Apart from 2022, DEoL has been bringing you a round up of scary Christmas movies every year since 2018 (links to all the posts are at the bottom of this one). So here's my 2024 Christmas present to you.
But when the family arrive, they don’t quite get the welcome Aitana was hoping for. Apart from her brother Saúl (Jorge Motos), who is disabled due to a degenerative muscular disease, the rest of her folks give them a rather cool reception. This might have something to do with their having taken in a Romanian refugee, Nadia (Anna Kurikka) to whom mum and dad have transferred their attentions.
Relegated to a dismal tower bedroom because Nadia has been given Aitana’s room (and clothes), the new arrivals try as best they can to enjoy the pre Christmas celebrations. But Aitana is right not to trust the family cuckoo in the nest; there’s something sinister behind Nadia’s presence.
Seasoned horror fans will have guessed where this one’s heading the moment the rather overfamiliar friends of Aitana’s parents show up, but the pleasure of You Are Not Me is the slow slide from wonky domestic drama to something way darker.
This is Crespo and Romera’s first foray into horror and they’ve handled it really well. While events might take a familiar turn, the whole thing is well acted to the point that you can kind of overlook when characters do daft things in the name of plot progression. Silva’s role – and her overall passivity – remain decidedly undercooked, but this is a minor grumble. You Are Not Me is a competent, well put together horror/drama.
Steeds regular David Lenik, who also wrote the script for this, plays Chester Van Buren, returning to his childhood home of Copper Grove 17 years after a killer in a Santa Claus outfit broke into the place and murdered his parents back in 1963, Chester being a young boy at the time.
He's accompanied by his not-all-that-she-seems girlfriend Afton (Nellie Spackman) and his anxiety on returning to the place that he inherited is not helped by it now being occupied by sitting tenants Aunt Marion (Caroline Williams), sarcastic Burke (Cedric Gegel) and his partner Melody (Natalie Veater). There's some comfort in knowing that his parents' killer, one Henry Bates, has been captured and locked up for life (and also that his childhood sweetheart Eden (Peyton Michelle Edwards) still lives in the area) but if Chester felt that all he had to contend with over the holidays was bickering relatives, he didn't count on the bodies piling up once again while the rest of the family hatch a plan to deprive him of his true inheritance.
Steeds is perhaps a better creator of mood than sharp characterisation, hence his reliance on things being rather bitchy and over the top. As Melody at one point exclaims, the year being 1980 means that JR's just been shot in Dallas, the world has lost a Beatle and an ex actor has been elected as President; crazy times indeed, matched by the soap operaesque infighting and plot hatching of the house's occupants.
A mix of US talent (Williams as the mouthy Marion is probably the best thing in this) mixes with a smattering of UK cast members including Lenik and Nicholas Vince as his psychiatrist, making the project feel US authentic. Steeds as ever makes a great DoP and if the pacing sometimes slows a little, there's a cracking axe wielding final reel in true slasher stylee.
The death has huge ramifications; basically Christmas is cancelled, misery abounds and the joy of the holiday fades into memory. But 12 years later Max (Jared Korotkin) and Paige (Ophelia Rivera) are now precocious science students; Paige has found a way to bring life to a formerly dead rat and, unbeknownst to her, Max has nicked the principle and is stealing bodies from the local morgues - the portlier the better - to assemble...Santastein! But the resurrected corpse shares little of Mr Claus's bonhomie and before long is leaving a trail of death and destruction across town.
There's a lot of different themes milling about in this one and none of them really come off. The whole 'Christmas is cancelled' idea remains largely unexplored, and there's rather more time than necessary devoted to a party held by unpopular student Mikayla (Kaylie Heyner) which is an excuse for 'comedy' hi jinks. The directors do manage a more exciting final reel (pretty good for an obviously small budget) and the resurrection sequence conjures up a definite 1980s vibe (complemented by a great retro score by Austin Hammonds). It's ok but arguably needed to be a little more manic and tightened up, a great idea that somewhat fails in execution.
The resolutely low budget/DIY Advent 'stars' Bulgarian Rasina Pavlova as American Hayley, whose interests and academic background have concentrated on urban legends. Hayley becomes fixated on the Krampus Calendar, a fiendish version of the traditional one where each of the December windows offers up a challenge, the 'prize' being that once completed the devil takes your soul.
Now you and I would politely refuse the challenge, but curious Hayley pays five hundred smackers for such a calendar and, via her YouTube channel, documents the opening of the calendar one day and one challenge at a time, the camera being wielded by friend Charlie (Cian Lorcan) while her drunk father Joe (Corey Peterson), still in mourning following the death of Hayley's mother, casts a doleful figure. The resultant footage, beginning rather benignly but building to successively sinister challenges as the Calendar doors are opened, is commented on by an acquaintance of Hayley and fellow academic Richard Hill (Nicholas Vince again); Hill gets to fill in the blanks on the history of the Calendar, while in true M R James style, the curious Hayley pays the price for her dabbling.
Advent is very rough around the edges; there are spelling mistakes in the captions and the 'mixed media' approach of animation and 'found footage' camerawork doesn't really work. But it's good to see a movie maintaining its dystopian chops right through to the end, and the gloomy suburban backdrop makes a satisfyingly prosaic setting for the weird events onscreen.
The 'Santa Hat' gang, so named because they're all dressed up in (oh you fill in the blanks) have liberated a cool $1 million in a bank heist, and are now laying low at a motel. The obliging manager, Colin (Paul Whitney) keeps mum about them hiding out, but he's got his own problems; namely his ability to repay a gambling debt to the local heavies. Oh and he's also shielding a nest of female vampires elsewhere in the establishment.
The bank robbers, all using seasonal aliases, are headed by a pair of Brits; Father Christmas (Simon Phillips) and his sidekick Snowman, so named because of his chemical obsessions rather than his love of the season (Michael Swatton). In true Die Hard heist tradition, the gang includes a young tech wizard, Prancer (Luke Avoledo), whose function is to set up surveillance to help them remain undetected until their wing man, Rudolph (Dan Molson), turns up with the getaway car.
But the vampire girls. a 'family' under the tutelage of Mother (Sayla de Goede) become restless. Fed up with teasing a captive local, Genie (Camille Blott) who they plan on turning, they venture out to meet the boys. A showdown is inevitable, but will the 'Santa Hat' gang be able to escape?
As mentioned, Silent Bite doesn't have much original going on, but it has the advantage of real snow, a cosy provincial location (the Jolly Roger Inn outside Toronto which, the credits inform us, also provided the cast and crew catering) and some lively characterisation. It plays a bit fast and loose with the mythology (vampire death by silver spoon anyone?) but the comic book approach works well and it has a less tacked on holiday feel than some other seasonal fright flicks I could mention.
The girls know little about Carla, who seemed estranged from their late parents, and the unhappy air is made worse with the arrival of Carla's son Charlie (Mark Rush) and his socially awkward son Daniel (Tom Marchant). Cousin Charlotte (Claudia Adlam) was also due to attend, but decided to stay away; permanently, as it happens, as she's the first victim of Krampus aka Frau Perchta (Jeanne de Rougemont), a creature who haunts the family, picking them off one by one to fulfill an ancient curse.
This is the second 'Krampus' film funded by Rebecca Matthews's company Proportion Productions, which she started back in 2017 with the equally prolific Scott Jeffrey; it's a creature that seems to obsess low budget filmmakers, which is possibly down to the fact that you only need a fright mask and a Santa suit to create your monster. In Granny Krampus we don't get a full view of the creature until the movie's last half hour; director Bell teases with a full hour of drawn out chat which only emphasises the poor script and indifferent acting (although Marchant's grumpy teen is rather authentic). The Christmas mood is limited to a few bits of tinsel (the exterior scenes look like they were shot in summer; one cast member even wears shorts) and the whole thing is pretty awful until the last twenty minutes or so when the horror elements are (finally) introduced.
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