3615 Code Père Noël aka Deadly Games (1989)

Episode 199, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  Well, we are creeping closer and closer to Christmas. In fact, it is Christmas. Merry Christmas, Craig.

Craig:  Merry Christmas.

Todd:  I, thought that this year, we actually did a fairly decent job of finding some Christmas horror movies. I was quite shocked. How about you?

Craig:  Yeah. Not bad. And the closer we got, I kept seeing more and more lists of, Christmas horror movies. So I think we’re set for a while.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. We keep saying that there are slim pickings, but, actually, the more and more we look into it, the more stuff there is out there. And some of it’s kind of obscure, some of it’s a little more recent, but we we have found some things. Right? Yep. We’re keeping a list for next year, and, also, thanks to our listeners’ suggestions. In fact, especially Todd, today’s movie, I was really looking forward to reviewing, and I had never heard of it before. It was actually recommended to us by one of our listeners.  His name is Steve. And, the movie is titled, depending on, I don’t know, where it was released or or whatever, either Deadly Games OR Game Over OR Dial Code Santa Claus. But the actual French title of the film Craig, do you know French? Do you know any French? Nope. You never took a French class? Anything like that? Nope. Well, Craig. Me neither. The original French title is 3615 Code Pere Noel. I have no idea if I’m saying that right.  It’s probably not Todd. Right? It’s probably Todd or something like that.

Craig:  I don’t know.

Todd:  The really interesting idea, this this film is a 1989 movie. And, apparently, when it came out, it did not get a lot of love commercially, although it did get some love critically.

Craig:  Yep.

Todd:  Came out in France in 1989. And then 2 years later, a small little film called Home Alone premiered in the US, which bears, in many ways, a striking resemblance to this movie, at least the concept of the film. So much so, in fact, that the writer director of this film, Rene Monsor, had actually threatened to sue the makers of Home Alone, for copying his movie. I don’t know whatever came of that. Do you? Did you find anything in your online research?

Craig:  That’s all I saw too was that he threatened, but I don’t think that he ever did. I don’t know. You know, there there are a lot of similarities and as we talk about it, I think that our listeners will be able to definite even if you’ve not seen the movie, I think that you’ll definitely be able to see the similarities, between the 2. I don’t know. Ultimately, they’re not so much alike that I would, say that it’s definite copyright infringement. But it makes you wonder, Chris Columbus did Home Alone. Is that right?

Todd:  Yeah. Well, he he directed it and but it was written by,

Craig:  Oh, the guy who did all the big eighties Yeah. Movies. Right? John Hughes.

Todd:  John Hughes. That’s right. Yeah.

Craig:  And, I I think that John Hughes said that he had gotten the inspiration for this movie while he had been vacationing in Europe. So No. I don’t know if he and like you said, it this movie came out just a year or a couple years before Home Alone. Who knows, you know, production on movies can take years in predevelopment and it could just be total coincidence that they share these similarities, but it makes you wonder.

Todd:  It kinda does. And it’s funny because I just got off of seeing, Netflix series called The Movies That Made Us and

Craig:  I watched it too. You told me about it, so I watched it. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. So there’s one on Home Alone, which is really interesting, and then there’s one also on Die Hard, which I recently watched as well. And then I’m so happy that I saw both of those episodes because they go into pretty much into depth on both of those movies, Die Hard and Home Alone, and kind of how they were developed and all interviews a lot of the principal people involved, told a lot of stuff that I had never known before about the production of those movies. And then also, especially in the case of Die Hard talked about how it really changed the formula for action movies after that. Now what this movie is clearly kind of parody of these same action movies that were coming out in the eighties, the Die Hard type movie. This movie is could almost be, you know, Die Hard, in a big mansion with a kid. After Die Hard came out, all of the action movies could basically the pitches were generally, oh, it’s Die Hard on a boat.  Oh, it’s Speed. You know, it’s Die Hard on a on a bus. You know? It was just Die Hard on a blank is how movies got pitched. Because one of the interesting things about Die Hard is that it before that movie, a lot of action films, big time action movies were like they were like Rambo. Right?

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  They were like commando. They were these big hulky guys who, you know, obviously, they could take hits, they could run around, they could punch. But Die Hard came and and basically cast as nobody. It was almost laughed off the screen when Bruce Willis was cast because he was known for moonlighting. Uh-huh. He’s known for being a goofball and not at all an action star. Anybody who could you would even think of as an action star. They even took him off the posters after the test audiences.  And, people who saw previews for Die Hard kind of laughed when he came on. But it then did so well. And what was so interesting about that formula was it took this every man character, just this guy who isn’t sort of a Todd. He’s like an ex cop. But aside from that, you know, he’s just a guy. And he’s thrown into this crazy situation, and he’s kinda has to become an action hero despite it. He spends most of the movie, when you think about it, running and hiding from the bad guys. Mhmm.  You know, he’s not running in their guns blazing. And so it really changed the formula for action movies after that. And this movie seems to take that also and parody it by putting it in the the hands of this young kid, in this house. Even from the very beginning, it it’s straight shot for shot Rambo

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Where the kid’s suiting up.

Craig:  Yeah. The kid yeah. In this movie. And it all centers around this kid, Thomas. And he’s a young kid. I guess, what, like, 9? I don’t know. He’s young. Mhmm.  It appears that he’s obsessed with these, like, Rambo type movies. He, you know, gears all up like Rambo puts camouflage, or, like, Donald shoe polish on his face and, wears the headband or whatever. Like

Todd:  headbands and yeah.

Craig:  Right. And and he kinda well, I mean, essentially, he kinda booby traps his whole house just, like, for fun.

Todd:  Fun. Kid playing. It’s like you and me. Right? Like, if we had a giant mansion and parents who are super wealthy Right. We probably would have run around and done the same thing when we were kids. It was I don’t know. At least at least I did this sort of thing with

Craig:  my friends. Well, yeah. I mean and it’s cute. You know, in the beginning, he’s dressing up and and doing all this stuff, and he’s playing with his dog. Like, he’s he’s pretending like the dog is, like, the bad guy and kinda chasing him around. And eventually, he captures him in this, like, trap that he’s set up in a floor that drops into a net. And it’s very charming. The kid, I think, is is very charming, and I was just impressed.  And, you know, when it comes to believability, could this kid really actually do these things? I don’t know. Kids are really innovative. You give them Yeah. Enough resources, they will, you know, they’ll they’ll come up with some pretty cool stuff. But as young as this kid is, I was just really impressed with, how, you know, he could tackle these problems that, are set up. The the kid, like, can fix cars and drive, like Yeah. He’s kind

Todd:  of a

Craig:  He’s like a mechanical genius.

Todd:  He’s kind of a Richie Rich type character in a way. They they kind of describe this away a little bit in the movie in a couple different ways. He has a mother, and it seems like his mother works for a a major department store or a toy company or something like that. Right?

Craig:  Yeah. It seems like yeah. Like, she’s an executive or she owns stock in it or something, and they live in this amazing house, which

Todd:  Huge. It’s a mansion. It’s a chateau.

Craig:  Yeah. It it it it reminded me, you know, even the way they shoot it, you know, like, they do these sweeping shots, like, over these towers and things. Like, it’s it’s almost like Hogwarts that they live in. Yeah. And it’s it’s just, the mom and the kid and grandpa and JR, the dog. And they live in this huge mansion, and I I guess that the mom owns stock or or is an executive or whatever. So they’re they’re really wealthy, and it’s Christmas time, so she’s particularly concerned about work and sales and all of that kind of stuff. So she ends up having to go in to work for a lot of the movie.  I mean, she’s she’s there in the very beginning so that when the kid, you know, after he’s played all his games, they all sit down around the breakfast table together. They have a a cute little talk about, you know, is Santa Claus really real? And it’s cute because obviously this kid is at that age where he’s really starting to question. I imagine his friends are probably questioning and and telling him things, but, it’s just they have a cute conversation and the grandpa chips into about how Santa Claus is magic. And if you don’t believe in the magic, then Santa Claus isn’t real for you. It starts out as this sweet little Christmas movie, and it eventually does get pretty violent and scary primarily because of the antagonist who will get you just in a second because he’s coming right up. But did you get the impression that the dad is dead?

Todd:  Yeah. I did. I got the impression that the dad is dead, and it and it was kinda cast a shadow, a little bit of a shadow over the family or at least over the son. There are just little moments where the dad is mentioned. Even at the dinner table, the mother mentioned something about the grandfather says, oh, he’s like his mother. And the mother says, yeah, he’s got a lot of his dad in him too. Right. And then there’s a bit of a silence, right, where everyone kinda contemplates that.  I thought it was interesting the way this movie made the kid out to be you know, at first, when I’m watching this, I’m thinking this kid’s gonna be really douchey. You know? Uh-huh. I thought about, that old movie, The Toy, with Richard Pryor. Did you ever see that?

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Remember that one? It’s it’s this super rich kid who’s got plenty of toys, lives in this huge mansion, and they hire Richard Pryor to come in and basically be his human toy. You know, he’s like his babysitter. And, of course, the kid’s super douchey. Mhmm. And that was my natural inclination towards this kid seeing that he had everything, right, and had run of the place. Right. But then, almost immediately, as these other scenes played out, that really fell away. I I really felt like this kid was pretty down to earth despite it all.  It seemed like his mother really cared about him. He had this really nice relationship with his grandfather there

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Who seems to be kind of like his playmate there. And then, like you said earlier, like, super smart. Uh-huh. And the mom drops even in some later dialogue when she’s talking to an employee at work. She mentioned something about how he still believes in Santa Claus even though his IQ is, like, through the roof. Right. We get that. Right? As he’s, like, fixing cars and he has this, like, computerized system that he’s got the house wired up.  You know, there there are cameras everywhere in the house. He has this wristband that he can control everything with including see, and switch between the different cameras around the mansion. So, you know, but it all this happens and it still kinda seems believable enough, and he also still seems like a cool kid.

Craig:  Yeah. He’s endearing. And, like, the the grandpa the grandpa’s cute. You know, he’s just this old man. And the grandfather is, you know, clearly elderly and and not in great health. He’s diabetic, and he’s going blind.

Todd:  I can’t believe that guy can see anything.

Craig:  Oh, I know. Yeah. I mean, they because they show us POV shots from, like, his eyeballs. Sometime, it’s super, super cloudy. But, the kid, like, helps take care of him. You know? Like, the mom reminds him, don’t forget to give grandpa his insulin shots. And and they do. It seems like the kid and the grandpa have this nice relationship, and you’re right.  I expected the kid to be douchey too. I mean, he’s got a mullet.

Todd:  We just default to that with the mullet.

Craig:  And he’s dressing up like Rambo and stuff, and I just thought it was gonna be more silly, but it ends up actually being pretty sweet. But then we also meet the, antagonist. We see, you know, the winter streets of Paris, and the camera pans out, like, from a snow globe, and and we of Paris, and we see, like, a garbage truck run over it. Like, I feel like that’s like, you know, this is not going to be a perfect Christmas. Mhmm. But there’s this guy, like, I don’t really get much of a sense of who he is. Like, I can’t tell if he’s like a derelict or, if he’s just some random guy. But I think he’s a really interesting antagonist because when we first meet him, he sees these kids having a snowball fight, and he’s clearly enchanted by that.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And so he he wants to join in on the fun. And so he tries to join in their snowball fight, but, of course, you know, they’re little kids and he’s this creepy old guy that they don’t know until they all just run off. And he’s left there just looking kind of sad. And this I I I appreciate this kind of villain because even though we don’t really get any of his backstory, he doesn’t just seem like a malicious force. Like, he seems in some way damaged. You know? Like Yeah. He desperately wants to participate in the Christmas activities and the Christmas spirit, but he’s just kind of constantly rejected, and he’s clearly off kilter. You know, there’s there’s something not right about him.  And and he does, you know, end up being scary and and violent. But initially, I just got the sense that he was feeling left out and rejected, and kinda pushed him over the edge.

Todd:  Yeah. I was getting shades of Christmas evil actually where the movie seemed to take great pains to to show us the character of this. In Christmas evil, it’s, you know, it’s kind of the anti hero character in there, but he he’s very damaged. He seems to be very interested in participating in Christmas and getting in the spirit and interested in kids, but he kinda goes ends up going about it the wrong way, Also because there’s something clearly not right about him. But you’re right. I mean and we we intercut these scenes of the kid and his household and getting ready for Christmas and he’s gonna set up, he’s got his whole video camera system finally wired so that he can catch Santa so that he can actually prove that he exists for his friend who’s telling him that he doesn’t exist. And and so there’s that going on on the one side. And then on the other side, great pains are taken to show us some really interesting scenes with this other guy.  Mhmm. Like you said, he tries to join the snowball fight with the kids and they just kinda run away and he looks a little sad. He ends up joining, the Santa outfit or whatever at, I think it’s the woman’s, the actually, it’s the kid’s mother’s shopping mall or whatever it is that she’s in charge of. It’s not entirely clear.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  But she’s got this whole performance thing going on outside of the in the street. And he ends up playing the Santa out there and he seems to be genuinely enjoying interacting with the kids and just kind of entranced with the magic of it all. And then he has this little creepy kind of weird encounter with a little girl. She says, oh, hi, Santa, as other kids have been doing and smiling and walking away and he’s giving them presents. And she comes up close to him, and he asked her to come closer, and they kinda get face to face. And he starts sort of running his hands up and down her face and and kinda looking at her. It’s hard to see if he’s just enjoying the childlike innocence of her, if they’re trying to imply that maybe there’s some pedophilia here. I don’t really know.

Craig:  Yeah. I didn’t I didn’t get that. I thought that it was more, like, he really was just appreciating her innocence. You know, he’s he’s like he’s like stroking her face. Now it it I will give you that it is uncomfortable. Like, it it goes on too long. Like Mhmm. Stop touching her.  But she eventually she says Todd him, I think, I don’t like your face. And his his look kind of sours, and and she’s like, you’re not the real Santa. And she pulls his beard off, which upsets him, and he slaps her in the face.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah.

Craig:  Which listen. You know, sometimes you wanna slap a kid. You You know?

Todd:  I I I’m a parent. I can totally totally admit that.

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, you don’t because you’re not supposed to, but sometimes you want to. Kids can be pretty snotty and bratty sometimes. But, again, you don’t because you’re a grown up and they’re kids.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And so it’s totally inappropriate. And, yes, the mom sees it. In fact, you know, this whole series of events is a little bit contrived.

Todd:  Oh, for sure.

Craig:  Yeah. Even before this happens, the kid tries to call Santa Claus on some sort of system. Now I am not from Europe. I’ve only visited Europe very briefly, And I don’t know what this is, but it seems almost like at the dawn kind of maybe of the Internet where what would you call, like, a, like, a a chat room kinda thing?

Todd:  Oh, dude. I got so interested in this after seeing it in the movie. I looked it up to see if it was real, and I found out it totally was real. And I went kinda down the rabbit holes to figure out about it. It’s called Minitel. It was rolled out in July of 1980. And if you’ve had any experience with, like, bulletin board systems back in the day that were sort of text based where you dial up places and over the phone lines, you know, it’s basically pre World Wide Web. You could chat with people or you could get in chat rooms.  You could download simple software, things like that. This was, according to Wikipedia, the world’s most successful online service prior to the World Wide Web. And you could, like, check stock prices, make train reservations, purchase things online, search the telephone directory. They had, like, email and chat, basically, like we have today. Kinda Craig. But it was all done through sort of dial up on the simple computers, or they had these kiosks out and about, sort of like pay telephones

Craig:  Right. Where

Todd:  you could just put some money in and you could access it. Right? Like, you’d access a public computer in the library or something like that. So cool. And it really interesting of the director to choose to incorporate this technology into the movie at that time. It’s a really interesting idea, And it really makes the movie, I think, kind of age well, even though it’s clearly, like, retro technology.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  This sort of thing happens today. Right? Like, kids get online and some pervert or some adult connects with them in a unsavory way and bad things happen. Right?

Craig:  Right. Right.

Todd:  In a way, the movie is kind of ahead of its time, I think, in that regard. Right? Yeah. But you’re right. It’s totally contrived because he happens to contact the same guy. And then later on, the same guy interacts with his mother.

Craig:  Well and and it it I feel like the movie is kind of leading you to believe that somehow this Santa Claus, this evil Santa Claus or whatever, he puts together that the kid that he talked to on the phone is also the son of this woman who fired him for slapping the kid. And, like, then when he goes like, I I she sends him, like, up to HR or something to I don’t know.

Todd:  Process his last paycheck or something.

Craig:  We had found out earlier that even though she’s trying, I think, to be respectful of her son and not flaunt it, she is seeing another man that she works with. I guess he was up there in HR or whatever. Santa, like, overhears him talking to somebody, like, making arrangements about them being late. So they the caretakers need to look out for the son and the grandpa or whatever. And anyway, so Santa puts all this together Mhmm. And he finds, you know, the toys that they’re going to be shipping to the manse, you know, the mansion or whatever, then he covertly hitches a ride in the, delivery van. And and that’s how he gets there. And then when he gets there, he kills the delivery guy, and he kills there’s, like, there’s a whole separate, like, servant’s quarters house, where I think, like, a caretaker and a cook live or something.  And we don’t see it happen on screen, but we see their bodies later. He kills them too. And the kid has, you know, been talking to one of his friends who’s his same age about, you know and and the other, his friend is like, oh, you’re too old for this. Santa’s not real. Blah blah blah. But the kid talks to him on the Internet thing, and he’s like, see, I told you. And he sets up that whole camera system, and he’s waiting under the table, and he’s gonna wait for Santa to get there. One other thing that I think that we missed, but that is important, I think, is that at some point, the mom calls the son.  He’s there waiting under the table in front of the fireplace. She says, are you waiting up for Santa or something like that? And he’s like, well, yeah. And she said, well, don’t because he won’t come until after you’ve gone to sleep. And if you do catch him, he’ll be really mad, and he’ll turn into an ogre. And the kid’s like, oh, no. But he stays out there anyway. But when Santa does arrive and my goodness, he comes down the chimney. Yeah.  Like That’s a problem. The guy, you know, he’s committed to this role. He comes down the chimney, and at first, the kid, you know, of of course, is awestruck and is so excited. But then JR, the dog, comes in and starts barking at him because obviously, in reality, he’s an intruder in their home. The dog is barking at Santa and, like, pulling at his costume. And the Santa guy picks up I don’t know. It was like some kind of spade. Was it like a pie server or something?

Todd:  Like a pie server. It had a point to it. Yeah.

Craig:  And he picks it up, and he brutally kills the dog right in front of the kid, which

Todd:  Yeah. Inches away from his face, basically. That was Craig. I thought Craig’s gonna hate this movie after this moment.

Craig:  I didn’t like it. But I have to admit that it real you know, that’s that’s traumatic for a kid to watch his you know, he loves this dog. He’s been playing with this dog. It’s part of the family. And to watch Santa Claus brutally murder his dog inches in front of his face. He knows right away that this is serious.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s it’s pretty shocking. And actually, it’s it’s the point at which the movie kind of ceases to become this Christmas heartwarming kid movie, and more like a, I wouldn’t say slasher movie, but close to it. Right? Yeah. It, you know, becomes a horror movie at this point. And so the kid freaks out, and he runs away, and it becomes this cat and mouse thing where the kid’s got his his arsenal of tricks and booby traps, and the Santa’s wandering around looking for him. And, in the meantime, the grandfather’s there too. And so the grandfather’s also in danger.  And so the kid, you know, wakes him up and yanks him around through the house as well. Mhmm. And he has these these secret passageways, and including this one just massive secret passageway that’s really hard to believe it exists.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  I mean, I don’t know if it’s like a cave underground or something like that, but you can’t even see the ceiling.

Craig:  Oh, no. Yeah. It’s huge. And and he and and apparently, the kid is the only one who knows about it. Like

Todd:  Yeah. That’s what he even his grandfather didn’t know about it Todd he brings him in here.

Craig:  Yeah. And it it’s god. I don’t know. You know? Like, these little things are just peppered in here and there because he says it’s full. Not only is it a huge like, it looks like a warehouse. It’s enormous. And it’s full of old toys. And the kid tells the grandpa, because the grandpa didn’t know it was there.  I mean, this is all the the Santa has been chasing them. They tried to get in the car, but the car won’t Todd. And Santa is menacing them and breaking the out the windshield and chasing them. And they access this big enormous room through a refrigerator, like, that’s the secret door. And they get in there, and the grandpa’s like, what is this? And he tells them, he’s like, well, this is a secret room. Nobody knows about it. Not even mom, but it’s got all my dad’s old toys, and my dad’s dad’s old toys, and his dad’s old toys. And someday, you know, I’ll show it to my son.  So it it’s almost like maybe the dad was a part of this toy empire, and maybe the mom had to take it over when he passed away. I don’t know. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, but it’s a really cool set piece.

Todd:  Well, it is neat. And it also it leads to a very interesting short conversation between the kid and his grandfather, which sort of further solidifies not only how smart this kid is, but how endearing he is. When he he makes mention to his grandfather, he says, after he’s saying, oh, yeah. This is my toys. This is my my father’s toys. My grandfather’s toys are all down here. Can you imagine the work that Santa must have gone through to bring all of these toys to our family? Yeah. It’s like, wow.  That was, that was an interesting thought to come from this young kid’s, mind. Right? Mhmm. It just really again, it sort of solidified the it made more real his real captivation with Santa, and and just the way that his mind worked, and a little bit of appreciation there for his family. It was really a heartwarming little bit, except for the fact that this the whole idea that this place exists and is there and is so hidden, even though it should be so easy to get into, any adult who opens up that fridge down where apparently they do the laundry should be able to, you know, figure out where it is. Right. That’s a little unbelievable in that regard. But it makes for a cool set piece that I thought they would use more often. Yeah.  There’s one encounter down there where the Santa Claus follows him down there, and he gets beaten back. I think that’s where he encounters the grandfather at first. Right?

Craig:  Yeah. Because there’s all this business with the phones. Like, Santa cut the phone lines. But while, the grandpa and the kid, who are basically just gonna wait it out I guess the kid tried one of the phones and it was dead or whatever. I don’t know. But then they’re in the warehouse, and they hear the phone ring in the mother’s office. And the kid’s like, oh, that’s a separate line. It should be okay.  Well, the person who’s calling is the mom, and she’s getting increasingly worried, and and so she’s actually getting ready to head there anyway. But the kid wants to get to the phone so that he can call the police or call whoever he needs to call, and their grandpa’s like, no. Don’t go. It’s too dangerous. And he says, no. Look. I’ve got my security camera watch. I can see exactly where he is.  And so the kid Rambos up again, goes out, and for a while, it works. You know? He’s maneuvering in such a way that he can see where the bad guy is, and so he’s just taking alternate routes. But, eventually, Santa realizes that there are cameras, and he starts breaking them. Eventually, they come face to face again. And, you know, this just kinda keeps happening. Yeah. It’s running away. It’s sneaking around, and then, here we are again.  And there’s a quick chase and maybe a trap or some kind, and then they separate again, and it’s more sneaking around. You know, that happens for a while, but I was never bored. No. I thought it was actually pretty fast paced and, exciting.

Todd:  The continuity wasn’t quite there like it is in Home Alone. Right? If we’re gonna compare the 2 you know what? With Home Alone, you get a a real sense of the layout of the house because it’s well, of course, it’s a smaller house. But there’s kind of a through line. The burglars go to the front, and they try the front. They can’t get in the front. They go to the bag. They try the bag. They try to get inside.  They get downstairs, and then they’re kinda you know, so there’s there’s this kind of process where you can really follow everything that’s going on as they get closer and closer inside the house. Whereas in this movie, almost some of these scenes can just be swapped around. Right? Sure. Like he’s he’s upstairs in the hallway and he kinda falls in this net thing. And then it cuts away. Like we don’t know how Santa really got out of the net. But now the kid’s in a different place and Santa’s out of the net again and he’s coming towards them. It’s not that kind of suspense where you feel the build and the build and the build.  At least I didn’t.

Craig:  No. You’re right. The the scenes are kind of interchangeable and and like you said, Santa does fall through that trap door, the same one that the dog fell through, so that had already been established. But but like you said, the geography, you never really get a sense of it because there’s one shot, and it was a really cool shot, but it’s like the kid is in this part of the house that is a literal maze. Like Yeah.

Todd:  I didn’t

Craig:  I was like, what is this room supposed to be? Like, is this the maze room? Like

Todd:  Was it supposed to be an art gallery or something? I don’t know. There’s lots of stuff on the walls.

Craig:  But, yeah, the the sequencing of the scenes is really pretty unimportant. But but the tension remains. Eventually, the kid gets to the mom’s office, but Santa beat him there. And so he goes out the window. This kid is barefoot. It’s cold and snowy outside, and he’s out the window on the top story of this enormous, like, gothic house with, like, spires and towers and all kinds of stuff. Santa’s chasing him around. And then this was just another moment where I felt like they did such a good job of giving this kid humanity.  Because while he’s out there, you know, Santa knows he’s out there, but he doesn’t follow him out there. So the kid’s just standing out there on a ledge, and he starts crying and shouting for his mom, like, which is totally what I would do. Yeah. So even though in many respects, he’s very intelligent and mature for his age, he’s still just a kid. And he’s scared, and I I appreciated that.

Todd:  I didn’t get the process of events that got his grandfather in a suit of armor by the base of the stair I guess he was hiding in there for some

Craig:  Well, yeah. Okay. So Santa, somehow, he hears the grandpa. Santa makes his way into the big hidden room. The boy, Thomas, hears his grandpa because they’ve got walkie talkies. He hears his grandpa saying, Thomas, is that you? Is that you? And so he goes racing inside, and just in the nick of time, pulls him through a door or or something right before he’s about to get stabbed. And then we don’t see it happen. But apparently, what happens is somehow they get this grandpa in a suit of armor to hide, which is probably a smart place to hide.  I wouldn’t think that many people would think to look there even though you’re completely immobilized. But it did do a good job of kind of getting the grandpa out of the way. Yeah. Like, at that point, I wasn’t really worried for the grandpa’s safety, and he was out of the way. So Thomas could just kind of deal with Santa on his own and not have to worry too much about grandpa. There are a couple of close calls, but I actually thought it was kinda smart to get I could grandpa’s nice and sweet, and I liked the relationship between them, but he was kinda, you know, just kind of a ball and chain that the kid had to worry about, and getting him in that suit kinda got him out of the way.

Todd:  Yeah. It did. And then it kinda sets us up for another problem that Thomas ends up with is the next time he comes to check on his grandfather, he’s he’s not responding. And he realizes and his grandfather calls out for insulin. And so he realizes that that he he’s he’s really he’s going Todd diabetic shock or something. Mhmm. So now Todd needs to go out and actually find insulin for him and, you know, avoid the Santa while he does it. He ends up having to go out, I think, to the, what is it, the servants’ quarters that were outside, as a matter of fact, to go grab him and bring him in.  So there’s a bit of tension there too. Just gives him another problem to try to solve amidst, the problem of dealing with the Santa. And then at some point, the Santa does kinda get him. He grabs him, and he’s got his little spade up to his neck. Then, this is the part that I just didn’t quite get. He says, okay. I win. You lose.  Now, I’ll go hide myself and you’ll be it. Okay? Count to 20. And he runs off.

Craig:  Yeah. What

Todd:  was that? Was there something I was missing there Todd, or did this just take a bit of a wild turn?

Craig:  No. I think he’s crazy. You know? I I Yeah. I think it’s just he’s playing a game like hide and seek, which is why one of the titles of the movie is hide and freak. But, yeah, I I it surprised me in the moment, but then when I thought about it, I’m like, well, you know, it makes as much sense as anything else. From the very beginning, he just wanted to play with those kids. Apparently, he just doesn’t know how to play nice.

Todd:  What? Don’t kill their dog in front of them.

Craig:  Yeah. And and, you know, I don’t know. I I I know that, I had that written down in my notes somewhere, but I can’t find it. He is menacing. Like, at one point, when he’s chasing Thomas, he slashes Adam with the hide cutter or whatever it is, and he puts a big gash in his leg. Thomas is significantly hurt. Like, he, he splints his leg. I’m I’m not really sure why you would splint your leg for a cut, but, I mean, he’s 9.  So whatever.

Todd:  Whatever makes sense to him.

Craig:  Yeah. One of my favorite parts is after he Santa slashed his leg, he gets away, and then he kinda taunts Santa on the intercom saying

Todd:  Oh, yeah.

Craig:  You’re you’re gonna be scared. And there’s this little montage where he, like, I don’t know, he splints his leg, and then he gets his dog and carries him into the backyard and buries him. And there’s a flashback of him playing with his dog, and the kid is crying. I mean, it really tugged at my heartstrings. Of course, you know anything with dogs does, but, I just I felt for this kid. And I just thought as far as horror movies go, you don’t really tend to get a lot of characterization. Yeah. And here, you know, they’re they’re giving this kid some dynamics.  And and that’s something that I think is in some ways reminiscent of Home Alone, but in other ways, I think maybe this movie played it a little bit better.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Because in Home Alone, the kid is, you know, he’s very innovative, and you’re rooting for him for sure. But throughout, he’s also just kind of a smart ass. Yeah. This kid is he’s fighting for his survival, and he’s actually processing emotion and, you know, taking matters into his own hands. It it surprised me. Scared? Yeah. It’s true. It’s true.  Getting scared? Yeah. It’s true. It’s true. It’s a little bit of a darker movie in

Todd:  that way, but it’s not as dark as you would think. I don’t know. No. No. I I think that this is one of

Craig:  those types of movies that if you’ve got a mature young person who’s interested in horror, this could kind of be one of those kind of gateway films. It is pretty dark. I think that you would have to have a pretty mature young person, especially, you know, considering the subject matter of Santa and all that. You’d have to take all that into consideration. But, this would have been a movie that I would have really liked as a kid because I would have wanted to relate to this kid. I would have wanted to think that in this circumstance, I could be tough. I could do it. I could be smarter.

Todd:  Oh, yeah. It totally plays into that. You know, at this time and in this way, it is a bit of a product of its time of these movies where these kids can do all these awesome things. Right? Like like The Goonies and and and and setting traps and kind of a Hardy Boys type deal. Yeah. Yeah. Smart and McGivory and innovative. And we all felt at that time that we could do that Todd.  And we wanted to get in these kind of adventures, you know. Right. It was a really magical time for kids’ filmmaking at that time. And I guess there’s still some of that going on. Right? But a lot of the hit movies that centered around kids really focused on this aspect. And this this movie has it. Totally has it. Yep.  And so then, what happens? It, basically, the mother ends up calling the police. Right? Yes. And an officer comes over, and the kid sees an officer in one of the towers of the house, sees the officer wandering around another tower of the house, in shadow. And it turns out the vagrant gets to him too. At the same time, I think Thomas comes back to find his grandfather and, pushes over the suit of armor to get to him as trying to disassemble it. Right?

Craig:  Well, before that, there was one of my favorite parts. Like, after he buries his dog and stuff, there is that very Kevin McCallister moment where he is, like, booby trapping the whole house. And, he makes a grenade, like, out of a toy grenade. Like, he’s got a toy grenade, but then he pours, I don’t know, gunpowder or flash powder or something in it. So he’s got this real grenade, and he attaches it to, like, a motorized car. And, it’s supposed to blow up Santa, but the car, like, rolls up to Santa, and Santa just picks it up and turns it around and rolls it the other way. So this grenade is headed right for the suit of armor that grandpa’s in, and Thomas has been in hiding, you know, waiting to see if his trap will work. Well, then he has to expose himself to run out and try to get the grenade from to stop it from getting his grandpa.  And then, Santa and, Thomas, you know, have a fight right there in the moment. And there’s lots of little things that are going on. You know, just just clever smart things. Like, I don’t even remember specifically what it was. Maybe something sticky or something. But at some point, Thomas attaches, like, a tracker

Todd:  Oh, yeah.

Craig:  To something, and he shoots it through a slingshot at Santa. It it sticks to his back. So he’s tracking him for a while. Like, just cool stuff going on.

Todd:  And then there’s an interesting scene where he’s engaged in doing something. And on his radar, we can see Santa’s getting closer and closer and closer to him. And it turns out that Santa’s apparently found this tracker, and he’s attached it to a little motorized tank, which he has sent towards Thomas. And so the tank ends up at his feet, and he bends down. He picks it up and looks and sees his tracker there. So he doesn’t have that anymore. Yeah. There’s some neat things like this going on.  Right?

Craig:  Yeah. And I think that that’s where your hide and seek moment comes in because, eventually, Santa gets him and has the advantage, could do whatever he wanted to, could kill him right there. But instead of doing that, like you said, he just said, I win. Now I’ll hide and you find me. And Thomas is just as confused as we are. So he runs out, and he sees the cop car. He gets in the cop car and starts driving. I don’t even know where he’s going, but it turns out that that’s where Santa had hidden, and he pops up and he’s like, surprise.  And so Thomas crashes the car. And this is where the final standoff comes up because Santa chases him around outside, but eventually, Thomas trips over the dead cop and gets his gun. And he pulls the gun on Santa, and he’s crying, pointing the gun at Santa Claus, and he just says, why? You know, I I kinda had forgotten up to that point that this kid really still thinks that this is Santa Claus. Yeah. It is doing all of this. Mhmm. Not just some crazy guy, Santa Claus. And when they come face to face, like, he’s heartbroken, like, why? But then Santa starts approaching and he shoots him, like, in the leg.  Mhmm. So he goes back, Thomas goes back to check on grandpa who’s unconscious, but he gives him the insulin and he’s okay. But, unfortunately, so is Santa who comes bursting in. And again, another kind of odd moment where Santa just kind of, like, reaches his hand out to Thomas, almost not in a sexual way, but, like, longingly, you know, like, he’s

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Reaching out to him. And poor grandpa who’s virtually blind is has got the gun and is trying to point it, but he can’t see anything. So he fires, and we don’t know what’s happened because it shoots to the mom and her boyfriend who are now arriving at the house. And, they come in. Santa’s dead on the floor. Thomas kind of collapses into her arms and says, it’s my fault, mom. I wanted to see Santa Claus. It’s my fault.  It’s my fault, my mom. She’s really wild about the way. And a Christmas song starts playing, and that’s it. You know, like, it ends pretty dark.

Todd:  It’s super dark. Right? So this kid’s gonna be traumatized for the rest of his life. He takes to heart exactly what his mom said, you know, is that Santa just turns into an ogre if you’re if you’re looking for him. Uh-huh. And so, yeah, he just lays the blame for this whole incident himself. It’s it’s super dark and super horrible because you love this kid. Yeah. It’s so French.

Craig:  Yeah. It is. Well and that’s what I read. You know, like you said, it didn’t as far as money at the box office, it Todd didn’t do great. But it it won some awards at a couple of festivals, and, it got some good reviews from critics. And and one of the reviews that I read said something like, you know, the there are some plot holes and the continuity maybe is a little bit problematic, but it really goes to show what French cinema can be when it’s good. Mhmm. I haven’t seen a lot of French movies.  I think the only other French movie we’ve reviewed was High Tension. Right?

Todd:  Yeah. That’s right.

Craig:  And I can even see some similarities there. I mean, just kind of in the level of violence and

Todd:  Willingness to kinda go places.

Craig:  Yeah. And the menacing aspect of the bad guy and stuff. But so I’m not I I’m certainly not an aficionado when it comes to French cinema. But, I thought overall I was excited to see the movie because I had never heard of it before, and I knew that it had really kind of only come out in the States in 2018 because they had remastered Todd. And, Shutter had picked it up exclusively. And so I was excited to see it just because I hadn’t ever heard of it. I hadn’t ever seen it before, but I didn’t have really big expectations. And it surprised me.  It was better than I thought that it would be. Yeah. It wasn’t amazing, but it was significantly better than I thought that it would be.

Todd:  Yeah. It really was. And and maybe part of that is due to the fact that you think that, well, since I haven’t heard of this movie ever, it must not be that great. Right? But but like you said, it won all those awards. Apparently, the director was approached, by a studio to remake it in the US, and that never ended up happening. And like you said, it premiered at some festivals. The director claims that, at one of these places where it got a standing ovation, that Wes Craven, Steven Spielberg, and Ray Bradbury were in the audience. Oh, boy.  Yeah.

Craig:  I can’t even imagine that, like

Todd:  That those 3 are just right there.

Craig:  In the same room, like

Todd:  Well, it must I think it was a fantasy sci fi kind of, horror festival, probably. Sure. But Steven Spielberg then tapped this director to direct a number of episodes of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Oh,

Craig:  that’s right.

Todd:  Television show. Yeah. And things like that. So, you know, the director, this is his first film, and he had a pretty decent career after that. And he’s still working and doing things. And we’re just now learning about this movie. And it probably couldn’t have come at a better time, really, because now everything eighties is cool again. Right.  And this movie’s pretty retro in that regard. But it’s also so charming and so interesting, and it’s fun to have a Christmas horror movie that we can that we can watch. So it’s neat that in this day and age, these things get unearthed again and re you know, re released and reborn and kind of have a second coming. I I guess, I read also that this movie, even even in France and in Europe, even when it came out on VHS, it was like a top selling VHS tape for, like, a year. So, it’s not like people didn’t appreciate this movie to some degree. It just never got probably the notoriety it it deserved or could have had, otherwise, you know, stateside. Right. Yeah.  But I liked it. I I liked it too. I thought it was fun. Really interesting how it took me emotionally in some different places. Ended on that note that I just totally wasn’t expecting and seemed very fitting for the movie. And I just truly cared about the character. Oh, and by the way, the cinematography was great. Uh-huh.  The cinematography was fantastic. The shots, everything staged. It was it was like die hard in this mansion. It really was. Some of these shots were direct homages to these action films in the eighties, including that little scene where he’s, you know, aiming the gun at Santa and he’s laying back. He’s got mud all over his face. He’s in the woods and he’s going, why? You know? Right. So, you know, it was clear the director was trying to do some of this kind of stuff, which he flat out said.  It it just it kind of succeeds to me on a number of different levels and and really works.

Craig:  Yeah. I and I I do think that, in terms of that, of the parody of those types of films, you know, we have a lot of listeners outside of the states, and we’re probably older than some of our listeners. But and so some people probably won’t realize how huge those movies were in the eighties. Like Yeah. You said, Rambo, Commando, you know, all of these really machismo type movies with these big, hulking, tough guys. They were hugely popular. So it was smart to capitalize on that at the time, and I I mean, you see definite, like you said, major, homages. There’s one part, like, I feel like in the very beginning, there’s a montage where the kid is, like, working out and putting weapons together, and there’s this song playing in the background that sounds shockingly like eye of the tiger.  Like, that can’t that that can’t submit an accent.

Todd:  It’s it’s as close as you can get to Eye of the Tiger without running into legal problems. It’s like it’s like instead of the notes going up, they go down.

Craig:  But yeah. I mean, those people who are our age or maybe a little bit older will definitely pick up on those things, and it’s kind of a fun throwback and and homage. And and those movies, you know, I watched them sometimes with my dad, and and they were fun because of, you know, explosions and big time action. They were a little bit too butch for me as a kid, but, this is something that I I just know that if I had seen this when I was a kid, I would have been a huge huge fan.

Todd:  Well, I recommend it. I totally recommend it, if you’re looking for a Christmas horror movie, even one that you could almost see with the family. Like Craig said, there’s a little it’s a little dark for the youngest kids, but if you’ve got some teenagers in the house, or some preteens who can handle this kind of thing, it’s not super it’s not really gory. No. The the most gore we really get is the the dog getting stabbed, I

Craig:  would say. Yeah.

Todd:  Not to diminish that. But, but, yeah, it’s it’s pretty pretty safe in that regard and a lot of fun.

Craig:  Mhmm. A lot

Todd:  of fun. Well, thanks again for listening to another episode, and happy holidays to everybody out there. This concludes our holiday season. However, we are coming up solid on our 200th episode. And I that’s hard to even say. It’s hard to even believe. I know. And it’s so crazy that it’s gonna be at the very end of the year or the beginning of 2020, depending on how quickly I can get it edited.  Craig and I are gonna try to put together something kinda special for you or at least something special for us that you’re gonna have to go along with. So stay tuned for that next week. Until next time, I’m Todd

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.