A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

Most Christmas movies try to replicate some feeling of the holidays in some way. Well, this movie is like the stale feeling of the day after Christmas when you have to stand in line at the mall to return some shitty toy your kid decided he didn't want, and then going home to eat leftover Christmas dinner that just isn't as good.

Director: Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan

Starring: William Shatner, George Buza

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This is an anthology series, Trick 'R Treat style with the stories all intercut within each other so the movie is constantly going back and forth between all of them, but that's really about the only similarity with Trick 'R' Treat. That movie was actually fun and had a good sense of wit, and this one... well, neither of those things describes this movie. The best I can say about it is 'you could do worse.'

We start this off with Game Of Thrones Santa here hearing some weird noises from behind a door... and then it just kind of cuts away without properly starting a story. Uh, I think you guys were sleeping through the part of class where they taught how to start a fucking movie.

Then we get a bunch of other stories, like this one about a radio host played by William Shatner of all people, who just yammers on and on to no one, babbling about things that make no sense, until this one other guy in the studio with him just has enough:

Strangely this is what happens every time William Shatner tries to tell anyone anything - they respond with 'Fuck Christmas.' It's an oddly specific trigger for some reason.

Then there's the family going to visit their grandma who lives in, apparently, a mansion from a CLUE game or something. The father, who is apparently cast as a discount Chevy Chase from National Lampoon, is only really going to shake his aunt down for some of that sweet, sweet inheritance money! Merry Christmas!

"The only thing more powerful than the Christmas spirit is my relentless, disgusting greed."

Fortunately (for me; unfortunately for him) his idiotic son breaks a Krampus figurine on the grandma's shelf, which prompts her to throw them all out immediately. Oh how I can just feel the Yuletide spirit flowing through this movie's veins. I like how the rest of their story involves them being hunted by the Krampus... what, just because they broke that stupid figurine? Really? Who knew the Krampus was such a whiny baby.

Then the Krampus went and told on the idiotic son to the teacher, who put the boy in time out for this heinous offense.

I guess it's revealed later on that they've all done some horrible things to warrant the Krampus coming after them, like the daughter has stolen a few things and the little boy has killed a bunch of animals in the neighborhood. Wait, hold on, woah – that's a fucking insane thing to just drop out of nowhere. How is this just a footnote in this movie? Shouldn't the whole story be about the little serial killer in the making? This kindergartener version of fucking Dexter? I really think that would've been more entertaining of a story.

In the end, only the mother survives, and she goes back to the grandma's house, where she learns that the Krampus is actually sort of a weird werewolf-type creature in this story, who someone with a lot of rage and anger can just turn into at the holiday times. This is such a dumb story that I am amazed anyone wrote this crap with a straight face. It's not even played like a comedy – it's totally fucking serious. There are a lot of people angry at the holidays. Do all of them turn into the retarded cousin of the Abominable Snowman on Christmas?

Anyway, the wife then turns into the Krampus herself, seemingly understanding exactly how it works despite it being a totally alien concept. She kills the grandma, because violence against old people is always cool.

In another story, a family is out getting a Christmas tree at, I guess, a location they're not supposed to be in. The little kid gets sucked into the tree from Stranger Things and when his family finds him, he's acting strange and different.

"Hey, our kid came out of a tree-hole, better not ask him if he's okay and instead just go back to normal life! Whoop-de-do!"

Like, later on he just will not quit eating spaghetti – I know, the horror, right? He's so in love with spaghetti that he stabs his own father with a fork for trying to take it away from him! Ouch! That's gotta hurt!

He also does other weird things like stand in the bathroom and watch his mom take a shower. I'm just blown away at the creativity and imagination of this movie's evil kid actions – eating too much spaghetti and watching his mom shower. The most evil and diabolical shit ever, truly.

If by now you're thinking that this kid must warrant some type of disciplinary action, well, the father has all your domestic violence needs covered as he starts shouting at the kid and asking what's wrong with him. The kid responds by upping the ante on violence and killing his father, like it's some kind of fucking contest. Jeez, kid! Bit of an overreaction!

Just, tone it down a little, ya know.

Continuing in the mold of child abuse, the mother, recognizing that there's some kind of demon inside her son, beats him up with a baseball bat until he's unconscious. You know, I'm starting to doubt that there's any demon in this story. This family is just fucking violent and fucked up.

But there IS a demon, I guess, so the mom has to take him back out into the woods at the behest of this weird fat guy who says he's the guardian of the dwarves or some bullshit.

… you know, when I write that out, it sounds pretty fucking stupid.

What follows is an extremely half-assed “climax” to this story where she accidentally shoots the fat guy somehow (whoopsy-daisy! This accidental murder is never mentioned again!), so I guess there's a moment of thinking there's no way to get the kid back. The thing she THOUGHT was her son turns into a weird dwarf creature that looks like your 85-year-old neighbor run over with a truck and then put too long in the dryer.

Looks like Gollum with leukemia.

Fortunately, despite its hostility before, now it just wants to help: she looks into its eyes and asks for its help, and it just goes into the Stranger Things hole in the tree and gets her kid back for her, no further trouble at all. Wow is that underwhelming. What's next, a story about this thing helping an old woman across the street? Is this the PBS Kids Horror Hour now?

The other story is about three idiots breaking into this abandoned mental asylum or school or something like that to film a documentary. This one is pretty boring and mostly consists of them just wandering around like morons, even settling in to sleep there once they find themselves locked in, I guess. That's good for the one girl, though, as she coaxes this nerdy guy to come with her and have sex.

Then it's discovered that there's some convoluted plot about a ghost girl or something who tried to have a child but died in childbirth I guess. So now the ghost just tries again and again to have a baby through a human girl by possessing them to have sex. I guess it works this time, too, as she gets pregnant and kills the guy, presumably then going off to have her baby and live in the dank, abandoned mental asylum or something. This is the worst porno setup ever; zero out of five stars.

What did this have to do with Christmas, anyway? Because there's a crucifixion pose in it? That is a pretty thin point of connection.

Meanwhile in the wraparound story about Santa, he ends up fighting all of his elves as they turn into bloodthirsty zombies. It's not too bad of a sequence, with some fun violence and carnage. But it's pretty hard to find it badass when he keeps shouting out the elves' names as he's killing them – hearing anybody shout 'Not you, too, Sparkles!' before chopping off an elf's head is pretty confused and jumbled. It's mostly just silly.

Then he fights the Krampus in the manner of a stale ripoff of a bad superhero flick, with him saying a bunch of stuff like 'Krampus, my mortal enemy.' It's all pretty lame. Like if the kid from Jingle All The Way wrote a horror story.

Then it's actually revealed that none of the Santa shit was real, and he was actually just some nutjob that went on a rampage in a local mall, butchering and killing a bunch of innocent people. Wow, that's horrifically unpleasant – maybe it'd be a good twist if this was a whole movie's worth of a story, but as is, it's just tonally confused and kind of ugly and depressing. Merry Christmas!

This is a pretty weak anthology. I guess you could do way worse – nothing here is outright awful or anything. But the stories are not really that well written, with have extremely weak endings and a lack of any kind of point. I said the final story was tonally confused, and really, the whole thing is; the movie doesn't seem to have anything it particularly wants you to take away after you finish it.

In addition, the way the stories are all jumbled up just doesn't work, and further removes any kind of tension or scares this might have had because they're not really cut up in an engaging manner. It feels like this was all just thrown together at the last minute, like a really shitty, lazy last minute Christmas present.

And who likes those? It's usually better for everyone if said gift is just never given at all.

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Review: American Psycho II: All American Girl (2002)

Director: Someone who likes to inflict pain.

Starring: A bunch of hacks who will hopefully never work again.

And here's the IMDB. View at your own peril.

Larry Griffin admitted to mental hospital after viewing of American Psycho II: All American Girl. Condition listed as critical, and symptoms as foaming at the mouth, ranting and raving incoherently and often blacking out entirely. Had to be restrained and locked in solitary for several weeks before his thoughts could be extracted and posted on the Internet for viewing. Here is what we have collected:

I know this is going to sound cliche, but where do I start? No, seriously, where the fuck do I even start with this? I have no idea how to sum up a movie like this. It's so bad that it put me in solitary in a correctional facility. It's so bad that it could probably singlehandedly cause the mass infertility like in Children of Men - and justifiably so, for this is the end of the line, and I think it'd be worth eradicating all human life if we were never plagued with movies like this again. This movie is so horribly wrong and so unholy and sinful that I wouldn't be surprised to discover that it was the antichrist itself in cinematic form! It is so wretched that...okay, okay. I need to calm down, lest they put me back in solitary again.

But GODDAMN. What a fucking mess! This is the sequel to the highly acclaimed American Psycho, which was rightfully praised, as it was a great movie. It had subtlety and the wit was just sharp as a razor. It was hilarious and also depressing and dark, all at the same time. But I guess it just wasn't hip enough, so some numbnuts decided to make a direct to video sequel to it! And this one stars Mila Kunis as a female serial killer for no other reason than because she has boobs. That's right, they're using the old 'take a male idea and turn it female to gain a wider audience.' Except Kunis and all of her female co-stars set back womens' rights a good two hundred years or so, and no one with the right amount of chromosomes would ever find this movie appealing, so I guess that backfired on them, didn't it?

American Psycho II: All American Girl starts off with Patrick Bateman, played by an actor who is definitely NOT Christian Bale, getting killed off by a little girl who somehow untied herself from the binds he placed her and her babysitter in. Yes, the first few minutes of this movie completely shit all over the first one and completely destroy everything about it that was good. Nice work. Assholes.

Then we get our first dose of the absolutely ear-raping narration from our harlot from hell, Mila Kunis, who has grown up quite a bit from her role as a little orphan girl in Santa With Muscles. It takes up about the first five or ten minutes (and reoccurs throughout the film), and her obnoxious voice and the terrible writing make it about as endearing as a rusty nail through the foot. It makes the narration in The Spirit sound good in comparison. Seriously, SHE NEVER SHUTS UP. It's like having someone scrape their nails on a chalkboard, it's just painful. And with a stifling sense of pretentious self indulgence to boot. Puerile. If you can survive it, watch the scenes where she talks to her psychiatrist played by that crazy guy from Cube II: Hypercube. Just try it. It's really unbelievable how annoying it is to listen to these yahoos yammer on about nothing. It's so bad that I found myself pausing it every few seconds just to get a breath of fresh air from the bullshit being layered on. And that's pretty much the entire movie. Nothing but obnoxiously pretentious dialogue and even worse narration delivered in the smarmiest of the smarmy ways possible by horrible actors who were aided by horrible writers. Isn't this just so wonderful? And I'm just getting started.

How about the characters? Their sole motivation is to get good words in with their teacher, played by William Shatner, in order to become his teaching assistant in a college course on catching criminals, and get into the FBI. One of the girls constantly talks about sleeping with him and...I'm done with the characters. Let's move on.

Every bit of the dialogue here is just oozing with a slimy, disgustingly arrogant sense of self worth underlined humorously by the fact that none of it is even one bit intelligent or insightful. Ooh, you've got quirky dialogue, so what? This is a movie that tries to be a social satire (...I think...), but has nothing to say, at all. The dialogue is reminiscent of the stark, satiric tone of the first movie, except the writers here don't understand how to write anything satirically. In a satire, you write big, edgy lines that sometimes make the characters out to be unlikable, rude or insufferable, but it works because it underlines a point about society, the world or some other norm that the writers find necessary to poke fun at. When you remove any kind of relevance to anything, any kind of point, you're just left with characters who are unlikable, rude and insufferable, which I am sure this movie did not mean to do - merely a victim of supreme ineptitude. This movie quite astonishingly manages to have a script with lines that sound like they were meant to be satirical, but are very blatantly not actually satirical of anything, and so it just really blows. Tough, I guess.

And she keeps going on about killing people like it's something to look forward to. She attends a class on serial killers. I'm not even mad that she is trying to get into the FBI to stop serial killers by killing everyone who is in her way to becoming her professor's new assisant - this movie is too far gone for me to care about plot holes and logical idiocy at this point - but it's like they're taking the first movie literally! They really think it was a movie about serial killers killing people! They think that scenes like the one where Christian Bale chases a hooker down a hallway naked with a chainsaw...is supposed to be taken literally.

Holy mother of fuck. I think my brain is breaking in half. Did you...did you guys even watch the original movie or read the original book? IT'S NOT ABOUT SERIAL KILLERS, YOU MORONS. Get it straight! It's not that hard!

And if you thought it couldn't get any worse, watch the ending sequence in which the Cube II guy sermonizes to a college class about how Kunis' character was really 'one in a million,' and that she was so much 'better' than people like Bundy, Dahmer and even the original Patrick Bateman, as if inciting names that terrifying will make us believe any bit of this movie any more. In context, this is the equivalent to being endorsed by a child murderer, or perhaps a Nazi sympathizer. The fact that this movie would even suggest such a thing is perhaps both the funniest and most pathetic facet about it - I don't know about you, but I can't decide whether to laugh or cry at the fact that a team of adults wrote this slop and thought any of it could possibly be taken seriously long enough for this ending sequence to incite a reaction.

And ooh, she's not really dead at the end, what a shock! They choose to end the film on a generic plot twist that you could find in any dime-a-dozen direct to video horror film at Blockbuster. Well, at least now I know their priorities. It's kind of hilarious, actually; like they just said, okay, we're done raping the fabric of space and time, annoying the hell out of the audience and pissing all over the original source material. Just give them a regular shitty ending twist as opposed to an astronomically horrible one.

How do I end a review of the worst of the worst, the absolute nadir of cinema? It's pretty tough. The story is all over the place, the characters are headache-inducingly awful, the acting is a load of incomprehensibly retarded slop, the direction is complete amateurish shit, the soundtrack is a joke and the whole thing is just insulting beyond belief. Nothing about this movie is humane or sanitary; it is detrimental to the health of all who partake in its festival of horrors. American Psycho II is a film that is not merely bad, not just horrendous, but actually pathologically destructive, as if deliberately trying to destroy any kind of affection one had for the original film and novel. It is, in no uncertain terms, completely unwatchable.

Afterwords, he quickly lapsed into incoherent babbling, and did not recover for many more months.