The Good and Bad of Holiday Horror

So I decided to continue my holiday post-a-thon by making a good and naughty list of Christmas horror movies. I thought this would be a good idea, since there are a lot of them and I hope this list helps many horror fans to pick and choose what holiday horror flick they want to watch. I made my list, I checked it twice and pouting is not tolerated! The ranking goes like this.

Presents = How good a movie is. The more presents, the better it is.
Coal = How bad a movie is. The more coal, the worse it is.

So, let’s begin.

GOOD

Black Christmas (1974) – This was one of the first few slasher movies ever to hit the big screen and with a great tone and some really clever scare tactics, this movie builds up an atmosphere that is both scary and haunting. I had a blast watching this and it truly is a memorable horror film.
9 presents out of 10.

Christmas Evil (1980) – This was actually a really good movie and even though it had a very slow build-up to a climactic ending, the movie built character development and made you feel for the antihero. It had some great kills and some pretty disturbing scenes but you can’t help but feel sorry for Harry.
7 presents out of 10.

Gremlins (1984) – Though, I wouldn’t call this a horror; it’s a great creature feature. It has all the conventions of any monster movie, mixed with some violent cartoon humor and of course the Gremlins… this is a holiday treat that cannot be missed. It’s so wacky and it has some amazing puppetry and physical comedy.
9 presents out of 10.

All Through the House (1989) – Now this was a good Christmas themed slasher. It had the Christmas atmosphere of Black Christmas and it was really tense and scary. Even though it was from "Tales form the Crypt," Zemeckis proves that he can do a great horror flick.
8 presents out of 10.

Jack Frost (1996) – At first, I wasn’t much of a fan of this movie but then I realized that it had a pretty dark sense of humor and some pretty nifty ways to kill somebody. The story is also interesting and I really enjoyed the puns that the massive amounts of gore. A true diamond in the rough for the winter season.
7 presents out of 10.

BAD

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) – Though, out of the ‘Bad’ list, this movie isn’t really that bad but it is plagued with shitty acting, some continuity errors and little to no scare value. I do credit the movie for being really controversial but that’s the only thing this movie has going for.
7 lumps of coal.

Black Christmas (2006) – This was one of the worse remakes of the 21st Century and took a beloved Christmas slasher and glossed it up with an unnecessary back story and it had one of the worse twist endings in horror history. There was nothing likeable about this, not one single thing.
9 lumps of coal.

P2 (2007) – The concept for this movie was really good and I thought it would be a good movie but it turned into a crap fest that kept getting shittier. I hated the protagonist and the killer was just idiotic. I think they could have really done some new things by abusing the setting of a parking lot but they didn’t and it turned out bad.
8 lumps of coal.

Well, there is my list of the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ Christmas horror films of all time. It wasn’t really that difficult but I did notice that I did not see that many Christmas horror films and there were a bunch of films that I have missed. Below are a list of ‘undecided’ films that I have not seen but want to:

UNDECIDED
Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974)
Santa Claws (1996)
A Christmas Nightmare (2001)
Santa’s Slay (2005)

Review - Jack Frost 2 (2000)

From Blogger Pictures

I’ll admit… I hated this movie when I first saw it and I wondered why I bought it for $10 at Best Buy, but after re-watching it again for the first time in many years, I realized that this is not a movie that you’re supposed to take seriously. This of course is Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman. The story centers on Sam (from the first movie) who goes to a tropical island for Christmas so that he can escape the memory of serial Killer Jack Frost, but while on the island Jack comes back as the killer snowman, this time immune to anti-freeze. Things turn cold when people begin to die and Jack Frost has a few tricks up his sleeve.

From Blogger Pictures

The sly humor from the original is no longer present in this movie, but rather a combination of stupid and screwball comedy. There were times when I enjoyed some of the slapstick comedy… specifically some of the pointless running around and snowball attacks, but there were points where the spoken comedy was just stupid. The lines that really annoyed me was mainly spoken by the little snowball monsters, or babies, or whatever the hell they are. But, what I will say, the puns that Jack Frost makes are pretty clever and witty but at times they were really bad.

I want to look at one aspect of the film that annoyed the piss out of me and that was the snowball things. If they made them nearly as vicious as the DVD cover made them out, it would have been twice as better… but these snowballs acted like children, which is fine because they are, but at least make them more wicked and crazy. They talk… which bugged me and I hated that they had arms; just balls would have been nice. That was one part of the film that disappointed me.

When it comes to special effects and gore, both of these movies showed outstanding achievement. For what the cost was, which I am sure was low, to make this movie, the gore and the special effects were great. There were parts where the movie made a nice bloody mess of things, which I loved and some of the explosions were just masterpieces of blood. As for some of the Jack Frost kills: snow anvils falling on people was always a treat, I enjoyed the Jack Frost box and kitchen tongs in the eyes equals brilliant. 

From Blogger Pictures

Some of the characters were actually pretty funny like 'Captain Fun' and that British guy who serves no purpose to the actual story. I liked the Jamaican guy and some of the girls were pretty hot... but the biggest disappointment were the various things of Jack Frost that talked. It was pretty stupid when an ice cube talks, or when a fucking carrot talks... or even melted snow in general. 

From Blogger Pictures

I guess viewing this movie for a third or fourth time I finally decided that this is supposed to be a wacky comedy horror than anything else… it shouldn’t be taken seriously and there are only a few things to complain about. Jack Frost wasn’t as brutal as he was much more brutal in a screwball way and I can’t really complain about the acting cause it wasn’t that bad actually. So in retrospect it was a fun, campy, corny, gory movie that should be given a chance… I mean, if you enjoy bad movies then please see it but if you’re looking for anything deeper… your shit out of luck.