Red Christmas (2016)

Episode 152, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Craig: Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Craig.

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: And it’s one of our many favorite times of the year. It’s, the Christmas season again, and we look forward to this every year. Every year, we try to find some Christmas movies to bring to you in the month of December, and, we’re gonna continue the tradition this year. This year, we are starting out with the movie that we actually had on the schedule for last year and just didn’t really get around to. I think we just ended up picking something else at the last minute. This week, we are gonna be talking about Red Christmas I don’t know how up and coming he is, but

Todd: Depends on how positive you wanna be, I suppose, about his his career. You’re right.

Craig: He made, this film in 2016 on what I hear was just kind of a shoestring budget. We’ll talk about, I suppose, how we think his efforts played out, but I I will say that, you know, for for a low budget film that was filmed in Australia, it, I’ll just it it’s worth talking about. Okay.

Todd: Fair enough. You know, it is a movie. It does exist. Take the efforts of people to put together, and so, therefore, yeah, it’s worth talking about. Like, you know, you baked a cake, and, the cake is it may not be the best cake in the world. It may, in fact, taste awful, but it’s worth at least nibbling at. Right? Right. You gotta give it a try.

Craig: No. I don’t know. Really, you know, I don’t think that this is a bad movie. What what attracted me to this movie, is Dee Wallace. Dee Wallace is an actress who’s been around forever. She was, really pretty big and mainstream in the I don’t know, maybe even the late seventies, but especially during the eighties. And she was in some big mainstream stuff, like she was in, The Howling. I remember her most from my childhood. She was the mom in ET, and I loved her in ET. She was so sweet and just such a a cool mom, in that movie. And and so I I grew up, really liking her, and and since then, she has really been working mostly in the horror genre, and she pops up all over the place. Yeah. Anymore, she tends to end up kind of in more of these lower budget films. But she she still does some, you know, bigger stuff too. She’s worked with Rob Zombie, and I just really like her. And I will say that though I don’t think this is a great movie, I also don’t think it’s a terrible movie. I really liked her in this. I mean, I just think that she has a presence and she’s a good actress, you know, even when given not the best material. She makes the best of it that she can, and I thought she did a good job in this movie. And and, frankly, had she not been in it, I don’t know that I would have enjoyed it all that much at all. But because she was in it, I I had a little bit of an emotional investment in her character. So yeah. I don’t know. What’d you think?

Todd: Because you have a crush on Dee Wallace, that saved the film.

Craig: I do kind of have I have, like, a I have, like, a mom crush on Dee Wallace. Like, I love my mom. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t trade my mom. She’s she’s great. But, you know, if I had to pick a a new one, Dee Wallace might be on the list. She’s cool. You know, we’ve talked about her before. She was in Cujo, put in an amazing, performance there. Stephen King Stephen King has said that of all of his film adaptations, he likes her performance in Cujo the most, which says a lot because there have been a lot of Stephen King adaptations. And Mhmm. You know, you’ve got Kathy Bates in Misery, and Stephen King doesn’t like The Shining, but you’ve got Jack Nicholson in The Shining. So for him to say that her performance is the fate his favorite, you know, I think that that says something. And I I get it. I don’t know. There’s just something about her. She’s a cool lady.

Todd: Well, I’m I’m not gonna crap all over Dee Wallace in your presence. Better not. I I think I agree with you. I think she’s fine, and she put put in, you know, she did the best she could with this material. She was a producer on this movie, I guess. Yeah. I’m not sure exactly what that means. If she was if she coaxed it all out. It. Maybe threw some money behind it or, you know, pulled in some favors for the for the this first, you know, not first time director. But, anyway, he’s early in his career. Hasn’t done a whole lot. Looks like he’s done some TV, maybe, in Australia or something like that. But, I I thought this was a terrible movie. I really, the movie just made me more and more angry the more I watched it. So, you know, I just, I didn’t think that she was enough to elevate the material. I just thought, oh, my Todd. I just it was hard for me to get through this and then when we were done with it, I was just mad.

Craig: Well, you know, I I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised to hear that you didn’t like it because it’s not a great movie. I I I’m a little bit surprised that you felt so strongly, about it. Oh, dude. The more

Todd: it just went on and on and on. We’ll talk about it. We’ll talk about why.

Craig: Right. And and there are things about it that I find to be problematic and there are things that I feel like I’m gonna want to apologize or, like, give disclaimers to our listeners

Todd: about it. Well, you didn’t make the movie, Craig. You don’t have to defend it if you don’t want to.

Craig: Well, that’s that’s that’s true. That’s true. And at the same time that, you know, some of the things that some of the choices that the writer slash director made, I don’t know. I I find to be a little iffy. But at the same time, it’s different. I’ll give it that. I’ll give it that. It’s different. I’ve never seen okay. So it’s a slasher and I’ve seen a 1,000,000 slashers and in many ways it’s, you know, relatively typical in that way. It also is very reminiscent. Did it remind you of You’re Next?

Todd: Yes. A lot.

Craig: Yeah. It reminded me of You’re Next a lot, but not nearly as good. Yeah. Not nearly as good. I actually quite enjoyed that movie, but it follows a similar structure in that it’s a family coming together for the holidays and being besieged by this menacing presence who then starts to kind of pick them off, 1 by 1. Menacing presence. The the in I don’t know if

Todd: you’d call

Craig: it interesting. Yeah. I don’t know if you’d call it interesting or unique or what you’d call it, but it there’s a twist on this one in that the opening scene opens up in an abortion clinic, and it’s shot in such a way that you really kind of only see people’s legs and arms, like, not identifiable features of people. But it’s shot in this abortion clinic, and you see, somebody walking into the abortion clinic carrying this, I don’t know, suitcase, briefcase, something, and eventually we find out and and witness that this is a bombing. Somebody protesting this abortion clinic has brought a bomb into the abortion clinic and it goes off and there’s mass chaos and people are running around and trying to get out. Then we see the what turns out to be the bomber walking around the remains of the clinic and from out of a bucket, like, gosh, you know, I wanna be sensitive. I I have, you know, I’ll just put it out there. I’m pro choice, you know, whatever I think a woman should be able to do with her body what she chooses to do. But wherever your stance falls, on the issue of abortion, I I can’t imagine that they really are disposing of fetuses in buckets.

Todd: Yeah. A bucket that gets kicked into the corner. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. You know, I guess what, this was supposed to be probably the late sixties, early seventies, I guess. Supposedly. Yeah. I don’t know. Sometime sometime in the seventies, I suppose.

Todd: So you’re saying it’s the guy who bombed it is the one who pulled this. So, close ups on the bucket and you’re, boy, you’re gonna get a ton of close ups in this movie because the movie is just filled with close ups. The whole movie is close ups. Yeah. That’s one of my biggest criticism, actually. The movies you can’t tell what the hell is going on from time to time because the camera is just zoomed in on everything, and it’s got these weird angles that are upturned. And so it’s every The camera’s below waist level, pretty much for most of the movie, pointed up at people, focused in so tightly that, and whipping around and all this stuff. I couldn’t tell what was going on. And so you’re saying it was the bomber who saw this little little red hand come up over the corner of this bucket and picked it up and and and went with it.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. It is. Now I’ve, to Todd be fair, I’ve seen this movie twice now. This is the second time I’ve seen it. I don’t remember if I picked up on that the first time, but I am certain that that is the case because the fetus mentions it later. So yeah. So this bomber takes this fetus, and then we see like you said, it is it’s it’s it’s hard to tell what’s going on, and it’s so much of the movie is shot in these very specific color tones. A lot of red and and quite a bit of green. Mostly red, but you know, throw in the red and green for Christmas.

Todd: Yeah. And why? You know, that’s the other thing I I couldn’t get. I mean, at one point in the movie, the I mean, we’re gonna jump around. That’s fine. But at one point in the movie, the power goes out, and that’s when we especially are getting. It’s it’s it’s it’s from the natural light. Now we’re getting into reds and greens. And I’m thinking, okay. This is really stark red and green. It’s like we’re in a submarine or something. Like, I think in the hunt for red October when the power goes out or whatever, everything kinda turns red and green and you you kind of imagine, okay, let’s like emergency lights or the glow of computer screens or something like that mixing together. But I don’t know I don’t know where this light was coming from. And then when the power comes right back on just a few minutes later, it’s the same way. The lights in the house don’t come on. Nobody turns on a damn light. You know? I mean, it’s just this crazy red and green. And we’re not just talking like highlights. We’re talking the whole screen is red. Yeah. Yeah. Again, like like you’re in some submarine movie and they’re sitting there hunched down waiting for the other sub to go by, you know. It’s what it feels like.

Craig: Yeah. And I guess I guess that was a stylistic choice. And I mean, it’s it’s it’s kind of I don’t know. I mean, I guess it’s kind of interesting to look at. I don’t know. You know, I wasn’t a big fan of it either. And the other thing, when it’s not lit in red and green, especially in those later scenes that you’re talking about when all the action starts taking place, there are times when it is so dark that I I literally couldn’t see

Todd: what

Craig: was happening. Like, I could maybe see a little bit of highlight, like, in the middle of the screen, but I still couldn’t tell what was going on. And I’m watching it on a computer screen during the day, so, you know, maybe if you were in the theater, maybe if you it was at night or you were sitting and watching it in the dark room, that would be different. But, yeah, I that stuff bothered me too. Anyway, the so after the abortion clinic scene, then we just get, like, I don’t know, maybe a minute of seeing what appears to be this fetus being raised in some crazy hyper religious, but not really religious, just like insane way. Like, he’s he’s chained up, and he’s and, again, like you said, you can see so little that you just kinda have to piece things together.

Todd: Not in a good way either. It just feels lazy to me.

Craig: Well, Well, see, and I wonder how much that had to do with budget. Now I I know that it was a really super low budget and then and in fact, I read that there’s a documentary about the making of this movie. And I don’t remember what it was called, but it’s it’s something about it’s about making a super low budget movie. Like, how do you go about doing that? And I wish that I had known about it before yesterday because I I would have asked you to find it. Because I would have actually been interested in in kind of seeing some of behind the scenes stuff here. I don’t know how much of it is due to budgetary constraints. Really, you know, when things are shot in full light, they look pretty Todd.

Todd: They do. I thought. In full light, it looks fine. In fact, in full light, it’s quite competent except for the zooming and things, you know, that some of these camera angles and whatnot. But even at that point, you know, when it is out in bright light for whatever reason, that’s not as intense. In fact, now that I think about it, you know, a lot of the movie seems pretty normal Yeah. Until stuff starts going down, and it turns evening. And that’s when maybe he decided that we could create a lot more tension and whatever by whipping out these camera angles and this crazy red and green color scheme that I felt was so I just it just muddied everything for me. I couldn’t tell what was going on half the time. I really I I there were times in this movie where I had to rewind just because I saw that something shocking or whatever happened, but I couldn’t even tell what it was. I couldn’t get the detail. Let let’s let’s breeze through really quick, through the plot because, we gotta talk about it as a whole, I think, in in some ways. Right.

Craig: Okay. So we the fetus gets raised or whatever, and then it cuts to 20 years later, and we meet up with, this family, on this beautiful, gorgeous estate, like this countryside estate in Australia. And another problem that I had with the family is that most of them are so unlikable that

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: I just didn’t care. Like, just die already. Now now the mom, Dee Wallace, is nice and normal, and she seems to be trying to bring her asshole family together to be nice to one another for the holidays. And then there’s a guy who they call uncle Joe, but, like, I didn’t really get a sense of who he was. Like, I couldn’t tell if he really was their uncle or if he was, like, the mom’s boyfriend. Could did you know?

Todd: I thought he was the mom’s boyfriend almost the whole time. I mean, it’s not like they were supremely affectionate with each other at any point where it makes it clear, but that’s how I felt anyway. Or maybe just me age. I don’t know.

Craig: I don’t know. But they anyway, they call him uncle Joe, but I thought he was the mom’s boyfriend. Whatever. He’s nice too. He’s like this kind of older pot smoking hippie kind of guy, but he’s just chill and cool.

Todd: Straight shooter. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. And the mom, by the way, Dee Wallace, her name is Diane, and then she’s got all these kids. There’s Jenny, who is kind of the waspy one and she’s, like, 9 months pregnant. And she has a boyfriend who happens to be black, which I only mention because they kind of make an issue of it, and his name is Scott. Then there’s Hope, who is the youngest daughter and she’s like a hippie artist. And, you know, I’m all about color blind casting, but these kids all look so different. I’m like, do they all have different dads? Yeah.

Todd: I thought Hope was maybe adopted or something. That

Craig: I don’t know. You just have Maybe.

Todd: Yeah. There’s nothing that says she is. That was the only thing I could think about. And the fact that she had to actively wonder about this, along with the fact that this is taking place in Australia, I guess?

Craig: Yeah. It is. And it seems like some of the kids maybe grew up in Australia, but Dee Wallace doesn’t have an Australian accent at all. Like No.

Todd: Half of them don’t. It doesn’t it’s also a

Craig: Some of them have British accents, don’t they? Yeah.

Todd: Or or just, like, total straight American accents. Like Yeah.

Craig: I don’t know. It’s very hodgepodge. Yeah.

Todd: It it it was weird. Again, I felt kinda lazy. Like, they didn’t even try to explain that either.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. And then and then there’s Susie, and she’s like the prude sister. I I I got the sense that she was the oldest. And it turns out, like, she’s trying to have a baby, but she can’t. And and and her husband, I guess, is, Peter, who is some sort of minister, though it’s never really, you know, said what denomination he is or whatever. I guess it doesn’t matter. He’s also clearly gay, which they make, like, a huge point out of, but it goes nowhere. Yeah. I know. Like, he’s just constantly, like, obviously staring at the other guy’s butts and stuff. And, like, people, like, catch him in it and call him on it, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Like, that was so weird.

Todd: And he’s also painted and I think that this, maybe what kind of made me mad about this movie Todd, not that not that this sort of thing necessarily offends me, but I think it just starts to feel offensive when you feel like you’re being preached Todd. Or the whole time, I’m thinking, is this a pro life movie? And I don’t know. I’m sure it’s impossible to make a movie with the topic of abortion and not have this question thrown at you and not have to do this tap dance. Now keep in mind, we’ve watched one other movie about abortion, The Suckling Yeah. Which absolutely had clearly no political Yeah. Or whatever because it was so schlocky and tasteless, quite frankly. This movie, you know, from the beginning with the abortion rights protesters and abortion bombing, more than once in the film, the topic of children and child rearing and stuff comes up. This woman who can’t have the child, this woman, this mother who, you know, we find out Dee Wallace’s character, you know, was the woman in the abortion clinic. Big surprise. It’s not a big spoiler like you see it coming from the first 10 minutes.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: But then, you know, they’re even in the character of Peter. Okay. So they don’t make him perfect, but he’s so bland. Yeah. And not only is he bland, but he’s just bland in this how do I put it?

Craig: There there there’s just no interesting character development. Like

Todd: No. But but then he’s, like, he comes across as this really, really kind of nice pastor, I guess, who’s extremely tolerant of the shenanigans that are going on around him, and they’re throwing this stuff in your face. Like, somebody offers him a joint, you know, which he refuses, but he doesn’t condemn anybody for it. Right. His wife seems to be a little more prudish than even he is. At least he Yeah. You know, he kinda jumps to other people’s defense a little bit. And so it’s like, it feels like maybe they’re going over the top to try to again, if this fits in with a grander political point, it feels like the producer of the the director of this movie is really going out of their way to paint this guy as a Todd, wholesome role model who gets caught up in this, but it’s also cool. So please don’t judge him as a crazy Christian. You know what I’m saying? I get what you’re saying, but I don’t know. Like, his his character is just so muddy because, like, at the same time that he kind

Craig: of has this pious attitude, like, he is all the time leering at the other guys. And he Yeah. At one point, he like, it’s just so weird. Like, he follows his sister and her boyfriend or husband or whatever and watches them having sex and then goes

Todd: and jerks off in a closet. Like Yeah. A closet which, by the way, when what did you notice the big stream close-up on the coat hanger outside of the closet when he was there? Oh my gosh. I was like, really?

Craig: I mean, I I, you know, I get it if he’s like a latent homosexual and, like, you know, he gets stimulated by the side of a guy’s bare ass, but that’s your sister. Gross.

Todd: Like I know.

Craig: Oh, I guess it’s not his sister. I guess it would be his sister-in-law. Okay. Fine. Maybe that’s a little bit less gross. Well but not that much. He’s just kind of a

Todd: Maybe that’s why I’m just having such a hard time expressing my feelings about this because I don’t nothing is clear to me.

Craig: Yeah. And and then there’s there’s one other kid that it’s important we mention whose name is Jerry, and he has Down syndrome, which ends up being significant later in the film. And kudos for for casting, an actor, a differently abled actor in in this role. I mean, I don’t know how else you would get away with it. It would be pretty politically incorrect to have somebody portray it

Todd: who really wasn’t. But Yeah. Right.

Craig: But, you know, again, great. I I I’m happy for inclusive casting. So anyway so they’re all together. And, like, it’s typical family stuff, except they’re all kind of assholes and they, like, fight and and not just, like, throw barbs at one another as you do when you get together with your family for the holidays, but, like, especially the 2 sisters, Susie and Jenny, like, just freaking throw down

Todd: Yeah. Like, several times. It seems like they absolutely hate each other’s guts. You know?

Craig: And then Like, they full out fight.

Todd: And then Hope, the youngest one, seems completely disinterested in anybody and everybody. Like, she’s completely dismissive of the whole family, which made me wonder, like, if she was adopted, you know, or what what the deal was there.

Craig: Who knows? Anyway, the the action starts when this shrouded figure, comes traipsing through the countryside, and at first he stops, I don’t know, just some random guy’s house asking for directions. And he talks I don’t wanna say talks funny because that sounds derogatory, but he talks in an interesting way. And another issue that I have with this movie is that I feel like at the same time that they want us to sympathize with the murderer, he’s still just a crazy murderer. Yeah. Like like, he shows up at this guy’s house and and he just asks for help, you know. He he says, I’m looking for my mom. Can you help me find my mom’s house? And and, like, he talks strange and he’s dressed very strange, like, he’s a completely enshrouded, you know, in in this cape and, like, these bandages and stuff. And

Clip: My name is Capers. I’m looking for mother’s house. You get the hell off of my property now.

Craig: I’m lost. Mate, I don’t give a shit. You get the hell out of here, you little freak. Please.

Clip: Fuck out of here.

Craig: The this guy, you know, this backwoods Australian guy is super mean to him and, like, pushes him down and then pees on him. And when when the mean guy pees on him, he grabs his dick and tears it off and then kills him. Yeah. And and the there’s lots of gore. The gore effects are are good when you can see them if it’s not super super dark, and and the kills are gory to to the point of being silly, really. But, you know, whatever. They were going all out, and that’s great. Anyway, eventually the family is going to exchange gifts and the mom tries to do this thing where let’s go around and say what we’re thankful for this year and it really all just kind of blows up in our face because they’re all jerks and, Cletus knocks on the door. And the mom, being a nice lovely lady, invites him in and he has this letter and he keeps saying, I want to read this letter to my mom. And they keep kind of, you know, distracting and blowing him off and, like, he doesn’t know what presents are. And so Dee Wallace real quick runs into the kitchen and wraps up something for him and Oh my gosh. This whole bit about presence? What are presence? I kinda want to throw something at the screen.

Todd: I don’t care how weird your upbringing was. I don’t care. You’re a functioning adult to a certain extent. You don’t get this far in life without knowing something simple like what presents are. So I thought, is he pretending he doesn’t know what presents are? And then the preacher guy opens his mouth and says, Cletus, do you remember the gospel of Matthew, where the 3 wise

Clip: men go and visit the newborn Lord? Todd. Where the 3 wise men go and visit the

Todd: newborn Lord?

Clip: Yes. The Negroites. Excuse me? It’s, African American? Actually, the

Todd: the Magi were, from different regions around Israel.

Clip: They they weren’t American. Yeah. So they knew quite

Todd: Can you please stop saying that?

Clip: Well, the the Magi brought with them gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and we give each other gifts at Christmas in the tradition of the 3 wise men. Because it’s also fun.

Todd: He kind of, like, seemed juvenile to me. I, like, I couldn’t believe I was watching this.

Craig: I get what you’re saying. I think what they were trying to establish was that he’s just really messed up because of his upbringing and Sure. Honestly, like, I I did feel bad for him. Even when he was going around killing everybody, I felt bad for him because, really, he totally gets the shaft. I mean, it’s okay. So eventually, he’s like, I wanna read this letter, and they’re all kinda rolling their eyes and trying to get him not to do it. But he does. And the letter says

Clip: My father believed inventions, but I believe in love. I’m working to inform you of an extraordinary occurrence, an event which is impossible for you to know anything about.

Todd: Please.

Clip: Years have passed since I entered the world in such heroic circumstances. With my father’s passing, I have left his care and gone in search of my family.

Craig: And you can see and again, I’m gonna give her I don’t care what you say. I’m gonna give her credit for performance because you see on Dee Wallace’s face the realization of what he’s talking about. Mhmm. And eventually, she reacts, and she, you know, lashes out and and yells at him and tells him to stop because she knows what he’s talking about. Nobody else does, but she does. And she screams, you know, when he continues on and it’s clear what he’s talking about, the abortion, she freaks out and she insists that the men of the house throw him out, which they do literally. Like, they drag him out the door and throw him off the porch onto the ground. And again, as you might, because he’s just some creepy gross guy who smells like pee who showed up at your house on Christmas and you don’t know who he is or have anything to do with them, like, yeah, get him out of there. But at the same time, I’m thinking, Todd, this poor guy.

Todd: Yeah. I have to admit, at this point, I felt similarly. I felt like, okay. Maybe this movie is gonna turn me around a little bit because this is a bit heart wrenching. But then I started to feel like my emotions are just being manipulated. Todd, it was just a little too heart wrenching, and they were just a little too mean to him. Like, they throw the jar. You know, they’d given him this gift, which was a jar of peanuts because the youngest girl can’t have peanuts in the house and somebody screwed up. So they give him this jar of peanuts, and then they throw the jar of peanuts at him as they leave, which hits him on the head. And the mom’s just supremely nasty to him. Even though, I mean, it’s clear that mom recognizes who he is. Right? I

Craig: mean Yeah. Well, I don’t know that at this point she recognized I don’t know that at this point she recognizes who he is. Maybe she does, but she certainly knows. It seems like at this point, she thinks that it’s a really, really mean prank that, you know, it’s and and she even says that, you know, it’s it’s some pro lifers with access to files and a phone book. Mhmm. So, you know, she thinks that somebody has dug up these files and saw that she was there on that day and that they’re coming and and pulling this terrible prank as some sort of protest, which is far more logical than the truth of

Todd: the matter, which she eventually realized. That’s true. That’s a very good point. I mean, there’s no way. Let’s let’s put it this way. I don’t know if anybody understands how abortions work. I mean, I’m no expert in it, but I do know for a fact that they don’t pull fetuses out fully whole, you know. This just doesn’t happen.

Craig: No. This could never happen. You’re right. Okay. So then they try to go on with their holiday and they do. And again, like, you know, it’s fun for a little while and then they’re fighting blah blah blah. And and we see Cletus out in the woods. And at first, he’s weeping and, seriously, it did. It really did pull up my heartstrings. I felt so bad for him. Like, he was he’s outcast. He’s we find out later. I mean, we already know because the the the first guy that he killed caught a glimpse of him and commented on how hideous he was. So we know that he’s disfigured. We get to see him for a fleeting second in the final act, but he’s outcast. He’s horribly disfigured. He’s alone in the world, and here he is out in the woods weeping while this family is celebrating, you know, a couple 100 yards away. It made me feel bad. But then they just go ahead and just make him full tilt Craig, like, he gets really angry and he comes back and he starts picking them off 1 by 1. The first one that he gets, you know, Hope just they all go outside to watch the sunset, or some of them do, but then the 2 sisters who are always fighting get into a huge fight in the kitchen and so everybody else goes inside except for Hope. And she’s just kinda looking around the backyard when she gets completely split down the middle. Oh my gosh. From head to crotch with an axe.

Todd: Which is so improbable. Like, I’m all about creative kills. I think this stuff is great, but come on. This guy with this little ax, nobody cannot split someone No. From head to crotch in the middle. Even if you were strong enough, even if you could move your ax fast enough, even if it were sharp enough, there’s no way the physics wouldn’t allow it. It’s the the blade isn’t even wide enough to cut

Craig: the robot. Say the blade would have to be, like, a foot and a half. We’d be, like, long, and it’s not.

Todd: Pitting the pendulum type stuff right here, and this is totally not. So I groaned at that, and I thought, oh my god. Is this what we’re in for? And, yes, it actually is what we’re in for. There was a lot more of this improbable Craig stuff, and I hate this, man. I really do. I I I just have to say, part of the fun of a horror movie is the creative kills, and the creative kills are what we all kind of judge a movie on. It’s kinda part of the reason we watch them. Right?

Craig: Especially slashers,

Todd: I would say. Of course. Right? So that that on its face is good, but you’ve gotta make it at least a little bit believable. Yeah. You can’t play so much with it that it you just it’s lazy. Lazy. Lazy. Sorry. And so I lost so much respect for this movie at that point.

Craig: I don’t know. I thought, you know, totally implausible and and ridiculous, but, you know, the sight of, you know and again, everything’s in close ups. So you just see, like, a close-up of her legs fall apart in opposite directions. I don’t know. I thought it was kind of funny. I if anything that was really one of my favorite kills. The the they only get more ridiculous from there, really. Yeah. Or at least a couple of them. But but that’s that’s kind of it. Like immediately then, the family discovers her and they pretty much figure out what’s going on from the beginning. That that crazy guy has come back and is after them. And then it’s just very cat and mouse, you know, them running around the house, Cletus cuts off the power and at some point

Todd: Let let me sum all this up for everybody. Everybody wanders around doing really stupid things. Pretty much. Completely unmotivated, completely implausible stuff. They all end up in a garage or shed. I don’t know because I couldn’t really tell because this is how this movie is. You really don’t get a good idea of the geography of the place or where anybody is at any time because you can only see their faces or, you know, shot from these extreme close-up angles, and the camera insists on bouncing around like it’s being held by by that guy. Mhmm. And and and so you can’t ever tell, but they all end up, like, in this garage, and and there’s only one way into the garage. They even say there’s only one way into the garage. And she decides, well, I wanna go back to the house to get the keys so I can bring the car around. Like, no. And there are about 5 different times when they all find themselves And

Craig: they’ve already called the cops.

Todd: They

Craig: have. Like, the cops are on their way.

Todd: They’ve all got cell phones. The cops are on their way. They’ve all got cell phones. But and the movie doesn’t even make any good excuse. This is what made it a little different from Your Next. In Your Next, there was some of this going on, but there was usually a kind of an excuse why somebody would wander out or or there’s a motivation for it. In this case, it’s just somebody decides, I gotta secure the downstairs, and so they just go.

Craig: There are super stupid character motivations, like the pregnant girl’s boyfriend is, I don’t know, maybe the next one, the second or third. I don’t know. They all get killed eventually. But he gets killed and then for the next 20 minutes, she keeps, like, calling for him and saying, I need him. I need him. And they keep saying, like, he’s dead. But, like, that’s how, like, that’s how they end up getting out of the shed. Like, she escapes. Like, she’s going to go find him, and then they all have to chase her back into the house.

Todd: Yes. And then they end up upstairs in a bedroom. Again, they’re all together in a bedroom upstairs, and the guy’s not there. And then we see this camera this footage of a guy crawling up the trellis. At least, that’s what it seemed to be. The trellis is moving. He’s climbing up, I think. And she leans out the the top and sees that he’s climbing up. And so she tells the kid to lock the window, and she says, I’m gonna go outside and go around and cut the trellis down.

Craig: Yeah. This is the mom.

Todd: Yeah. It

Craig: didn’t make any sense.

Todd: Uh-huh. In the meantime, she hands a cell phone to the preacher guy and says, I’ve like, I guess she’s gathered up everybody’s cell phones, and she

Craig: says Everybody who’s dead because her uncle Joe is dead at this point, and Okay. The pregnant girl’s boyfriend is dead. So the the dead people, she’s got their cell phones, and like this is her plan. She’s like, I’m gonna hide them around the house and call them every 30 seconds as a distraction. But she even says, call mine Todd. And, she goes out and she starts trying to tear down the trellis that he was supposedly just on. Yeah. Where did he go?

Todd: What? She doesn’t she doesn’t she look up. She just very nonchalantly starts to pry away at this trellis. Is he there or not? And if he is, he’s right above you.

Craig: Yeah. And and then and then the preacher guy does call her phone and she acts super surprised and freaked out even though she told him to call it. Yeah. And, like and so she first of all, she’s already hidden these other cell phones kind of around the house. Then she takes her cell phone and, like, throws it out in the yard. Don’t you think you might need that later maybe? Stupid.

Todd: And what does she think what does she think this guy’s gonna do? He’s gonna run around and try Todd answer all these cell phones? Like, what the hell? It made no sense, and nothing ever even comes of it. Like, you think, okay. This is really stupid, but they must be setting this for some kind of payoff or whatever. No. That’s the last we see of these cell phones as well.

Craig: Yeah. The you know, the only thing that they’ll at some point, the pregnant sister trips and falls down and, like, goes into labor, so they’re dealing with that too. The only thing that I will say that I enjoyed about this whole middle part of the movie is that, Dee Wallace’s character, Diane, really takes charge. She’s she’s not this frail, you know, mother in distress. In fact, she’s the only one with any kind of sense at all. Even if some of her plans, like the whole cell phone plan, even if that ultimately is pretty stupid. At least she’s doing something. Everybody else is just kinda like, oh,

Todd: what do we do? Although arguably, they don’t really need to do anything except hold themselves up in a room and call the police True. Which they did. But yeah. I know what you

Craig: mean. And and and Todd be fair, you know, when they were all in the shed, Uncle Joe said we’re all here. There’s only one entrance. We’ve got a shotgun, but she wanted to get out of there. Anyway, you know, she’s pretty badass and she’s taken things into her own hands. Eventually, she finds and I think it’s right after she was trying to tear down the trellis. She finds this chain hanging on a window. And this, you know, it’s such clunky writing. It’s so stupid. But she finds this change this chain and it’s like this, Oh no moment. And then, Peter, the preacher guy, is with her and she tells him the whole story. And it’s, you know, it’s what we already know and have already figured out, but she lays it out for us.

Clip: I didn’t have a miscarriage, Peter. The baby had Down syndrome.

Todd: The baby? Bob was in chemo, and

Craig: we didn’t know if he was gonna make it. I just couldn’t do it again, if not after Jerry.

Todd: So you were Todd?

Clip: I went up and left to the city.

Craig: Which, you know, again, it glosses over it, like, you know, that’s a serious issue, you know. That’s a serious

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Choice that that women have to make, you know. And and I don’t know, you know. I I like you said, I can’t tell. I can’t tell if there’s a pro life agenda here. It it

Todd: kind of seems like there is. It sure seems like all all all signs point to it, especially this aspect. You know? It it glosses over it so much that it’s almost irresponsible. The whole movie seems geared towards she’s get she’s getting what’s coming to her. Right.

Craig: She’s being punished. Yeah. Right. She’s being punished for that choice, and that’s like I I understand that I have, you know, very liberal political viewpoints, but that’s not fair. You know? Like, that was a very she she had to make that choice and it was a tough choice to make, but it’s a choice that women are really faced with. And she was in a very difficult situation, and it would be very difficult for her to deal with her husband’s terminal illness and 2 children with developmental disabilities. And so she made the choice. Yeah. But anyway, that’s what it comes so she confesses this to the priest and she says, please don’t tell anybody else. He’s like, oh, of course, of course, I won’t. And then the scary guy chases them around more.

Todd: The priest gets it in the kitchen with a, on a and again, I couldn’t tell what the heck was going on. But I guess somewhere along the line, a blender without its cup in it It gets gets turned on.

Craig: Yeah. It gets broken. Well, before he gets killed and his death by blender, I actually thought was kind of cool.

Todd: Like It’s cool for an effects standpoint.

Craig: They’re fighting. He he and he and Cletus were fighting and the, like you said, like the the bowl or the cup or whatever of the blender gets broken so the blade is exposed. And the Cletus puts the back of the preacher’s head down on the blade and we can just see him from the front. So we see his face and we can hear the blending and eventually we see, like, blood like blending within and behind his eyeballs. It was kind of a neat effect.

Todd: It was a neat effect. Yeah. No. It was. I just couldn’t tell what was going on until it happened and

Craig: But before that before that, he, the priest, had been being attacked by Cletus and, like, Cletus, like, drags him across the floor and in his fear, the preacher starts, reciting the Lord’s Prayer and Cletus, at the end of it, starts saying it with him. So the priest or preacher, whatever he is, says, oh, do you pray? Will you do you want to pray with me? And they sit down and they pray together and the priest, now to be fair, he doesn’t know that Jerry is listening. But Jerry is listening and the preacher does this whole prayer like

Clip: Lord, we know it was your plan for Cletus to be born different with Down syndrome and other gifts that people may misunderstand. We know it was a sin for Diane to try and abort him. But, Todd, you kept him alive

Todd: and you brought him here today.

Craig: And Jerry hears all of this. Again, like the like, Cletus is praying with him and the preacher at the end says, do you have anything that you would like to say? And Cletus just says, I’m sorry. At which point, the preacher grabs a huge knife and stabs him. And it’s just these moments like, yeah, this guy is a brutal killer. He’s totally messed up. But in these moments, I just felt so bad for him. Like

Todd: Yeah. Again, I felt like my my emotions were being manipulated Todd I don’t know. You know, I mean, of course, what what do you? I’m not saying that that they shouldn’t make me feel bad for him, but I just felt like it was a little over the top and a little unrealistic. And this preacher and, you know, to be fair, if we’re gonna talk about the political motivations of the film being quite they are a bit muddied here by the fact that the preacher does kill him or tries to kill him, I should say. Tries

Craig: to. Yeah. You know,

Todd: and that’s, interesting. Like, you would sort of imagine that this guy, if he is so pro life, he would try to save this guy,

Craig: you know, and not

Todd: try to kill him. So, you know, there’s that aspect to it as well. Although, he’s seen him kill other people, so there’s that part of it too. But at this point, this guy’s down, and this guy should be easy to beat.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: You can get him down on the ground Craig. And at any point in this, I I thought any one of the other characters could have come into the kitchen and offed him. He’s shrouded head to toe in this getup, and then he’s wrapped in bandages completely. His face is so completely wrapped in bandages. There’s like like, I couldn’t even tell how he could see.

Craig: Well and he says he says when he first came in, they’re like, they ask him about they’re like, can we take your cloak? And he’s like, no. It keeps my skin on. Like, if he’s really if he’s really in that bad of shape, how hard could it be?

Todd: Yeah. And then how can this guy be this he’s kind of the magical killer in this where he isn’t there and then suddenly he’s there. How can this guy be so effective when he is so hobbled? Either a, by his physical state or, b, by what he’s all wrapped up in. I mean, I’m sorry, but I’ve walked around in a Halloween mask, you know, with eye holes bigger than this guy had. You can’t see crap. Yeah. So how is he so effective at this? And the whole movie just has no suspense because of the way it’s shot. Like I said, it’s very disorienting and not in a good way. You just don’t know what’s happening. You don’t know where anybody is, and you never get these, like, stalking shots of the killer. There’s never a moment where there’s there’s a pause and you and you you know he’s around the corner, but they don’t know he’s around the corner. There’s none of this suspense that is almost just essential to any kind of slasher movie. It’s just these characters running around doing dumb things and then one of them gets killed.

Craig: Yeah. I get and the more that we’re talking about it, I I I guess the more problematic I’m finding it because we skipped over a part. It’s really not essential, but, there’s one part where Diane and Cletus end up face to face outside the house. And, Cletus just keeps saying to her, do you love me? Do you love me? And, like like she’s trying to pacify him for a while, but ultimately, you know, she just makes her move and runs away or whatever. And there’s just a I don’t know. Like, in hindsight thinking about it, there’s just kind of a weird disconnect because she loves Jerry so much. Now granted this guy, Cletus, has shown up and killed a bunch of her family, but you would almost just think that there would be some some dynamic where she would feel guilty or she would feel some sort of maternal instinct because, yes, he’s he’s violent and he’s killed people, but in these moments, he also presents himself as being very vulnerable and it almost seems like, yeah, she takes the opportunity to pacify him for a moment. Why don’t you just pacify him indefinitely? You know, like Right. Just tell the guy you love him, be nice to him, let the cops show up, and then they can take him away.

Todd: Like And she and she engenders no sympathy because of that. Yeah. Yeah. Just like you said, it’s hard to like any of these characters.

Craig: And I agree. I I get it. You know, she he’s killed a bunch of her family. Eventually okay. So Jerry heard why Cletus was aborted, and so he confronts his mother and he’s very angry, and he says you you don’t love me and you would have aborted me. And she, you know, she tries to explain what I’ve already said about the rationale. The dad was sick. She just couldn’t handle it and she assures him that, you know, she loves him and they were happy to have him. But he goes off and then he and Cletus come face to face and he gives Cletus his Santa hat that he’s been wearing the whole time. Mom comes back around. She sees somebody sitting, but she only sees the top of his head, like, from behind the couch wearing the Santa hat and she thinks it’s Jerry and she says, I love you. I love you. I always loved you. I wanted you. We just couldn’t handle another baby, at that time. And so then she goes around the corner thinking that she knows where Jerry is and she rounds the corner with her shotgun and she hears mom and she shoots and it’s Jerry and she has killed Jerry. Yeah. And and she, you know, she freaks out, of course. And it’s sad. It’s a good performance. You know, she’s weeping and saying how much she loves him and, oh, my baby, my baby, etcetera. Meanwhile, Jenny is giving birth upstairs.

Todd: I know this. I’m sorry. That part made me laugh too. I was like, yeah. I saw this coming a mile away as well. Right in the heat of the moment. She’s gonna have the baby now.

Craig: Yeah. And the sister who she hates has to deliver the baby, and they do. But not without fighting. Yeah. Right. And then the sister, Susie, is like, I’m gonna go downstairs and kill that guy. And she runs downstairs and immediately gets an umbrella through the head.

Todd: Umbrella through the head. Yeah. Another creative and totally implausible kill.

Craig: I know. And the umbrella, like, the umbrella goes through her head and then it opens on the other side, like Hard and hard. Okay. That’s clever. Good job. And then the baby’s upstairs crying, which Cletus takes notice of, and the mom is trying to distract him. We totally skipped over a part where a sheriff showed up and got killed with a giant bear trap to the head. That was hilarious.

Todd: This is this was another instance of where this guy is in so many different places. He’s just wherever he needs to be to get the job done. Like, is he at the house killing somebody, and then 10 seconds later, he’s, you know, a 100 feet away from the house, confronting the sheriff, sneaking up behind him, I guess, with a bear trap in his hand? I don’t know.

Craig: Diane, the mom, tries to distract Cletus away from the sound of the crying baby by saying horrible things to him, like, I never wanted you. I hate you. And, she ends up tripping and, like, getting knocked out by the grass on the ground, I guess. And Cletus, goes upstairs and Jenny tries to hide with the baby, but he he finds them and he kills Jenny. But then the mom shows up and she I didn’t even really understand what happened here. Like, it like, did she try to tackle him out the window? Is that what happened?

Todd: Somehow she had a an anchor around her or something.

Craig: With a chain.

Todd: With a chain. And so she came in and she tried to swing the anchor into him, but then she ended up I thought it was, like, a flying leap out the window. Like, she didn’t intentionally like like, to drag him out. But, of course,

Craig: it’s on her both ended up going out. Yeah. They both ended up going out the window, and she her neck got wrapped up in the Craig, so she gets hung in the chain. And I guess he died from the 2 story fall after having been through all this through the whole movie in his whole life. I don’t know. And and then you hear sirens and see flashing police lights and it does this thing where it goes and does extreme close ups on, like, very specific body parts of all the dead people, like, here’s their ankles, here’s their hands. But just to remind us that everybody’s dead

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And then the last shot is on the baby. And so the the only one who survives all this is the baby, which again brings it back to that weird kind of pro life thing, which I don’t I don’t know if there was an agenda here, like, oh, you know, this all started with the attempted murder of a baby and now now the only one who survives is the baby. Yeah. If if there’s a message here, I don’t really get it and I think that maybe this was not the right forum. Like,

Todd: it’s a good way of putting it. I think that’s one of the grave sins of the film is it’s so muddy. You you can’t even tell. Okay. If there’s a message there, fine. You know, I’m not gonna deny somebody there. They wanna put some message or some theme into their movie, but at least make it clear. Right? Or don’t tell me Yeah. You you have no message or no agenda when it seems to me pretty clear like you’ve stuck. You put enough in there to lay enough red herrings. But, again, if there is nothing in there, what are you trying to do? You’re trying to make us think? Are you trying to give us things to ponder? Because

Craig: Right. There isn’t any Is there some moral here? Like, if if there’s supposed to be some moral, it’s really muddy because they all would have been really better off if that abortion had been successful. That’s

Todd: a good point.

Craig: I don’t know. I mean, all you know, ultimately, I I still, after all is said and done, I still felt bad for Cletus. I mean the whole time he’s just begging like Todd the very last second he’s begging her, just tell me you love me. Just tell me you love me. Like this poor guy just wants to be loved by his mother, which is not at all an uncommon trope and horror.

Todd: But I well, I felt bad for Cletus up to the point where I realized he wasn’t even a character.

Craig: No. No. He’s he’s gonna be plausible.

Todd: He’s a superhuman weird freak who’s alternately, very vulnerable and completely unstoppable and able to cleave a person in a single blow and punch an umbrella through their skull, you know. Mhmm. At at that point, I threw up my hands and I stopped caring.

Craig: Yeah. And and that’s fair. You know, I’m not surprised. I I can’t say I’m surprised you didn’t like it. This is one of those movies. I talk about my partner on here every so often, and, yeah, he really, really doesn’t like horror movies. But he’s a pretty good guy, and he’ll watch them with me sometimes, especially, like, seasonal stuff like this. Like, all through October, he’ll watch horror movies with me to indulge me. And at Christmas time, if I can come up with Christmas horror movies, he’ll watch them with me. And I made him watch this one and he thought it was totally stupid too. And and so I I get why, I get why you don’t like it. I I didn’t think it was terrible. It’s it’s certainly not good, but it’s watchable.

Todd: I don’t know. You’re right. You can pull it up on Netflix. It is watchable.

Craig: Well and that’s that’s that’s but we have watched some virtually unwatchable movies.

Todd: That’s true.

Craig: And this one where it’s not Todd, I’ve definitely seen worse and you said you were kinda bored with it. I wasn’t really bored. It’s only an hour and 20 minutes. It does seem a little bit longer than that, but it’s not that long and I I still I I’m I’m standing by it. I think that Dee Wallace puts in a good performance in a not very good movie.

Todd: There you go.

Craig: There are so many other Christmas horror movies that I enjoy so much like Krampus and Gremlins and, you know, there there are lots of good ones. Don’t watch this one. Yeah. If you’re only gonna watch 1 or 2, you know, watch one of those really good ones. But, you know, if you’re a horror fan and you’re looking for one that you haven’t seen, it it’s it’s not gonna be the worst one. We’ve reviewed worse, even worse Christmas movies. That’s true too. That’s very true. Alright. Well, if you enjoyed this episode, I I can’t imagine how you couldn’t have. As insightful as we were on this amazing movie. Thank you for sticking with us, and we have tons and tons, back episodes that you can check out. We are on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play. You can find our Facebook page. We’re all over the place. You can’t get rid of us. And, if you have anything that you would like to talk to us about about this movie or anything else, frankly, you can always reach out to us on Facebook. We love hearing from you. We will be back for the next few weeks with more, Christmas horror fair. We hope you are enjoying your holiday season. And until next week, I am Craig. And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.