. Ey, starship? See what they did there? 

Carrie Fisher stumbles in, acrobats do some twirling and juggling, and three ghosts visit Vader. Well, okay, I made up that last part, but he is in it, and frankly a Darth Scrooge story would have been way better than what they actually slapped together in this drunken fever dream.

Either you know this maggot-infested diaper pile, or you haven’t even heard of it and you’re think I’m bullshitting you. I can’t blame you for thinking that, but dude, really, I’m not. 

Here’s a 15-minute “best of” reel. See if you can Endore it! 



Haha! I sleigh me! Ha! I did it again!

Ok, I’ll stop now.


Well there you have it, the top ten holiday specials you should probably pass on this year, unless of course your looking for the proper motivation to kill yourself, one of the holiday season’s most popular pastimes. I hope that y’all have a jolly one this year, and make sure to pay head to my mistletoe belt buckle.

Cheers!



Kristopher Triana is an author and the head of Tavern of Terror. His book, Growing Dark, is scheduled for publication this winter.
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Midnight Confessions Podcast's "Santa Claus is coming to town...and he's pissed!" (And Top 5 Xmas Horror!)

December 13, 2014, 8:15 am
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Dead Bang (A Shitmas Post from Justin LaLiberty of Paracinema)

December 13, 2014, 9:00 pm
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What do Nash Bridges, Christmas, puke, alcoholism and white supremacy have in common? If you say “America” you’re right, but you could also say Dead Bang. This 1989 actioner from genre mainstay John Frankenheimer – who would return to lay bullets to the holiday season again in 2000’s Reindeer Games– may not be the most iconic (Die Hard), nasty (Cobra) or fun (Lethal Weapon) of the Cop on Christmas flicks but it is notably the most politically incorrect and is definitely the only one where the lead pukes on a suspect after chasing them down. 

Dead Bang opens on Christmas Eve with an armed robbery at a convenience store – not all that dissimilar to Cobra – leading to two murders with blood splattered on holiday decorations and one (a cop) even being dispatched right after saying “Merry Christmas”, this isn’t Prancer. Shortly after, we’re introduced to an alcoholic, profane, bad husband, Christmas hating cop played by a rugged Don Johnson who is assigned to track down the Christmas Eve Cop Killer. Not to spoil much, but the investigation takes him out of LA (why do all of these Christmas action flicks take place in fucking LA?) and around the southwest, eventually landing on a crew of gun totting white supremacists that are just not nice people. 


This is pure meat and potatoes genre cinema at its best and lays the holiday trappings on thick. Either they shot this thing around Christmas time or they legitimately decorated every dive bar, diner, police precinct, street and church for it. There’s even a couple solid chase scenes that really show off the season’s staple lights and trees, one of which ends with a nice explosion taking out quite a bit of them. Outside of that, not all that much Christmas-y happens but you do get more awkward Nazi iconography this side of Elves! 

Dead Bang may not be on everyone’s list for seasonal naughty viewing, but it should be. It’s almost as mean as Cobra, almost as fun as Lethal Weapon and will never be as iconic as Die Hard, but what could be? It has Don Johnson, neo-Nazis, car/foot chases, blood spattered Christmas decorations and vomit. What more could you ask Santa for? 

- Justin LaLiberty
http://paracinema.net/
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Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (A Shitmas Post from James Harris aka Doc Terror)

December 13, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Christmas kills… or rather it makes some folks just want to up and off themselves. It’s a sad thing to hear about, and I truly hope that those who suffer from seasonal depression or any mental state that could lead to someone ending their own life can come to terms with the reasons for their need to shove themselves of this mortal coil and firmly attach themselves to the book of life. That’s sort of a disclaimer, but it should also the preface for today’s Shitmas discussion concerning a somewhat obscure Christmas program that seems to leave its viewers ready for the reaper. I’m talking about Nester the Long-eared Christmas Donkey. For those of you who have taken part in the TV special you probably started drinking when you read the title of this piece. For those of you unfamiliar with Nester, his ears and most importantly, his mother… best to keep the Egg Nog flowing and full diluted with booze. This is a 1977 Rankin-Bass production. These are the  same folks behind the ever popular Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer program programmed on network TV each holiday season (doesn’t the title sound similar to Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey?).




The whole thing is narrated by Santa’s donkey… perhaps you felt the urge to take a couple o’ valium or a shot of your finest Wild Turkey? Me too. Let’s tie Santa to Jesus in the first couple minutes to appease both factions of the doom and gloom warriors in the trenches of the long fought war on Christmas This must be Christmas War IV by now).

Nester the Long-eared Christmas Donkey is the story of a newborn donkey, in a stable run by the Roman who suffers alongside many animals under strict totalitarian and abusive rule. Nester suffers perhaps more than others based on a deformity, his exceptionally long ears that trip him and cause him to look very unique. Nester undergoes a series of chidings followed by abuse at the hands of one of the Romans guards that watch over the stables where he resides. Up until this point, you have watched what must look like a modern day anti-bullying piece of propaganda except, as you will soon see, it has a religious thread that would keep it out of most classrooms even with the big guy in the red suit in the first five minutes.

If you didn’t start drinking when I mentioned the long eared donkey and the bullying motif, now would be the time to crack your top shelf hard shit. Nester’s mother protects her freakish son and ends up forcing an early exit from the stable, mid winter, into a horrible blizzard. Nester’s mother protects her young son with her body heat against the cold, and by morning… she is gone… ie she’s fucking dead! That’s it. Like Bambi’s mom or perhaps as heartbreaking as watching Mrs. Jumbo in Dumbo chained up. Nester is in tears, and Marty Robbins belts out a song that is sung in refrain throughout the entire mess. You want to die in this moment. I can assure you that you pretty much have no choice but to cry even if you think the whole thing is a hokey mess. As a small kid seeing this from the first time, I thin my goddamn pupils pinned when I realized Nestor’s mother had frozen to death.



Nestor wanders the forest with woodland animals. They tease the shit out of him and eventually he meets up with an angel named Tilly who guides him to a new stable where Nestor is picked up by… you guessed it… Much Prego Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem. Nestor has carry Mary’s fat ass through the desert so that the couple can get Joseph back for the census (and so Mary can give birth to the little baby Jesus all lyin’ in a manger and shit). Of course a sand storm kicks up and Nestor’s long ears save the motherfuckin’ day. The worst part is when you hear the voice of Nestor’s mother say, “ears Nestor” a common refrain through the movie, which gives Nestor the idea to help Mary on his back by using his oversized ears. Nestor is fully teary-eyed. You should have a bottle finished by now. Starting the second one and ready for the climax when… Jesus is born and Nestor is the real savior (is this revisionist blasphemy?) and that’s the reason that Santa has a Christmas Donkey.  This is where you start remembering that the 70’s were a time of miraculous experimentation with hard drugs.


The story is touching, sure. If you watched it young enough you might even feel something akin to sympathy for the little disfigured martyr, Nestor or his mother, but if you watch this as a grown adult, you will require therapy. You will call your mommy crying and most likely you will inherit a delicious drug or alcohol addiction that should prime you for Christmas dinner when you are forced to relinquish all family baggage that culminates in a stick of holly forced ever so lovingly through someone’s heart. Of course the real problem with Nestor or even Rudolph is the underlying message. You are a freak… until you are useful and then you are to be accepted and worshipped (and not to be accepted until you quid pro quo yourself into endearment). This is the thing that creates shitty relationships and co-dependency mixed with a  tragic loss of self esteem.

Don’t sing the Nestor song. Do not make it a holiday tradition. You might as well be singing Red Water by Type O Negative to get in the Christmas spirit with a razor in your hand thinking about Poinsettia tea.

Oh and Frozen fans… the stable caretaker’s name is Olaf! Is this premonition or coincidence? 

Make sure to check out Nestor, available on YouTube. Christmas Suicide… don’t do it. 


-Doc Terror
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1959's Santa Claus (A Shitmas Post by JP Wendel from Death Blog: The Blog That Eats People)

December 14, 2014, 9:00 pm
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When one looks through the annals of mexploitation cinema, it's impossible to not come across the name Rene Cardona. And
for good reason too. Amongst his 145 directing credits you'll find several Santos and Blue Demon titles, splatter classic
Night of the Bloody Apes, and the epic Wrestling Women vs Aztec Mummies. However, I would argue his most memorable film
just may be 1959's Santa Claus (you'll notice it took a foreign-language film to spell Santa's fucking last name 
correctly), a fantasy film that puts a uniquely Latin spin on the mythos of everyone's favorite portly gift-giver by placing him 
in an eternal battle against the literal goddamn (heh) devil.




We start our journey in Santa's castle in the clouds (just one of the many interesting changes made to the St. Nick legend) 
with our jolly elf kidnapping stereotypes from all over the world to place in his child zoo.


Among the horrifyingly racist caricatures on display are turban-sporting Indians...


...tiny Chinese geishas...



...and drum-thumping Afri....

You know what, let's move on.

We then take a quick detour down to a surprisingly fun-looking Hell where one of the dancing demons is giving the mission
of spreading evil thoughts to kids in an attempt to ruin Christmas. Will he succeed? Only time will tell.

He looks super into it, though

We then jump to yet another location, a town in Mexico, where we meet impoverished Lupita, a curly-haired rich kid with negligent 
parents and a gang of little assholes. Our demon friend has no problem convincing the tiny douchebags to do terrible things, 
yet Lupita remains poor yet pure time and time again. 

Ok, admission time. It's been a super long time since I'd seen this movie so I tried to find it on YouTube, but the only 
one I could find is with the original Spanish audio so I have no fucking clue what the greater complexities and details 
of the film entail. But if we're being totally honest, I doubt they really matter in the long run.

Anywho, we then head back up to Santa's castle to observe some of his fun (i.e. wildly creepy)  child-watching devices at 
work, including an eye on a stalk kinda like the aliens in War of the Worlds and the world's biggest fleshlight with the 
fellactio attachment embedded in the wall.


Then we cut to Lupita's fever dream for what feels like about 5 hours. I don't have any pictures of that, nor would I show
them if I did. It doesn't matter anyway, right after that and a needlessly long montage of letters from children being 
delivered we discover where Santa gets his wonderful trinkets and magic spying equipment. If you guessed they were designed and
built by motherfucking Merlin the wizard, then you were clearly cheating at my little game and I don't want you to
play anymore.


You know what that means? Merlin invented the giant Fleshlight up there. Think about that the next time you're washing a week's-worth of jizz out of the detachable inner gel sleeve.

After even more time-wasting montages, Santa finally waddles his fat ass up on his sleigh and heads down to Earth with 
his eight shiny, white, admittedly-badass clockwork reindeer.


And this is honestly where the movie could've easily stopped. Nothing really happens; the random devil keeps trying to make
kids to bad things, they don't, random devil keeps trying to mess with Santa, he doesn't, Santa gives kids presents. That's 
about it. This is a Christmas movie, we all knew how this would end.

My review/article/whatever really turned sour quickly didn't it? I know things started to turn pretty negative there, and
I do feel there is a LOT of padding in this movie, but there's quite a bit I genuinely like here. I like the weird changes
to the Santa lore with all his gadgets and mechanical deer, and there really is a sort of heartfelt and hand-stitched
elementary-school-Christmas-play sincerity here that's hard not to like.

And who doesn't love casual racism?

Don't get me wrong, this is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but if you're looking for a unique
kind of Christmas film steeped in a different and interesting culture, you could do a lot worse. Plus it's amazing to watch
while high......not that I would know anything about that.

- JP Wendel

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3615 code Père Noël: Le Home Alone (A Shitmas Post from Eddie Spuhghetti)

December 15, 2014, 9:00 pm
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So I don’t need some friggen striped t-shirt, blanket-carrying kid to tell me what Christmas is all about: tis the season to give.  Moonsaulting at the chance to do a piece for Shitmas here at Shit Movie Fest, I figured it's a prime opportunity to give a fairly unique present while my site Here Lies is still going through “final processing” (just a little bit of this and a little bit of that).  I'll be guiding you through a French thriller with sweet hints of Die Hard and Home Alone, subtle notes of Rambo and a dash of Silent Night, Deadly Night.  I just need to find the tape here.. ah, here we go: ca c’est 3615 code Père Noël.    


My Aunt Dolores came across a copy at a library bookshop in Toulouse, France and presented it to me wrapped in tin-foil with a big card saying “Merry Christmas Ethan”.  Like many of you, I hadn't even heard a drip of piss from this film anywhere and it even goes by different titles such as Deadly Games and Game Over  - my favourite being “Le Home Alone", coined by my Aunt Dolores while tossing back her seventh egg-nog.  Home Alone comparisons are a guarantee but both films share the same 1989 production time-frame, making it impossible for any kind of intended imitation.  The only references to American cinema are several homages to Action epics like Commando and First Blood Part II.  Here's where I take you into the film without ruining the ending; it’ll be to your discretion whether or not you wish to watch the entire thing (I’ll explain why later).  *Presses PLAY button*  




After seeing Le Clochard ("hobo" in French - we’re gonna call him that as he doesn't actually have a name) attempt to join a kinder snowball fight, we’re introduced to our French Kevin McCallister: Thomas, sleeping inside of a WW2 fighter plane within a mansion..  Just to show you how badass he is, we get a gear-up montage complete with an Eye of the Tiger ripoff tune.

Thomas goes all out when playing “hunt the dog” by running gunfire sound-clips over the PA system and completing his mission with a trap-door net (why it’s there, I have no idea but obviously we’re gonna see it again).  Munching down on a croissant over breakfast, we sorta get the 4-11 on who these folks are: Thomas's mom is a widowed business-lady, concerned that her son is losing faith in Santa Claus.  His grand-père (grampa) is suffering from glaucoma but doesn't have any problem seeing Thomas is a little genius and maturing quickly for a boy his age: at 10, the kid has a seasoned mullet.


Thomas and his buddy Ferrari (I dunno, he's wearing a Ferrari hat so that's what we'll go with) use Minitel via an Atari ST to quiz Santa Claus into proving his existence.  I'm gonna hit the PAUSE button right now and explain Minitel: it was created in France during the late 70's as an electronic text service via phone-lines.  A precursor to internet chat, Minitel was primarily used by businesses to convey information by first typing in a code like 3615 (think of it like 1-800) and then the business name.  The service was very widespread in Europe (short-lived in North America) and even had public booths like the one we see Le Clochard use to coax Thomas into telling him his location.  Although he doesn't get an exact address, Thomas says his mom is the manager of the big department store in town, which gives Le Clochard an idea.

Our little genius spends the afternoon restoring/driving a car with his grand-père and later makes some final adjustments to the mansion's security cameras.  Using a forearm console with a small monitor, he can remotely access the security system and flip between the camera feeds in hopes of capturing le Père Noël in the act.



Meanwhile, Le Clochard has now become Le Clochard Du Noël; performing as the best mall Santa Claus he can be.  Here's where we go into Michael Jackson territory by getting two hints at what his motives are but neither will be confirmed: Le Clochard Du Noël is really enjoying himself here and genuinely comes off as a grown-up loner who just relates to kids and wants to bring them joy (sorta like that Twilight Zone episode with the old guy that plays with kids and turns out to be an alien or something).  He then decides to creepily stroke a little girl's face and proceeds with a slap when she senses something is wrong and pulls his beard down.  Thomas's mom immediately intervenes and informs Le Clochard Du Noël to take a hike.

He instead hitches a ride in the back of a delivery van after overhearing of its destination: Thomas's mansion.  The driver is killed off and the house staff allow Le Clochard Du Noël in by thinking it's just the delivery guy being creative.  Using a secret passage within his closet, Thomas hunkers down under the living room table with hopes of catching le Père Noël's arrival.  As Le Clochard Du Noël sprays fake snow in his hair and beard, Thomas's mom calls up to make sure he's in bed; eerily mentioning that if he's caught watching, Santa will turn into an ogre.  The midnight hour looms as we get this insanely creepy shot of Le Clochard Du Noël sitting in a rocking chair with full-blown determination.


Thomas is full of whimsy as Santa descends the chimney and proceeds to kill his dog with a serving trowel.  Our little genius manages to escape, grabs Grand-Père and heads for the garage via a hidden toy room with a suspended bridge inside (same room that had the plane from earlier).  They both get into the car and attempt to start it as Le Clochard Du Noël appears and starts to beat the crap outa the thing like a bonus level from Street Fighter II Turbo.  Managing to retreat back to the toy vault, Thomas leaves his grand-père behind, figuring he can battle le Père Noël himself to prevent his mother from being attacked upon arrival.     

As Thomas's mom races home and attempts to call from her state-of-the-art car phone, Le Clochard Du Noël destroys a security cam in the game room: one of the many themed rooms in the mansion (like the SNES Home Alone game).  Thomas scores in stalling Santa in the hidden trap-door net and then gets lost in an art gallery maze-room in his own home (ya got me there).  Well our little genius does manage to make it to the attic but is met by Le Clochard Du Noël , forcing Thomas to escape by a window and begin to brace the roof barefoot like the petit John Du McClaine he is. 



I keep calling Thomas a little genius: while it is a line that was used in the trailer and I happen to find it funny, he proves this quality time after time.  What better example than entering his room's window and sending a fax message to several people from his computer!  Grand-Père narrowly avoids being killed in the toy vault, as Thomas manages to pull him out and together they lure Le Clochard into a sauna within "the gym room" using walkie-talkie-chatter as bait.  Back at the mall office, Thomas's mom's accountant/boyfriend notices the fax and informs her of the situation.  She calls up the cops to go to the house just to check on him..  sorry, I had to say it.



With his forearm control-console damaged, Thomas cannot unlock the doors and release the window gates.  As he makes his way to the security panel, his buddy Ferrari received the fax and decided to bike over.  Just as Thomas confronts Ferrari, Le Clochard Du Noël arrives and stabs our little genius in the leg with the serving trowel!  Horrified, Ferrari pedals his ass away and escapes the grasps of our evil Santa Claus.  He escapes and as Le Clochard Du Noël returns to the mansion, the intercom goes on; Thomas informs Santa that he's gonna scare him to death..

*Presses STOP button* That's all I'm gonna show ya for now.  Remember I mentioned earlier about it being your call if you want to watch this?  With no official DVD release and no NTSC home video version of any kind, watching 3615 code Père Noël will be a challenge unless you can speak German or French (only versions I can find).  Being from Central Canada, bilingualism is fairly essential for the workplace but also helps me in understanding many de la killer Santa Claus movies from France.



3615 code Père Noël is one of those true hidden gems that may never be appreciated by a mass audience due to a language barrier and limited home video release.  With only a few kills, it isn't a straight slasher (none are innovative or glamourized) but the sheer terror that brews within the large, dark mansion-setting makes up for it.  The production/set design is very admirable; this does not look like a cheap movie in the slightest and the use of miniatures really emphasizes the scale of the mansion.  Speaking of our little genius, he's a really good actor himself and does a believable job of being a smart, resourceful kid on the verge of losing a big piece of his childhood.  The actor portraying Le Clochard Du Noël is especially creepy; without knowing exactly what his goal is, he gives us a mysterious Evil Santa Claus who will stop at nothing to capture this kid.

Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings to all!  And if you really want to know what happens next, well maybe I can make a subtitled version at some point..  just don't go asking Santa Claus for it.

- Eddie Spuhghetti
Here Lies
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Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (A Shitmas Post from Richelle Charkot of Southpaw Podcast!)

December 16, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Directed by: Nicholas Webster
Written by: Glenville Mareth 

Every now and then a film will come along that is so profoundly flawed that audiences can’t help but celebrate everything terrible about it. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians; with its consistent spelling errors in title cards, actors that miss every other cue, astonishing amount of stock footage, and paper-thin plot about aliens that decide to kidnap Santa Claus until he gives the Martians some Christmas presents; is one of the quintessential bad movies to watch this holiday season. This incredibly campy movie stars multiple B-list actors; with the only really notable names being the likes of Pia Zadora (this being her film debut), and Bill McCutcheon, as well as a few character actors who later made a small career in television. This film is so cheaply made, poorly shot, terribly acted and haphazardly written that it in turn becomes incredibly charming, in a way that 1960's science fiction very effectively captured.
 Due to the fact that I have never watched Santa Claus Conquers the Martians completely sober, I decided to keep the tradition going and write an authentic review/drinking game combination, and by 'authentic,' I mean I will get drunk by my own rules as the film progresses. Starting with the standard double rum and eggnog, I press play. 



Do a shot during the title credits during every spelling error: “'Custume' designer” being one of the more glaring offenders. As an added challenge while the film progresses, drink every time you realize that the damnably catchy opening song is stuck in your head still.
Drink every time someone called Andy Henderson, “Andy Anderson”: Hint: It happens basically every time Santa addresses him. 
Yell, "DROPO!" every time Dropo screws up or does something clumsily. If you don't yell, then finish your drink: As the obviously meek comic relief, Dropo acts like a court jester throughout the entire movie. I can only assume his name is Dropo because in spite of the Martians being an advanced race, he totally drops the ball at every single given moment. 
Sip whenever you notice that the Martian green face makeup is being sweated off: I had to make this one ‘sip’ because unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how drunk you’re looking to get playing this game) you’ll be drinking pretty much every time an alien is on screen. It is pretty obvious that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a cheaply made movie, and the apparent lack of a makeup department only makes it funnier.
Drink during scenes of obvious stock footage: This rule is going to probably kill you. Basically every time there is any mention to government, kidnapping, armies, or anything that can easily fill time, there's a cutaway sequence of about two to five minutes of material that is obviously not original. There is so much stock footage in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians that I would not be surprised if it is one of the most stock-footage laden films in movie history. 
Drink every time the children in the film out-act the adults: Everyone is uniformly bad at acting in this movie, but the kids still manage to repeatedly out-shine the other actors.

Do a shot during the polar bear scene: Due to multiple needless scenes in this movie, it becomes crystal clear in no time that there is not a lot of plot to speak of in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. This is the reason why there are so many long scenes where what is happening has nothing to do with the narrative – the polar bear scene definitely being one of the worst offenders, but it is still hilarious. The man wearing the bear suit is clearly wearing an extremely cheap costume which is so obviously fake that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a rug. 
Drink every time a newspaper flashes on screen that has nothing to do with Santa or kidnappings: As with the polar bear scene, one of the funniest aspects of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is the fact that there is so much filler where something entirely needless is happening; and the newspapers that flash on screen are yet another example of it. Most of the newspapers have nothing to do with the film, or are masked by foreign languages which we can only assume also have absolutely nothing to do with the movie.

Drink every time a joke is told that totally falls flat: Santa and Dropo have a hard time making anybody laugh with their lame one-liners.
Drink during the toy-fight scene: At this point it feels like the filmmakers just said 'fuck it' and included anything that would bring the movie up to a respectable 81 minutes. This entire fight scene feels like a fever dream at best, which should go well with the expected buzz that viewers should have by this point in the movie/drinking game.
Finish your drink during the ending credits because by this point you've probably forgotten the theme song, but now it's returned with a vengeance.  

S-a-n-t-a C-l-a-u-s, hooray for Santa Claus! 


- Richelle Charkot  (pop culture writer, reviewer, and host of Southpawd)
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Jack Frost (A Shitmas Post from Tom Wolfson)

December 17, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Ahh yes, its that magical time of the year again. Christmas is in the air and its a 
winter wonderland out there. And just as you sit all cozy by the fire place drinking a hot
cup of cocoa with a plate full of gingerbread cookies on your lap, you suddenly hear a 
noise coming from outside. Hmm what's that noise? Oh its just Billy and the kids playing in
the snow. The kids are running amok throwing snow balls at each other while Billy is cherry
red with excitement as he makes his first snow man. So you sit back down for another ginger
bread cookie and that's when you hear another sound. You listen a listen closer and you 
hear what seems to be carolors off in the distance...


"Dashing through the snow, In a one horse open sleigh. Billy's head will roll down the hill.
And Jack Frost laughing all the way with lots of joy and blood to spill."


You are now frozen in sheer terror as you see your winter wonderland has turned into a 
bloody massacre thanks to Jack Frost himself!



Jack Frost is one of my personal favorite holiday slashers, I would even go as far as to 
rank him up there with the A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and the Silent
Night, Deadly Night series. Jack is evil and twisted in the same vein as Freddy Krueger and
he busts out the zany cheese ball one liners as well as delivering some of the best 
creative death scenes on the silver screen.


The movie starts out with prisoner serial killer Jack Frost being transported to his 
death sentence. Its a wicked snow storm and the driver can barely see the road, next thing
you know they crash into a truck full of "genetic material", Jack escapes out of the back
of the truck and just as he is about to kill the other cop, the truck with all of the 
chemicals explode on Jack and transforms him into a monsterous killer snow man! Jack now 
has special genetic powers to unleash some fatal frostbites of his own. One of these 
abilities allows him to freeze and unfreeze at will. Jack can melt into a liquid pool and 
manuever much like the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgement Day movie and this gives him a deadly advantage. 



Jack Frost is now on a bloody rampage for the Sheriff of Snowmonton who arrested him. 
Sheriff Tiler still cannot shake the death threats toward him and his family from Jack and 
is still haunted by the awful memories. Jack Frost is one pissed off snowcone and he is out
for vengenance and will kill, kill, kill. just for the thrill. 



Speaking of good old fashioned murder and mayhem, I couldn't write up this review with out 
mentioning one of my favorite kill scenes in the whole movie. SPOILER ALERT! The Bath tub scene with the ever so sultry Shannon Elizabeth (The foreign exchange student Nadia from American Pie) Sha-winnnggg! And oh yes, this one takes the cake and is easily the most rediculous rape scenes since the classic Evil Dead tree rape scene. If you haven't figured it out by now this is not the gay yuletide Tim Allen family movie. 




As you guessed it more and more frozen bodies start piling up high into a giant snow ball
in the small town of Snowmonton. The Sheriff and his men try to keep everyone calm and in 
order in this time of distress but the town people are in a complete frenzy.


Meanwhile FBI Agents Manners and Stone arrive in Snowmonton to convince Sheriff Tiler to 
put the town on a 24 hour lockdown. Agent Stone reveals that he is a representative of the
genetic research company that created the acid and turned Jack into a mutated killer snow 
man. After hearing this vital information from Agent Stone, Sherrif now knows what he is up 
against and will do everything he can to stop the killer snow man at any cost. 


The sheriff and the rest of the small town now must ban together and find any weapons that
they can use to destroy the evil avalanche himself. They try everything they can to kill 
Jack but nothing works. They try releasing aerosol cans and setting him on fire while 
shooting bullets at him, blow drying him into a furnace, and at one point a Priest even 
joins in on the fun by blessing Jack with a blow dryer. However, after all of these 
failed attempts its still not enough to destroy the blizzard of death.


The final show down occurs when Jack traps both Sheriff Tiler and his son in there car. 
Just as the Sherrif is about to be iced by the deadly snow man he grabs whatever he can to 
attack Jack. The Sherrif throws the oatmeal cookies at Jack and it burns a hole in his 
frosty ass head. They discover that there is a special deadly ingredient in the oatmeal 
cookies that his son made for him. And now they have a real chance at ending this
diaboliqual snow blizzard's reign of terror.


The frightfully frigid conclusion kiddies! If you enjoy movies like The Gremlins and A 
Nightmare On Elm Street series you will love this unholy slushie of a holiday slasher! I'll
leave you with some mandatory shits n' giggles: whats the difference between snow men and snow women?  


SNOW BALLS!! Get it? Hehehe!!


- Todd Wolfson 
https://m.facebook.com/HorrorAvengersSquad

https://m.facebook.com/LimboGlaze
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Christmas Bounty: A MIZtical Christmas in New Jersey (A Shitmas Post from Jay of the Sexy Armpit!)

December 18, 2014, 9:00 pm
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I honestly don't expect you to read a giant post about a TV movie starring WWE Superstar, The Miz, but if you do, you're definitely on Santa's nice list this year.

Wait one sec, bare with me, I just received a text. Jeez, could there be a more inopportune time to be interrupted by a text, right at the start of a blog post? And a GUEST post at that. Coincidentally, it's from the master of ceremonies at Shit Movie Fest, Tom Bryce himself - he literally just texted me in real time as I type this. This is what it says: "Hey man, please, whatever you do, DO NOT write about Christmas Bounty, ANY other Christmas movie is fine, otherwise, I'm sorry to say this, but I can't ever invite you back for The 25 Days of Shitmas. I hope we can still party at the next Monster Mania." I assume Tom isn't aware of the major problem I have with being told what to do.

Defying Tom's ultra specific order to avoid ABC Family's and WWE Studios' crowning achievement, 2013's Christmas Bounty like the plague, I have crashed Shitmas this year with a dithyramb on it anyway. Giving praise to this masterpiece and spreading the joy that it brought to my heart isn't the only reason I'm here though. My specialty at my blog, The Sexy Armpit, is New Jersey pop culture, which leads me to why I chose this movie. I even surprised myself with this choice.

The main takeaway from Christmas Bounty is that it's set in Trenton, New Jersey. As The Miz would say, "REALLY?" I was equally as shocked as you. An immediate rush of delight overcame me after finding this out, or I would've never watched it, let alone asked it to accompany me to the Crystal Chalice Suite at the Loop Inn Motel in Avenel, NJ, they're very discreet. What can I say, I'm a hardcore romantic.

During this time of year, you may hear parents of newborn babies describe their child as their true Christmas gift, but their little cherubic ball of joy is insignificant next to the power of Christmas Bounty. If that line gets me permanently yanked from the Shitmas list, so be it. Tom doesn't know it yet, but I'm still gonna hang with him at Monster Mania regardless.

Reviews of classic Christmas films litter the Internet. Conversely, I bet you'll be hard pressed to find a piece of writing about Christmas Bounty so extensive and glowing with positivity anywhere on the Internet, and if you actually do find one, let me know because I'm going to hang out with the author and shower them with attention and rare gifts and feed them expensive delicacies. Clearly this person has a divine understanding of the meaning of life and the secrets of the universe.

As you can already surmise, this will be the furthest thing from an analytical review because no words that I've formulated here can come close to paying the overwhelming amount of reverence this film warrants. The only possible way I could ever even come remotely close to paying proper tribute to this endowment is if I somehow manage to enlist that crazy fuck Ivo Shandor to erect one of his buildings fitted with cold riveted girders with cores of pure selenium so we can worship it in eerie rooftop rituals.

Here's the synopsis: Tory Bell, a tough and sexy former bounty hunter turned elementary school teacher, (obvious career move) played by Francia Raisa, wants to keep her bounty hunter past a secret from her new high fallutin' blue-blooded boyfriend, but a former criminal who she helped put away as a teenager is back in the picture and wants revenge on her. Tory returns to her hometown to help her family (who are also bounty hunters, of course) catch the guy, but the problem is, this a-hole really throws a wrench into her holiday plans of introducing her new boyfriend to her tacky Jersey Guido family, all the while being reconnected with her ex who works in the family business, Mikey Muscles (another bounty hunter, IMAGINE THAT) played by The Miz. 

Keeping The Miz off the screen for a good chunk of the movie makes way for more time I can spend drooling over the hottie Francia Raisa, the true star of this seasonal smackdown. 


So, they had me at New Jersey, but they lost me at The Miz. I was so confused as to why The Miz was even cast in this movie since, currently, Enzo Amore and AJ Lee are the only Superstars on the WWE roster who are associated with New Jersey, and The Miz is the furthest thing from being one of us. Although I've got no love for The Miz, I don't hate him either. Thanks to Damien Mizdow, it seems he's finally coming into his own in his latest run. He's gone through plenty of awkward phases throughout his career, but I relate to him because, first and foremost, he's a lifelong WWE fanatic, and not only did he make it into the WWE, but to the grandest stage of them all. He's a success story, but his acting, well, not so much.

His name recognition sold the movie, but Miz wasn't as prevalent in it as you'd think, which is great. His screen time should've been even more limited, because he's The Miz and he's completely mediocre! That catchphrase doesn't have the best ring to it, but it will work splendidly for crowds to chant "Meee-di-o-cre" in the same cadence as those "You can't wrestle" chants. If I was casting this movie, the part of Mikey Muscles would've gone to IG-88.

It was smart to relegate The Miz to a supporting role. They even let him deliver a groanworthy "Really" in conversation. According to this movie, everyone in New Jersey has a nickname, and as Mikey Muscles , The Miz gives zero indication that he knows how to act, more specifically, like a dude from Jersey. He certainly didn't spew lines like Tony Soprano or anything, but he randomly speaks with hints of some kind of non-Jersey accent. It's worth mentioning that most Jersey people who were born here do not speak like the stereotypical Jersey accent you hear in movies and TV, but the cast of Christmas Bounty sure seems convinced that's how we sound.


Throughout the film, in case I haven't hammered it home nearly enough, and even though it's not actually filmed there, they're supposed to be in Trenton. But, for those tough to convince, or who just cannot believe that a Christmas movie about bounty hunters would be set in Trenton, they name drop the city and state about 20 times, so by the time the credits roll it should be abundantly clear to you. 

After you watch, lingering around in your head even more prominently will be the fact that the filmmakers must have been using an extremely inaccurate navigation app on their phone because they keep referring to New York City as if it's a 7 minute drive from Trenton. We hear Tory in one scene tell a cabbie in New York "Trenton, New Jersey in a hurry," and there's even a line describing Manhattan as being "right through the tunnel," and while Manhattan is indeed accessed from Jersey via the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, it would be approximately an hour and 20 minute drive from Trenton with moderate traffic.

In case it's not 100% obvious to you yet, the plot of this movie is equally as absurd as other original movies that have aired on channels like ABC Family, Hallmark Channel, and Lifetime, but the only difference is that this one is surprisingly enjoyable in a stupid fun way. Rotten Tomatoes viewer percentage proves my calculation accurate, as Christmas Bounty has a whopping audience score of 87%, even though only 77 people rated it, probably impassioned WWE fans, but still, it was apparently considered a big enough hit because it got a release on home video and even made it to Netflix for half the world to enjoy (or vomit to) during the holidays. 

I'm glad that WWE Studios opted against their original pirate theme for Christmas Bounty. Think about it: "I'm The Miz...and I'm ARRRSOME!" as he stands on the deck of an old Spanish galleon with an eye patch over one eye and Koko B. Ware's parrot Frankie on his shoulder while Damien Mizdow brilliantly shadows his every motion. Come to think of it, I may have just written a :30 second promo for Summerslam 2015. 

The theme of Christmas Bounty is being true to yourself and not forgetting where you came from. That rings true in my case since, as you can clearly see, I tend to be long winded when gushing over something I love. I'm about to exceed 1500 words about Christmas Bounty, more words than in the actual script to the film.

Ultimately, what gives me that warm fuzzy feeling is how much I love the fact that the movie's title is a play on words. I consider this movie my own Christmas reward and its boundless entertainment value far exceeds the maximum amount of quality that our human minds can actually process, so you may have to watch it multiple times throughout the rest of December - and twice on Christmas to fully embrace it. Thanks for reading and an AWESOME Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!


- Jay
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Turbulence (A Shitmas Post by Katherine Mahady)

December 20, 2014, 5:04 am
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I really have to give the credit behind my decision to review Turbulence for 2014’s Shit Movie Fest to my husband. I had actually never seen Turbulence and had no idea it was essentially Christmas eve at 40,000 feet with crazy eyes Ray Liotta. The plane is all pre-911 Christmased out. No way would you get on a plane nowadays with strings of Christmas lights aka ropes for psychopaths to use to confine and/or strangle people. I know I’d be pissed if security confiscated my shampoo and then I walked into one big twinkling security risk. But, more on the absurdity of the Turbulence airplane later.



This film opens with Ray Liotta looking suave and buying a teddy bear for his lady. Alas, he is not what he may appear. Police are staking him out because one hard up detective has had it in for him for years. He’s got him pegged as the infamous Lonely Hearts Strangler who’s raped and murdered 5 women, apparently, after enjoying a happy period of courtship before getting sick of them. We learn from the detective that he likes tall blondes who are smart and can carry on a conversation. So I guess his girlfriend’s/victims just started to bore the shit out of him. I’ve actually always found Liotta oddly attractive. Odd because he totally gives me the feeling he could really just pop off violently at any moment.

After Liotta is arrested and tried for the murders that he says he was framed for, he must be transported to Los Angeles to prison and death row. He and another prisoner are escorted by four air marshals on a commercial flight. Even though it is Christmas Eve, the plane is nearly empty, with only 11 people on board (FIRST BULLSHIT PLANE MOMENT). Real life, this plane would have been sickeningly packed with people. Liotta and the other prisoner with him (Brendan Gleeson doing a terrible hillbilly impersonation) would have just said fuck it.

During the 5 hour flight, Gleeson breaks free and begins a shootout with the marshals. Amidst the chaos, both the pilot and co-pilot are killed. Liotta frees himself and attempts to save the last remaining marshal, but fails when both the prisoner and the marshal are shot dead. At this point in the film you can tell that it was supposed to be some huge surprise if Liotta was going to turn out good or bad. He goes overboard trying to help and Lauren Holly (the pretty blonde flight attendant who has caught his eye) gets totally sucked in by his charm. She ultimately redeems herself, but let’s be honest; at first Lauren Holly really makes women look bad. Having left her fiancé at the beginning of the movie she just comes off as way to naïve and desperate to like this man – never mind he’s BEING FUCKING TRANSPORTED ON YOUR PLANE BECAUSE HE HAS BEEN CONVICTED FOR CHOKING BITCHES. “Aww but I bet he’s really sweet deep down…I can fix him.” No. Not so much. He ultimately ends up choking out her good friend/the other flight attendant/mom in Child’s Play.

Holly eventually figures out Liotta just wants to get his party on with her as the plane crashes, ending it all in a blaze of glory and taking out a shit ton of people in LA in the process. She finds the co-pilot dead in the cockpit and decides to hole up in there and try and land the plane with the help of Captain Bowen – another pilot, FBI, Police, and Dale from The Walking Dead all over the radio. And let’s talk about that for a second – Holly has absolutely no idea how to respond to emergency services over the radio when she first locks herself in the cockpit (SECOND BULLSHIT PLANE MOMENT). I know damn well flight attendants have to at least learn how to use the radio in the cockpit in case of emergencies. 

All, as you can imagine, does not go smoothly. There’s apparently a huge storm they are about to fly right into (hence the turbulence! Ha!) and a fighter pilot ordered by the FBI is on its way to blow them out of the air because killing one person is better than a stupid flight attendant crashing a plane into an entire city. Liotta lures her dumb ass out of the cockpit and tries to chat her up. About movies, songs, and sex.  But, she starts getting too mouthy for him – “Don’t give me an attitude. I’m just talking to ya. Just talk normal.” The first of many tussles between the two of them begins. Great fight scenes in this because the plane is so fucking gigantic (THIRD BULLSHIT PLANE MOMENT).  


The plane completely flips upside down. Holly tempts him with the promise of requited affections - Bam fire extinguisher to the head.  Liotta starts a fire outside the cockpit to get her out again – Bam leg gets crushed in an emergency trap door. Liotta disables the autopilot and proceeds to Jack Torrance the cockpit door which appears to be made of 70s era basement plywood (FOURTH BULLSHIT PLANE MOMENT) – those doors are surely steel. Bam Holly goes beast mode on him and breaks his arm and tries to crush him under the door. He chases her down to the first level, she manages to get one bullet in a gun and gets Liotta right in the head with an expertly delivered one liner – “You don’t believe in capital punishment” “I changed my mind.” Holly, all proud and determined (Maybe I CAN be an independent woman!), makes her way back to the cockpit and pleads with the fighter pilot in a very special heartwarming moment that “all she wants for Christmas” is one more chance to try and land. Because her first attempt led to her literally crashing a Japanese businessman’s karaoke party and getting a Ford SUV attached to the landing wheel. Sure enough, despite the callous FBI agent screaming to take the shot that pilot aims his Christmas spirit directly at that Ford SUV and shoots that off instead. With the help of Captain Bowen guiding her over the radio – she lands! A hurrah of MERRY CHRISTMAS goes up amongst the crisis airline workers, FBI and cops (BULLSHIT AIRLINE MOMENT) – it would have to be HAPPY HOLIDAYS now.
Up until this point Holly wasn’t sure if all the other crew members and passengers were dead but they find them alive – everyone is rescued! YAY. Coming out of the plane Holly comes face to face with her helper/guardian angel Captain Bowen and there’s some definite sexual tension because I think after everything she went through Holly’s character just really needs a man to validate her.
Turbulence is a typical 90s action movie. It’s inexplicable and audacious in so many ways, but with Ray Liotta doing his psycho shtick it’s really enjoyable. No one will usually think of it around Christmas of course, not with big boys like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon at the party, but I had a great time with it. 

- Katherine Mahady

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A Collection of Christmas Themed Horror Book Covers!

December 20, 2014, 5:38 am
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Here's a collection of Christmas Themed Horror Book Covers from over the years, if I missed any please let me know in the comments cause I'd be interested in checking them out!

First up is R.L. Stine's "Silent Night" Trilogy, I have all 3 books so I scanned the front and back covers! One thing I always liked about the "Fear Street" books was how much they looked just like an 80's Slasher Film you'd beg you parents to rent for you at the video store!






Next is "Slay Bells", this one is also from the 90's and is a "Slasher" set in a Shopping Mall!



The next to books I found online so I don't have much info on them, gotta say the covers are tremendous though!



Here's another one from Mr. Stine and a recent one at that!
It makes me happy to know that R.L. is still pumping out books to this day!

The following all come from the now sadly defunct page "If It Were Stine", a page that would take really horror movies and give them mock "Goosebumps" Covers and Names!
Jack Frost

Rare Exports

Black Christmas

S.N.D.N.

S.N.D.N. 4

S.N.D.N. 5

Terror Train


- Tom
http://shitmoviefest.tumblr.com/ (SMF on Tumblr; Page ran by Chris Gormley)


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Prometheus (A Shitmas Post from John Tatarelli Jr)

December 20, 2014, 9:00 pm
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What I Choose To Believe or The Trick Is Not Minding That It Hurts
By John Tatarelli Jr

         I’m just going to start this off letting you know that this is not a summary of the film, I’m not going to try to solve the mysteries of this film by getting deep into it, basically this is just my vague rambling (this subject might be better explored in conversation, it is up for debate and Ridley Scott’s films are open to interpretation). At this point Prometheus 2 is in the works so in a couple of years my ideas may be thrown out the window, and I’m fine with that. I’m going to break this into two parts, basically how I look at Prometheus, and how I choose to look at the Alien franchise. Before I get into those discussions I’m going to give you quick look at how I look at films at this point in my life. I was born in 1980, I feel like I was born at just the right time. Everything awesome from my parents youth was on constant syndication on the 7 channels (sometimes 8 depending on the weather) that we enjoyed on our very small television. I was lucky enough to watch the Star Wars trilogy and many other classics thanks to our RCA Videodisc player, after that we got our first VCR. I grew up watching amazing films that were made true masters of the craft, the films I grew up watching were not targeted towards my age, they were what they were. Films back then didn’t over explain everything. So many great films from my youth can be revisited at this age and teach new lessons that my young mind couldn’t grasp. Evertyhing from my youth was just magic to me. Then everything changed when the Star Wars prequels came out. They used bullshit science to explain The Force, the trilogy was ruined, everything started to suck. (There are exceptions, but that’s about when the magic died for me) Modern films to me for the most part, lack excitement, humour, and emotion. The worst part about modern films is the fact they explain way too much. This is my overall feeling, some stuff surprises me, a lot disappoint me, but I’m getting older and what I think is cool differs from what younger audiences enjoy. Onto Prometheus….



         The hype for this film banked a lot on our nostalgia for Alien. The trailer, if you remember was beat by beat the Alien trailer. I was excited to go see this because Alien is one of my favorite films ever, its one of a very short list of films that I consider perfect. When I heard that it was a prequel I was crushed, I kept thinking “please don’t ruin Alien, leave it the hell alone”. Then I heard it wasn’t a prequel for Alien at all. I was stumped because the marketing was big bald headed statues and pics of the Space Jockey. Is this or isn’t this a prequel? I figured screw it, I’ll find out when I go see it.


Me and Mary went to see this opening weekend with open minds. We both left the theater agreeing that it was not what we were expecting and we predicted that most people will hate it. One of the things that really excited me about Prometheus was it seemed to take its cue from Chariots of the Gods. I was always into ancient astronauts, UFO’s, aliens, philosophies on life and religion. It had little throw backs to Alien but over all it was really an ancient astronaut film that answered questions with questions. It was as close a prequel to Alien as the ancient Mayans and Egyptians are to the modern world. I loved that people were still people, the characters did stupid things, human things. Unlike most new films they didn’t make all the right choices. The questions that were answered are just segway into more questions, nothing is laid out in a straight line, the life cycles for the black liquid is not predictable. They went on a search for God and found nothing but more questions. We build synthetic humans, Engineers built us, who built them? I love that you get the feeling that these Gods or Engineers most likely consider us a virus like the Xenomorph from Alien. The film has multi levels to it, and if you can separate it completely from the Alien films you will most likely enjoy it. I think the details of the lived in worlds and overall vibe along with the visuals make Ridley Scotts SciFi films stand out. I recommend watching Chariots of the Gods and then checking out Prometheus, might put you in the right frame of mind. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, its not heavy handed, just put it on and let the film speak for itself. I could go on forever about Alien, Blade Runner and Prometheus, this little essay is not going to do it justice.

         This is an overview of how I look at the Alien films. Alien as a stand alone film is perfect, just perfect. The artists involved on this film put together a living work of art that just blows me away everytime I watch it. Its one of the few films that excites and scares me every time because I’m sucked in and seeing something new every time I watch it. Ridley’s films are so detailed that you can watch it for the first time over and over. So Alien alone is a perfect film. Then came Aliens, another very fun film that you can watch stand alone or you can watch Alien and then Aliens. Then came Alien 3, works the same way as before, each can stand alone just fine or you put together they make an amazing trilogy. That’s basically my take on Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3. Everything after those films is something completely different, an add on, a spin off, whatever. I love the DarkHorse comics that continued the Aliens franchise. Those comics are really just fun after thoughts, Alien Resurrection is like a live action DarkHorse comic. Alien Resurrection is a fun film, but I put that in its own category. DarkHorse gave us another fun series of comics exploring the world of Predator, then Alien vs Preditor. In Predator 2 we got a glimpse of the Alien skull, are they connected? No, just a cool after thought…..oh wait, now we have the Alien vs Predator films. Again they can be fun, but I don’t consider them part of the Alien films or the Predator films. All of these things can be connected, but I like splitting them up so I can enjoy each of them. Basically if you lined them up on a shelf it would be Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 (fun alone or as a trilogy) Alien Ressurection, Predator, Predator 2, Predators (fun alone or as a trilogy), AVP 1&2, and Prometheus would just be at the end because really its not a part of all these films. Prometheus is a distant cousin of Alien. I also think of Alien, Blade Runner and Prometheus as a Scott’s Replicant trilogy.

         In closing I do love Prometheus, it kills some of my friends when I say that. Oh yeah, Prometheus takes place on Christmas and ends on New Year, so it’s a Christmas movie.


 - John Tatarelli Jr.
Art Of John Tatarelli Jr.
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Midnight Confessions Ep. 42: "It's a Wonderful Podcast"

December 21, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Tis the season and the M.C. crew are feeling the Christmas spirit. This week we review [or re-review in my case] SANTA'S SLAY (2005) and THE DAY OF THE BEAST(1995). Plus the Top 5 Xmas movies [non-horror] of all time. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!




Top 5 [non-horror] Xmas Movies
1. A Christmas Story (1983)
2. Die Hard (1988)
3. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vactation (1989)
4. Bad Santa (2003)
5. (tie) Scrooged (1988) / Home Alone (1990)
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Bikini Bloodbath Christmas (A Shitmas Post from The Moon is a Dead World's Ryne Barber!)

December 21, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Let me just start off by saying that I consider my review of Bikini Bloodbath Christmas my Christmas gift to you. Now you don’t have to watch it yourself, because I’m going to dash any hope of enjoyment you think you’ll get from watching some mostly nude, relatively unknown porn stars prance around a house decorated for the yuletide season. Sure, Debbie Rochon gets a really quick part in this, as well as a cameo from Lloyd Kaufman; but I’m convinced that by now, both of them will do anything to get in a film nowadays.



If you’re unfamiliar with the Bikini Bloodbath series, let me get you caught up: there have now been four films about bikini bloodbaths, each of them set in a different scenario so that directors Jonathan Gorman and Thomas Edward Seymour have ample room to recreate the same plot in different settings. All of them deal with a man named The Chef, a killer who, in every movie, hacks and slashes his way through a bunch of scantily-clad women who use about 0.5% of their brain capacity. There’s been a bloodbath at a carwash, a bloodbath at Christmas, and in 2013, even a Shakespearean bloodbath.

It’s easy to see how these movies could have some sort of fanbase; I’m sure there are many dudes who are afraid to buy porn in stores, so instead they opt for something like this softcore “movie” to get their rocks off. Unfortunately, this is only horror in the sense that you’ll constantly be checking the runtime to see how many more minutes need to tick off the clock before you’re done with this pile of shit.

Shit is a good word, too, for Bikini Bloodbath Christmas, because the directors seem to have a fascination with it. No less than three scenes of shitting are present in the film; there’s a scene where literal shit sandwiches are served, there’s another classy scene where Sapphire (Sarah Dauber) pisses and poos, and then bleeds, into a toilet, and the piece de resistance occurs when Gina Davis (Phil Hall) has the urge to blow so bad that he shits out a window, complete with a fake hairy arse pouring pudding out of its poop chute before getting a hammer shoved in.


You can probably see now that Bikini Bloodbath Christmas is the epitome of class, but if I haven’t made that clear yet, let me elaborate. Gorman and Seymour’s script is crass and gross in a Troma-esque way (their intentions, I’m sure), but that doesn’t excuse the deplorable way they treat their women. These girls are here for eye candy, and they know that. But that doesn’t mean that the dialogue should be so purely misogynistic. It’s played off for laughs and hayucks - haha, “cunt” is a funny word to call people, haha the girls are only here to show off their tits, haha calling a girl fat when she’s clearly not is now the high point of comedic genius! - but there’s definitely a feeling that, whatever the intentions of the directors, it’s not to make the girls of Bikini Bloodbath Christmas stand out as strong characters. It’s to get the male audience watching to see them as stupid sluts good for their bodies only, to foster the “dudes are better, so you should take your tops off” chauvinism.

BUT THERE’S CHRISTMAS. Sort of. Bikini Bloodbath Christmas looks like it’s set in someone’s unfinished house, or maybe it’s a porn shooting location based on the rolls and rolls of paper towels in the kitchen. A lot of work has been done to create a magical air of Christmas - there’s a strand of garland haphazardly thrown up on the windowsill, and a Santa Claus battles it out with another poorly costumed gent in a pool to decide who will be the real Santa on the block. And I really hope you like awful heavy metal with Christmas themes, because you’re going to hear a lot of it, sometimes repitiously! You’ll hear holiday greats like “Rudolph the Red Nosed Freak,” and then you know that a lot of time and hard work was put into making that song. It truly is a delight.

When writing a Shitmas review for Shit Movie Fest, part of me actually wants to recommend Bikini Bloodbath Christmas to you. If you’re reading this, you might actually like terrible movies in a hate-watching or drunken-stoned watching sort of way. If that’s the case, I think you’ve hit the motherlode here, because you have this and three other movies to marathon. And if you’re in that surly kind of mood that Christmas can often bring, whether it be because of the massive amounts of money flying out of your wallet or the in-laws hogging your house, then Bikini Bloodbath Christmas is a great way to get your frustrations out by hurling insults at the people who thought to make not one but three sequels to this pile of shit.

Watch the Full Movie on Youtube!

- Ryne Barber
The Moon is a Dead World
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A Very Merry Cricket (A Shitmas Post from Last Blog On Dead End Street's Thomas Kingsmill)

December 22, 2014, 9:00 pm
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When I finally sat down to watch A Very Merry Cricket, I had no idea that it was the sequel to an earlier cartoon, A Cricket in Times Square(also based on a book). So I was quite confused as to why a good half of Cricket Christmas is about a cat & mouse reminiscing about the Cricket, and trying to find him, all intertwined with flashbacks. SOme Google research after my initial viewing cleared all this up(there's even a third cartoon, Yankee Doodle Cricket, which i've yet to watch).

In the middle of Times Square, and the busiest shopping season of the year, best friends Tucker the Mouse and Harry the Cat(MASS HYSTERIA) are upset that the world seems to have lost the true sprit of Christmas. They decide that the only thing that will remind mankind what Christmas is all about, is local quasi-celebrity Chester C. Cricket. A Cricket who can mimic any piece of music he hears. Apparently in the first cartoon, Chester saved a train station magazine stand that was going broke with his music prowess.
Tucker & Harry train up to Connecticut, where Chester lives. The best part of the trip is the mangy alley cat who keeps trying to eat Tucker(or take him home to the wife and kids for them to eat).
They get Chester back to Times Square, with the hopes that maybe this one cricket can remind everyone what Christmas is all about. Somehow.


I can't be too harsh for the thin-as-paper plot, since this is a kids cartoon from '73, based on a kids book from the '60s, because it IS meant for kids. Plus the message about the Holiday is just as poignant now as it was in '73(unless you're the religious type, then the lack of Jesus may annoy you).
The main reasons to watch this special, for me at least, is the gorgeous animation by the great Chuck Jones, and Mel Blanc doing an off-brand Bugs Bunny voice for Tucker the mouse.

Included is the YouTube link to the whole cartoon, which I highly recommend giving a watch. Even better if you have kids. Mix it with viewings of Rudolph and Peanuts, which I feel that A Very Merry Cricket could stand beside today, all for it's simple message.


- Tom Kingsmill
Last Blog On Dead End Street
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