Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker

There was an uproar when the original Silent Night, Deadly Night movie came out. People got upset. Mickey Rooney called the filmmakers "scum" who should be "run out of town." There was no uproar when Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker came out. No one noticed. And Mickey Rooney quietly cashed the check he got for playing Joe Petto in the movie. The Toy Maker doesn't have anything to do with any of the other Silent Night, Deadly Night movies. The story focuses on a young boy terrorized by killer toys. It's an odd movie. It's definitely more on brand than the last sequel. Mickey Rooney does a good job with the material. He's clearly slumming it, but he doesn't phone in his performance. Best sequel in the series?

Rating: 45%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: In one scene, an episode of Rambo: The Force of Freedom is playing on the TV in Derek's house.

Visions of Deadly Nights Past:

Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four

A Christmas Quacker

It's Christmastime in Transylvania. As the residents of Castle Duckula wait for the arrival of Santa Claus, their adversaries draw ever closer. The Crow Brothers, a quartet of dimwitted thieves, are once again attempting to scale the castle walls. While Dr. Von Goosewing, the bumbling vampire hunter, stumbles through the castle eager to use his latest invention against Count Duckula. The Count needn't worry though, his enemies (much like his staff) are not very good at what they do. "A Christmas Quacker" starts and ends very Christmas oriented, but there's a chunk in the middle where Duckula gets lost in a pulpy comic book. It's a bit disjointed, much like the series in general.

Rating: Books%

Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July

I gave up trying to understand the logic of Rankin/Bass specials a long time ago. Now, when I watch them, I just let the madness wash over me. It's so much easier that way. That said, I still had a hard time with Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July. It's a feature length special, which is way too long. Also, it takes two of the heaviest hitters from Rankin/Bass' roster of Christmas characters and puts them in a circus in the summertime. I did actually like that they retconned Rudolph's backstory. He now has a convoluted origin for his shiny nose. Unfortunately, turning Frosty into a stop motion animated character did nothing to elevate him in my opinion. He still sucks. They did a good job setting up the villain, the evil King Winterbolt. And there were snow dragons and a creepy ice genie and even a corrupt reindeer named Scratcher. So, I guess I'm saying, it wasn't very good but it had some good elements. Not recommended, unless you are a Rankin/Bass completist.

Rating: Toy Boat%

Have Yourself a Merry Winslow Christmas

Family Matters, a spin-off of Perfect Strangers, went through a lot of changes over the course of its nine seasons. Steve Urkel, perhaps the biggest breakout character of the 90s, was barely in the show's first season. He was added to the main cast the following year and became a big part of most episodes. By the time of this Christmas episode in season two, there were nine people featured in the opening credits. Not all of them would last the show's entire run. Kid sister Judy would be written out of the show after season four. Ditto for Aunt Rachel. Little Richie started getting phased out of the show after season seven. Mother Winslow left the main cast after season eight. And Harriet Winslow, the character that actually crossed over from Perfect Strangers, left the show midway through the last season. But in "Have Yourself a Merry Winslow Christmas" they're all together. Singing Christmas songs, decorating the house and eating Christmas treats. Carl tries to help Rachel get a Freddy Teddy for Richie. Laura yells at Urkel after he accidentally breaks her favorite ornament. Later, she feels bad and reluctantly invites Steve to spend Christmas with the Winslows. And, after a little Christmas magic, the episode ends with the whole cast singing around the tree. Something not even Urkel could ruin.

Rating: CD Player%

Fun Fact: Reginald VelJohnson, who played Carl Winslow, played Sgt. Al Powell in Die Hard and Die Hard 2.

Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever

Here's something that few people can say or would admit: I bought Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever on DVD. Don't judge me. Now, did I buy it because I thought it would be good? No. Did I buy it ironically? No. I bought it because, as someone who loves Christmas specials and also once received a Grumpy Cat shirt as a gift, I felt it was my duty. And I'm honestly glad I watched it on DVD. Because, before the special played, there were trailers for other Lifetime movies and something called Gummibär: The Yummy Gummy Search for Santa, which looked like garbage. I was left thinking that there was no way the Grumpy Cat special could be as bad as what I saw in the trailers. And it wasn't. It was fine. It had a few laughs. Aubrey Plaza was perfectly cast as the voice of Grumpy Cat. I didn't hate it.

Rating: A Grumpy Cat Mug%

(Image from Amazon)

A Terminal Christmas

Wings ran for eight seasons, over 170 episodes, and yet it has virtually no cultural footprint these days. I place some of the blame on the theme song. Instead of going with something upbeat or catchy, they used a classical piano sonata. It didn't exactly set the mood for a workplace sitcom. In "A Terminal Christmas," everyone's Christmas plans get cancelled at the last minute. In an effort to salvage the holiday, they decide to crash a co-workers Christmas party. Only to find her alone, mourning her late husband. To cheer her up, they take her out to sea to spread her late husband's ashes. Hijinks ensue.

Rating: Golf Bag%

Christmas in Tattertown

It amazes me that Ralph Bakshi, the man behind the X-Rated Fritz the Cat film, was ever involved in children's animation. Not that his forays into family friendly cartoons weren't without their own controversies. Christmas in Tattertown started out as a pilot for an ongoing series, a series that was abruptly cancelled after some moral watchdog groups raised a stink over Bakshi's Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. Both that series and Christmas in Tattertown were aggressively weird, but ultimately harmless. In the Christmas Special, a young girl and her dolls are transported to Tattertown, the place where discarded things come to life. While searching for one of her dolls, the young girl decides to teach the residents of Tattertown all about Christmas. The special tries to cram in way too many characters and world building details, which makes sense given its origins as a pilot. I can't imagine that a Tattertown series would have lit the world on fire, but the special does make for an interesting artifact.

Rating: Dolls%

Ernest Saves Christmas

I get that Ernest isn't everyone's cup of tea. The movies look cheap and they're clearly made for children. The humor is big, broad and basic. I can't deny any of those criticisms. However, I know I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Ernest Saves Christmas. It's probably the first movie I ever saw in theatres twice. It's the first thing I think of whenever I see something else with "Saves Christmas" in the title. And while it's not a movie I go back to often, whenever I do, I still enjoy it. Case in point, not even the ancient DVD I watched for this review, which showed the movie in widescreen but was not formatted for a widescreen TV, could hinder my enjoyment of the movie. Know what I mean?

Rating: 69%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Robert Lesser, who played Marty, played the businessman in Die Hard who told McClane that he should take off his shoes and walk around barefoot.

Deck the Halls

It's Christmas break and Will is disappointed in the lack of Christmas Spirit, both within the Banks' household and in Bel-Air in general. After seeing the understated decorations Aunt Viv has picked out, Will decides to decorate the Banks' home in his own way. He ends up going way over the top. His garish decorations wind up upsetting most of the neighbors, including special guest star Evander Holyfield. But the lights also inspire some carolers to stop by, sparking the Christmas Spirit in young Ashley. It's only after (a poor facsimile of) Ronald Reagan drops by to compliment the family that everyone comes together to enjoy the holidays.

Rating: Chocolate Covered Pretzels%

A Cup o' Tea an' a Slice o' Cake

A few years after he finished his run as The Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee played a scarecrow in the popular children's series Worzel Gummidge. Since I had just finished watching Pertwee's stint on Doctor Who earlier this year, I thought it would be fitting to watch the Worzel Gummidge Christmas Special "A Cup o' Tea an' a Slice o' Cake." And now, having just watched it, I can tell you that it is almost incomprehensibly British. Also, the scarecrows in the special look and move like zombies, which is a little unsettling. In the special, as far as I can tell, Worzel sets out to ask Aunt Sally to accompany him to the Scarecrow's Ball. He winds up getting into some skirmishes with the various people and scarecrows he meets along the way. I might have gotten more out of it had I watched it with subtitles and a British person who could provide some cultural context.

Rating: Mince Pie%

(Image from Amazon)

Xmas Marks the Spot

On their way back from a job upstate, the Ghostbusters pass through a time slip and end up in Victorian England. Without realizing it, they wind up busting the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. After they return home, they notice that no one is celebrating Christmas and everyone is acting very Scrooge-like. To set things right and save Christmas, Egon goes into the containment unit to recover the Christmas Spirits while the rest of the guys go back through the time slip to teach Scrooge the lessons he was meant to learn. Along the way, Peter confronts his own issues with Christmas and comes to terms with some of the resentment he has towards his father. In the end, Christmas is saved and everyone raises a glass of some mysterious blue liquid that probably should have been painted another color to indicate that it was either punch or eggnog.

Rating: A Valuable Lesson%

Fun Fact: Lorenzo Music, who did the voice for Peter Venkman, also did the voice for Garfield for many years.

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, based on the novelty song of the same name, has real first draft vibes. It takes place in Cityville, the bad guy is the CEO of a company called the Own-All Corporation and there's an evil lawyer named I.M. Slime. It's not exactly sophisticated material. In the special, Grandma does in fact get run over by a reindeer. She survives but gets amnesia as a result of the accident. Santa then takes her to the North Pole for medical treatment. Meanwhile, back in Cityville, greedy Cousin Mel uses Grandma's disappearance as an opportunity to trick Grandpa into signing over power of attorney. Cousin Mel then kidnaps Grandma, tries to sell the family store to Austin Bucks and has Santa arrested. Because what kid in the early 2000s wouldn't want to watch their favorite late-70s novelty Christmas song get turned into an animated legal dramedy?

Rating: Fruit Cake%

A Christmas Story

The premise of Perfect Strangers was always a little bit hacky. It was basically The Odd Couple, except that one of the roommates was Yakov Smirnoff. But, to the show's credit, the two lead actors had great chemistry and their physical humor was on point. In their first Christmas episode, Larry tries to cheer up Balki, who's a little sad about spending Christmas away from his family on Mypos. They're all set to go to Wisconsin for the holidays when a blizzard rears its ugly head, forcing them to cancel their plans. This sends Larry into a deep depression and then it becomes Balki's turn to cheer up his cousin. The jokes and references in the show are all very dated now but the final product was still pretty sweet and funny.

Rating: Christmas Turtle%

Cricket on the Hearth

I've never really been a fan of Charles Dickens. It's probably because I hated reading Great Expectations in high school. He comes up a lot at Christmas though. I actually have to go out of my way each year to avoid reviewing too many adaptations of A Christmas Carol. So it came as both a surprise and a disappointment when I learned that Dickens had actually written a number of books centered around Christmas. And one of them was the basis of the Rankin/Bass special Cricket on the Hearth. The special, which differs somewhat from the novella, is the dour tale of a widowed toymaker, his daughter and the cricket they invite into their home for some reason. When the daughter's fiancée is lost a sea, she goes blind and the family falls on hard times. They end up working for a heartless miser who wants to marry the blind daughter. There's also a bunch of talking animals in the special and some toys that come to life for a few minutes. It's weird. Not as weird as some of Rankin/Bass' other animated specials, but weird nonetheless.

Rating: Toy Elephant%

Santa Jaws

This past October, I went searching through Amazon Prime Video for Bruno Mattei's notorious Jaws rip-off Cruel Jaws. It wasn't available at the time but, in my efforts to find that movie, I discovered the streaming service had a movie called Santa Jaws in its library. Which I ended up watching based, almost exclusively, on the teaser image. Knowing full well that Santa Jaws couldn't possibly be very good, I went in with low expectations. It ended up being even worse than I thought it could be. In the movie, a teen receives a magical pen that brings his comic book creation, a killer shark named Santa Jaws, to life. Santa Jaws then begins picking off the teen's family and friends one by one. Does the magical pen hold the key to defeating Santa Jaws or has it all just been a nightmare? I'm not even sure the filmmakers could tell you because the ending seems to play it both ways.

Rating: 41%

(Image from Amazon)

A Bionic Christmas Carol

After a devastating crash, astronaut Colonel Steve Austin's body is rebuilt with bionic appendages. He then reluctantly goes to work for OSI, the Office of Scientific Intelligence. His new boss at OSI, Oscar Goldman, sends Steve out on various covert missions. Recovering hostages, stopping terrorists, fighting Bigfoot. You know, boring government stuff. "A Bionic Christmas Carol" finds Steve investigating possible sabotage at a government contractor's facility. Instead of sabotage, Steve finds only the miserly Mr. Budge. While it turns out that Mr. Budge is not doing anything illegal, he is guilty of being a real prick. Forcing his employees to work through Christmas and treating his nephew, Bob Crandall, like shit. When Mr. Budge accidentally overdoses, Steve uses it as an opportunity to teach Mr. Budge the error of his ways. Come for the heartwarming story, stay for the sequence where Steve carves a tombstone from a slab using only karate chops.

Rating: Forgiveness%

Sonic: Christmas Blast

I typed "Christmas" into Amazon Prime Video and it came back with Sonic: Christmas Blast. While I knew there had been Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons, I had never considered that there might also be a Sonic the Hedgehog Christmas Special. And, I must tell you, it left me asking some difficult questions. Has any adaptation of a video game ever been good? Was the terrible animation in the special because of a rush job or did the show's regular episodes look just as bad? Were all the things I liked from my youth actually crappy? Was my decision to double up on Christmas reviews this year a mistake? It was a lot to process.

Rating: Rings%

Christmas Show

I used to have trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve when I was a kid. I would be so excited for Christmas morning that I would toss and turn all night. I would check the alarm clock over and over again, counting down the hours until I was allowed to get up. One year, in an effort to alleviate my yuletide insomnia, I decided to sneak in some late night TV. But because it was either the late eighties or early nineties, my options were limited. I ended up watching a few episodes of I Love Lucy that night. I hated it. It was worse than the insomnia. It never really stood a chance though. I was a kid, all jacked up on Christmas, and it was a black and white TV show that was already very old at the time. And, up until I watched "The I Love Lucy Christmas Special" DVD, that was the last time I intentionally watched the show. Seeing it this time around, as a middle aged man, proved to be much more enjoyable. The special, which originally aired in 1956, featured Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel reminiscing about the good times while trimming the tree on Christmas Eve. Those good times being, of course, flashbacks to earlier episodes. Despite thinking I would hate it, just like I did when I was a kid, I actually found it charming and wholesome. The theatricality of the show and goofy, slapstick humor really worked for me this time around. Go figure.

Rating: Train Set%

Garfield's Thanksgiving

Of the three Garfield holiday specials, I have to assume that Garfield's Thanksgiving gets the least love. Despite being an ardent Garfield fan growing up, I'm not even sure I saw this special back when it originally aired. In the interest of full disclosure though, I did grow up in Canada and our relationship with the Thanksgiving holiday is much different than it is in the United States. Our Thanksgiving is in October and it only lasts two days max. Thanksgiving in America seems to last a week and a half. In Garfield's Thanksgiving, Jon is finally able to wear down Dr. Liz and convince her to go on a date with him. He invites her over for Thanksgiving dinner. And while I've never thought of Thanksgiving as a date holiday, it's not like these 24 minutes were going to fill themselves. Jon totally drops the ball when it comes to dinner prep, so it's Grandma to the rescue. Grandma, last seen in A Garfield Christmas, totally kills it in the kitchen and ends up being the highlight of the special. Everyone enjoys the meal, some jokes are made about going on a diet and the credits roll.

Rating: Grandma's Sweet Potatoes%

(Image from IMDB)

Nightmare City

aka City of the Walking Dead

Nightmare City is, technically, not a zombie movie. Umberto Lenzi, the director, wanted people to think of it as a "radiation sickness" movie. It has a lot in common with The Crazies and The Return of the Living Dead. The ghouls in the movie look a lot like the Toxic Avenger. They don't eat flesh like a zombie would, but they do drink the blood of the living. And while they are not opposed to biting people, they're just as likely to stab or shoot their victims. Since this is an Italian horror movie, it should come as no surprise that it has a funky score and lots of goopy gore. There are also a number of particularly dangerous looking stunts in the movie. And there's even an eye gouging sequence that almost rivals the splinter scene in Lucio Fulci's Zombie. The ending sucks though.

Rating: 65%

(Image from TMDB)

IT

 

An ancient cosmic fear monster terrorizes/murders kids in a small Maine town, so the local cadre of misfit preteens decides to stop it in 1960 and again in 1990. For a basically PG-13 rated TV-movie this is pretty well done. Though (SPOILERS) I do think it's a little bunk that while everybody goes out and gets rich the black kid has to stay behind to be a poor local historian and the Jewish kid kills himself before taking on It the second time. 

RATING: 60%

The Invisible Man

A lot of the Universal Monsters inspire sympathy, not the Invisible Man. He's a straight-up murderous asshole. He's the kind of guy who can calmly sit in a study and say to someone, "we'll begin with a reign of terror." He goes from zero to murder in no time at all. Having been driven mad by the chemicals in his formula, the Invisible Man spends most of his time lashing out at colleagues and simple townsfolk. At one point, he even knocks over a baby carriage. A baby carriage, for God's sake.

Rating: 69%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Graveyard Shift

 

In this completely forgettable adaptation of a completely forgettable Stephen King short story, some rats in a local cotton mill are wilding out because of their rat boss, a giant flying rat. Hey isn't a flying rat just a bat? That's what the Germans would have me believe anyway. Anyway who gets called in to solve the monster problem? A salvage crew of course!

RATING: 44%

Deadly Friend

There are two things in Deadly Friend that really stand out. The first is BB, the robot. BB looks like a shittier version of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit and sounds like R2D2, if R2D2 had been voiced by Stripe from Gremlins. The other thing that really stands out in the movie is the scene where Kristy Swanson's character throws a basketball at Anne Ramsey's head and her head blows up real good. It's almost as good as the exploding head in Scanners, almost. And even though Deadly Friend's exploding head has been meme'd to death, the best part of the scene is actually what happens right after the explosion.You get to see the headless body run around the room spurting blood for a few seconds before it flops to the floor. It might have been my favorite part of the movie.

Rating: 59%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Tales From the Darkside: The Movie

 

In this anthology, based on George Romero's TV show I've always wanted to see but it's never available to stream or rent, there are three little tales of horror/irony, including a mummy one, an evil cat one, and a gargoyle one. There's also a cannibal Debbie Harry wraparound one. The best one (and the one Stephen King and George Romero wrote) is "The Cat From Hell," in which an unscrupulous pharmaceutical dude hires a hit man to kill a cat he's convinced is trying to kill him. The one they clearly spent all their FX budget on though is the last one, which is also the most boring. Anyway, it's an ok if very 90s anthology if you want to see an extremely young Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, and Christian Slater.

RATING: 63%

Shivers

aka They Came from Within

Only minutes away from downtown Montreal, the Starliner Towers apartment complex has everything you could possibly need. Cable television in every room, an Olympic size swimming pool, onsite health care professionals, and parasites that send you into a sex crazed fury. Cronenberg's first commercial feature film, if you can call it that, proved to be both successful and controversial. Many critics balked at the film's combination of sex and violence. Some Canadian critics were especially upset that the film had received some of its funding from the federal government. The movie shares some similarities with Cronenberg's following film, Rabid, along with movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Crazies. Personally, the thing that surprised me most about the film was a car crash stunt that seemed just a little too realistic.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Pet Sematary

 

A family moves to rural Maine just off a busy highway where they befriend Herman Munster, who helpfully directs the father to a secret resurrection burial ground whenever the family cat dies. The cat comes back, the very next day even, except it stinks and is extra jerky because of going against the laws of God and nature and science and etc. Hey I'd still do it to bring back any of my dead cats. As you can guess, the movie is not just about bringing pets back from the dead whenever the family's toddler is killed by a semi truck in a wild example of poor parenting. First, they shoulda put a fence around their yard as soon as the kid was almost hit by a truck months earlier. Second, the kid runs like 50 yards toward the busy road while the whole family watches and it only dawns on them to try and stop him when they see a truck in the distance. Anyhoo, the kid dies and is buried and his dad is like hmm, maybe I'll dig him up and try that titular sematary again. In movies and shows people are always digging up graves but I hope I never have to do it - it seems like hard work! The kid comes back a little jerkier and killier and nobody lives happily ever after but at least Denise Crosby gets in the last... jab.

RATING: 78%

Brain Damage

Brain Damage is a wildly original and inventive horror/exploitation movie. It's goofy and gross. It's trippy and tragic. It's clever and crass. The special effects, which are clearly low budget, are fantastic. Some of the acting in the movie is bad and broad, but the performances from the lead actor and Elmer the talking parasite are quite good. There is, however, one scene in the movie (quite possibly the most infamous scene in the film) which features an act of sexualized violence that is so over the top and cruel that it honestly tainted my overall enjoyment of the movie. Caveat emptor.

Rating: 68%

(Image from IMDB)

The Running Man

 

In the distant future of (checks notes) 2019 the evil government frames a dude who wouldn't kill a bunch of innocent civilians in a food riot and sentences him to go on a game show where he fights... to the death! It's peak Arnold one-liner land, which isn't to say they're all winners, but even the bad ones are so unzing they work (hey lighthead!). And really, who, in a life or death situation with the fate of the country at steak would just make relentless pithy jokes, anyway? Oh right, memes.

RATING: 70%

Check out Creepshow 2 here!

Strange Behavior

aka Dead Kids

There's something wrong with the kids at Galesburg University. Instead of turning up for class, they keep turning up... dead. The police are baffled. The bodies are piling up. And no one, NO ONE, is safe.

Dead Kids

Rated R

Strange Behavior is both a slasher flick and a mad scientist movie, with hints of early Cronenberg and De Palma thrown in the mix. It's supposed to take place in rural Illinois, but it was clearly filmed in New Zealand. The pacing is a little slow and the narrative unfolds somewhat haphazardly, but it remains fascinating to watch. Well shot and scored, with an effective balance of tension and atmosphere.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Scott Brady, who played Shea, played Sheriff Frank in Gremlins.

The Twilight Zone - "Gramma"

 

A kid is left home with his sickly grandmother that he's a little scared of - like, duh! Check out that picture! There's a lot of distracting internal monologuing that screenwriter Harlan Ellison decided to have the characters think aloud, but pretty decent dread from a mostly forgettable Stephen King story.

RATING: 53%