March 17th, 2015 - Red Clover (2012)

Happy St. Patrick's Day! After missing out on my last day-specific opportunity (Friday the 13th), I was determined to make good on St. Patty's and find something appropriate. And I didn't want to watch any Leprechaun sequels... so I ended up with Red Clover. It apparently premiered on Syfy (eek!) as a part of a Leprechaun-themed marathon, under the title of Leprechaun's Revenge - probably to try and trick people into thinking they would be seeing some Warwick Davis action. And what kind of themed marathon would that be anyways? I don't think there are any other Leprechaun horror movies out there. So you're pretty much just watching a bunch of Leprechaun movies, topped off with an (unrelated, mind you) Red Clover.

Anyways, despite it's reputation of (a) premiering on SyFy, and (b) being a killer leprechaun movie, it's actually pretty good. It's cheesy at times, but overall it is quality b-movie fun. It's not going to blow anyone away, but certainly a worthy holiday watch. I'd watch this again over any of the Leprechaun films, for what it's worth.

December 25th, 2014 - Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972)

Merry Christmas everyone! What better way to celebrate than with a slow-burn early 70s horror flick that looks like it was lifted from a VHS tape? One that has only tenuous ties to Christmas at best? Actually, it was a pretty darn good way to wile away the afternoon hours - Silent Night, Bloody Night is a pretty slow but ultimately entertaining little murder mystery, with a strong and legitimately disturbing climax/explanation (which I won't ruin - but will also make this kind of short).

Really, you could place this at any time of year and it would still be an effective chiller - you'd just have to lose the creepy choral versions of "Silent Night" and you'd be good to go. The story starts with a voiceover from Diane Adams (Mary Woronov), telling the tale of the old Butler house, which local-lore has pegged as cursed and/or haunted. It used to be owned by the wealthy Wilfred Butler, who was killed in 1950 by being "accidentally" burned to death. (This scene is actually pretty well done and sets a good tone for the film - a nice, long, quiet shot of the house, until a man bursts out of the door, screaming and engulfed in flames.) In his will, he passes the house down to his only surviving relative, his grandson Jeffrey. But the will states that the house is to be kept exactly as it is - "standing untouched as a reminder to the world of it's inhumanity and cruelty." Um... okay.  As the film goes on, you start to learn a little more about why Mr. Butler would have felt that way, but it seems like a pretty harsh thing to say in your will.

December 24th, 2014 - Saint Nick (2010)

Saint Nick is a Christmas-ish flick that has been lurking around in my Neflix queue for a really long time. I'm always in the mood for a killer Santa film around the holiday season, although in the past I've opted for Rare Exports and Christmas Evil. This one is about St. Nicholas Day - which I'm pretty sure we don't care about here in the US - although I don't go to church or anything so who knows? There's no "St. Nicholas Day Savings Spectacular!" sales though, so I assume it doesn't exist here. So even though it isn't a Christmas film proper I was pretty excited. A Santa-ish guy slaughters naughty kids? And anyone else who gets in his way? Sign me up!

Sadly, I was pretty let down. I don't know if it was my anti-Christmas mood (I'm sort of a scrooge), but it didn't sit well with me. It's decently made - there are some solid deaths with creative gore (too much of it CGI sadly) and a decent mean streak - but ultimately the whole thing is kind of hollow. There's this corny semi-comedic tone that kind of ruins everything - the jokes rarely land and it muddles anything that could be considered scary or tense. And I don't know if it's meant to be scary - it's more like a zom-com with a wintry twist (St. Nick has helpers that are basically zombie pirates). But ultimately, the most damning flaw is a really, really poor English dubbing job. It's so distracting that it made it difficult to enjoy the film on its own merits. I would have loved to see it in Dutch with subtitles, because just about everyone in this version sounds like a complete doofus.