After all the holiday fare of the last month, I felt like looking at a film that was far removed from seasonal tidings, and I couldn't have got much further removed. Devoid of any kind of joy, including perhaps enjoyment, 2010's Spiderhole definitely will not have sugar plums dancing in your head. It may have visions of Saw tapping about though. By definition, a spider hole either refers to the home of a trapdoor spider or a military foxhole big enough for one, such as the one Saddam Hussein was famously caught inside. I assume that the writers meant to inspire images of the arachnid and not the infamous last stand of the Iraqi dictator. I have to assume they went with the inspired title instead of the more direct Dead Squatters because they didn't want people to think their film was about zombies pooping in the woods. In this case, perhaps the unwanted attention might have been a good thing.

British art school students Molly, Zoe, Luke, and Toby (Emma Griffiths Malin, Amy Noble, Ruben-Henry Biggs, George Maguire) are tired of paying rent and utilities and the like.  Instead they decide to find somewhere to squat, essentially take over an unoccupied building and declare residency (a feat which is apparently fairly easy to achieve in England), a practice that has fallen out of favor, but once was rife in the London artistic community. Finding an enormous mansion, the four-some move in, get drunk, have sex, and generally don't do a lot to insure their safety in their new home. In the morning, where there had been only wooden doors before, they find steel doors bolted and welded shut. It doesn't take them long to figure out that someone else is in the house. That someone is a crazed doctor with sketchy motives, but a clear desire to remove legs, hands, eyes, and hearts. As the group gets split up and picked off, the survivors begin to realize there is something in the house even worse than the deranged doc.

There is easily as much tension in Spiderhole as you just experienced reading that synopsis. Which is to say, none. With predictable twists and turns (the group turns on each other, one of them almost gets away only to be caught again, they find their fate emotionally devastating), writer-director Daniel Simpson clearly expresses himself as a fan of horror, but instead of breaking new ground, Simpson treads the same water already crossed in films like the aforementioned Saw and Eli Roth's Hostel. The "scares" are so predictable that I amused myself though a good half of the flick by divining what was going to come next. Most of the time, I was right on the money. Though I didn't predict the film's final, throwaway twist, the rest of the film was paint-by-numbers torture pr0n lite. However, the film itself is artfully shot with more than a few flashes of real movie making skill. Simpson, working with experienced cinematographer Vinit Borrison, clearly made some interesting choices, but they weren't enough to save the preposterously trite plot.

With only the four squatters and the villainous doctor to populate the film, thankfully, the acting was Spiderhole's strong suit. Emma Griffiths Malin, who plays the lead role of hypochondriac Molly, is a good grounding force for the film, but like all the other characters, she seems a tad too whiny and annoying to really latch onto. First time actress Amy Noble, who suffers from the same unlikable character, gives the standout performance as Zoe, and I'll admit that it doesn't hurt a bit that she's quite fetching. Ruben-Henry Biggs is infinitely loathe-able as the wishy-washy Luke, and George Maguire revs up his ego to play the de facto group leader, and house picker, Toby. While I think that every actor did as much as they could with what they were given, the problem is that they were all written as unlikable or annoying. In a film like this, I need to give half a crap about the characters or when they get sent off to meet their fate it means diddly. Spiderhole has a whole lot of diddly (squat?) going on.

Spiderhole is making its way to American shores by way of IFC films, which lately has really expanded its buying power in the horror world. A couple of weeks ago I looked at Grave Encounters, also an IFC Films product, and I liked it very much. Spiderhole actually reads at points like a less entertaining, less imaginative version of that film. While I highly support IFC giving first time and indie directors distribution deals, I do think they should keep a tight eye on quality control. I would not have been at all surprised if I found this playing on SyFy, but if I tuned into the channel that claimed to be "Always on, Slightly off" and saw this flick, I'd feel like that "slightly" might need an adjustment up. Spiderhole really misses the mark, and not just with the tired story line. It violates the cardinal rule of horror films. It has to be scary. Even a jaded ol' Bugg like me knows a real scare when he sees one, but as far as I can tell, all the frights in Spiderhole must have bugged out.

When I think about The Nutcracker, my mind goes back to my primary school years where I recall several ballet performances designed to be cultural for young minds. The ballet, originally performed in 1892, features several memorable tunes from Tchaikovsky and tells the tale of a young girl caught up in a war between Gingerbread men and Rats on Christmas Eve. Though the ballet bored me to tears, that's what I think of anytime I hear "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies". Now, I might only think about how the director of Tango & Cash ingrained in my mind the memory of John Turturro with giant pointy teeth, a singing Albert Einstein, and, that most Christmassy of topics, The Holocaust. When Emily of The Deadly Doll's House picked this for my part in the December Christmas Swap, she told me that The Nutcracker: The Untold Story (known as the Nutcracker 3-D when it was in theaters) was a special kind of bad. Never in a jillion Festivuses would I have thought that The Nutcracker could be taken from something so primally yawn inducing to something that literally kept my enraptured with its awfulness. For her part, Emily got the easy end of the deal watching the Holiday flavored guymance Love, Actually (and yes, actually that was my pick.), but I got something special, an untold story, and I'm here to tell you all about it.

Elle Fanning, younger sister of Dakota and current star of the Matt Damon Zoo purchasing picture, stars as Mary (because obviously she doesn't look like a Clara) a young girl in 1920s Vienna. On Christmas Eve, her Godfather Uncle Albert (Nathan Lane as a thinly veiled Einstein) comes to babysit when Mom and Dad (Richard E. Grant? What's next? Eggnog & I?) go out for the evening. He brings presents of a dollhouse featuring some strange dolls and a Nutcracker for Mary. After some kerfuffle with her brother breaking the doll, Albert sings a song about imagination and reality set to one of Pyotr Ilyich's tunes. At night, the Nutcracker comes to life, and it's revealed that he's a boy trapped in a Nutcracker's body (who prefers to be called NC) who is a Prince of an alternate dimension where he's battling The Rat King (John Turturro with buck teeth and an upturned nose). Mary must help the Prince regain his kingdom before The Rat king can round up all the toys and burn them in ovens to block out the sun.

So yeah, it's pretty much like the 1892 version, but spiced up for a new generation. Wait. Did I say spiced up? I meant made into a total ball of reindeer droppings.  I really don't know where to start or end with this thing so let me start off with some numbers. The Nutcracker: The Untold Story cost 90 million dollars to make. In it's domestic run it made 195 thousand dollars and then only 16 million overseas. I'm not sure who decided that a spectacle movie like this should be in the hands of Andrey Konchalovski, aforementioned director of Tango & Cash, but they were wrong...so, so wrong. Konchalovski penned the screenplay so I guess he thought kids were clamoring for a Shindler's List, but for Christmas, and with the E=MC squared guy. They also want the Nutcracker, excuse me, NC, to have zany pals like a Jamaican guy that can't stop drumming, an Opera clown, and a monkey in a suit. Oh, how the kids love Opera clowns and rejects from an open casting call for Hellboy. I hope they also love when things are filmed to jump out at the audience, but now, in its 2-D form no longer work because The Untold Story is all about telling the story with moments like those.

I suppose when you're making a 90 million dollar 3-D movie about The Nutcracker, you can get some people to do some crazy things. I can see Elle Fanning being in this. She was 10. It was a good job to get. Fine. She's probably the most tolerable character, but I can't for the life of me figure out why her 1920's girl dresses like a 1980's Madonna. For actors like Turturro, Grant, and Lane, I'm sure the paychecks were signed in all the right places. Grant has precious little to do except be an inconsiderate father with a William Holden mustache, and Russian actress Yuiya Vysotskaya makes zero impression in either her role as the Mother or the Snow Fairy. Lane is actually pretty entertaining to watch even though his character is entirely out of place. Turturro, however, is god awful. Looking like a plastic surgery accident crossed with Draco Malfoy, Turturro takes it so far over the top the performance actually plummets to its death before the credits roll.  The only thing more disturbing then Turturro is British actress Frances de la Tour as the thoroughly disgusting and ambisexual Rat Queen.

To say that The Nutcracker: The Untold Story is one of the strangest and worst children's movies I've ever seen would be an understatement. It is clearly one of the worst films I have ever seen. From stem to stern, there is nothing defensible about this flick. Well, except that it's so incredibly terrible that it must be seen to be believed. I'm not talking so bad it's good bad. I'm talking so bad you will lose a little faith in the art of motion pictures. So bad you'll want to put coal in the stockings of everyone involved in the film. You'll want to ensure they never get to eat anything but fruit cake for the rest of their lives to pay for their trespasses. Then, after maybe a day or two, you'll come out of it, and like Emily did to me, you'll want someone else to see it. You'll want to put someone else through The Untold Story. So if you know someone who's been really naughty this year, then tell them all about this amazing version of The Nutcracker they just have to see!

A few weeks back I got a chance to talk about Michael Neel's film The Drive In Horror Show, but Mr. Neel also has another project that is near and dear to my heart, the Infinite Santa 8000 web series. Last year's 13 episode arc saw cybrog Santa reawaken in a post-apocalyptic future and have to deal with mutants, killers, and mad scientists. All of this without a single plate of cookies. Now Neel and Co. are hard at work getting ready for the next installment in the Infinite Santa. So I sat down and talked to the director and got him to pony up a couple of prize packs. So read on to find out what's in store for robo-Claus, and then check at the end to find out how to win a sack full of goodies!


T L Bugg: Infinite Santa 8000 was your first animated project, but you started out in documentary film making. Can you tell me a little bit about how you made that leap from non-fiction to fiction projects? 

Michael Neel: Well, I studied film at Vassar College and did some animation there, some stop motion, as a cinematographer and assistant animator. It was crazy. I interned at an animation studio right after I got out of college and thought I might get into it, but it's--- It's just really rough. It's kind of different the way we do it, but stop motion is just so time consuming. So I kind of fell into documentaries for years because that's what pays around Boston. I did a documentary with Greg Anton who co-created Drive In Horror Show with me, and together we decided to try to get out of documentaries and make a horror film. Because even with the best documentaries, it's hard to get an audience. So we figured horror would be a good way to go. I mean, there aren't any romantic comedy conventions. The Horror audience is known to be supportive and, if they like something, to give it a life of its own.

So when we were done with Drive In Horror Show, we didn't have any distribution, and we were trying to figure out how to get it out. While we were waiting and trying to figure it out, we wanted to do something that people could see, like instantly. So we thought, well, let's do a web series. In Drive In Horror Show we had two skeleton customers that complained about everything, and when we did it, I thought it was the stupidest thing we'd done, by far. We were like, this is never going to work, but it's become one of people's favorite things. So of Infinite Santa, I said, well, let's try and do the stupidest stuff we can. I've always wanted to do a Christmas...something. I've always loved the genre, and it comes around every year so there's always a market. I don't know where it all really came from, but Greg came up with this huge back-story about these characters. We kind of fleshed it out, and the scripts came pretty quickly so we just started doing it.

I don't know when we decided it would be animated. The two guys that did a lot of the art and effects for Drive In Horror Show (Ed. Nick Flanagan and Jeff O'Brian) are both tattooists who have tattooed me and Greg and bunch, so we knew they could do it, but I think we had pretty low expectations at first because we really hadn't done anything like this before. This was nothing like what I had done in my stop motion days at all, but once we saw how good the art was and fed it all into the computer to see what we could do with the lighting. Because it's all in there like a little set,  and it adds an extra level. I think Greg and I were both shocked with the production value that we could get. We never thought it would turn out like it did. We've been very pleasantly surprised.

TLB: So Infinite Santa ended up as a thirteen part web series. Did you always have a plan of where it would begin and end as the ending is a bit unresolved?

MN: This has always been planned to be Part 1 of a 3 part arc. The idea was to do these first 13 and see where else we could take it. We'd love to do the next ones, but we needed to make sure there was going to be enough support for it. The format was definitely, you know, Greg, when we first started writing, the only thing I said was that every one should end up as a cliffhanger like the old serials. Because we really wanted people to come back and watch them week after week. Now they're all up together and you want people to want to see the next one, but especially for the people who watched them as they came out, we wanted them to really want to see that next episode. For out early fans, they really told us that.

But the format, writing and making these three minute shorts is a different kind of animal than doing something bigger, and it did allow us to grow and kind of figure it out as we went. With each one being so small, we were learning by doing, big time.

TLB: So you've been gearing up to start work on the next portion of the Infinite Santa saga. I’ve heard some talk about Evil Easter Bunny vs. Santa. So what can you tell me about it? Does it pick up when the last series left off? 

MN: No, unfortunately. I know some people have asked for it. We thought about condensing the stories into an half hour and then doing a movie, but the format doesn't really lend itself to that. Then we thought about doing Santa's back-story as a movie, but we want to keep that how we wrote it for the web. So actually this next portion will be set 100 years after the web series, so the same characters are around, but there have been some changes. For the careful viewer, there are maybe some clues as to what's been going on. We don't want to give too much away because we think of this as a timeline with 6000 years of history.. or, I don't really want to say when Santa was created, but this whole world was changed by something between now and the year 8000. I don't know if that answers your question it was kind of meandering I think.


The Evil Easter Bunny is a part of the marketing of it, and he's a character in the next installment but definitely not the only one. Santa and Martha are living on their own, and they get found by Shakleton again so things take off from there. The Evil Easter Bunny is by far the most formidable opponent that Santa has faced so far, and there are a lot more robots in this one. We felt like in the web series we introduced a lot of weapons and mutants we didn't get to pay off. They just come in and then they leave. Part of it was that in the script it called for a ton of mutants, and then we got them and we had no idea how cool they'd be. So we're paying better attention to that this time.

Aside from that, there are bigger action scenes, Santa has a new sleigh, new weapons, all this cool stuff. So we just tried to push as much as we can. One thing we found with the first web series was every time we did something really silly with the design, like Santa's chopper with the candy cane handlebars or the snowflake throwing stars, people love things like that. So we tried to put as much of that into the sequel as we can.

TLB: So when can we hopefully expect to see this new adventure from Santa?

MN: Hopefully a year, maybe longer...

TLB: So Hopefully Christmas 2012

MN: Hopefully, but maybe Christmas 2013. We'll definitely keep people posted. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook and stuff and we'll make sure we let people know how it's going.

TLB: Sounds great. Well while I've got you here I thought I'd ask you a bit about your favorite Christmas movies. Let's leave horror out of it for a moment and just talk straight up Christmas movies. 

MN: Well, my favorite by far is Christmas Vacation. Hands down. It's just so good. My family and I watch it every year. I think I can quote over half of it. There's a line from it that actually subliminally got into Drive In Horror Show. In "The Meat Man", the Dad character says, "It's a quality item." which is something Randy Quaid says in Christmas Vacation. A friend of mine pointed it out to me, and I think they're absolutely right. That's where that came from.

I like A Christmas Story, but I haven't seen it quite enough to fall in love with it as much as everybody else. I like Elf a lot. I haven't seen Miracle on 34th Street in a long time, but I remember liking it. Does Die Hard count? I'd say those are the big ones. Oh, and It's a Wonderful Life. That's just flawless.

TLB: Alright, well how about Holiday Horror? What do you like there? 

MN: For my money my favorites are Christmas Evil, Jack Frost, Black Christmas, and Santa's Slay. All of different reasons. Jack Frost is one of those movies. It's so cheap. So cheap, but I just love it. It's so low budget and they got creative with how to do things. I was just watching the clip of the woman who gets tied up to the Christmas tree. It's so obviously fake arms just swinging around and the lights being loosely tightened around her neck. So goofy, but it really works. As an independent filmmaker it's really inspiring.

I want to thank Michael Neel for sitting down and giving me the inside story on Infinite Santa's future, and now I want to make a few of you thank him as well. If you haven't seen Infinite Santa 8000, then click over to Mr. Neel's site or look them up on YouTube to check them out. Or maybe win one in the Christmas giveaway!

All right, I'll admit right off that talking about John Waters' Female Trouble as a Christmas movie might be a stretch rivaled only by straining fabric of Divine's outfits in this film. However, Christmas does have something to do with kicking off the events of the film, and clearly John Waters has an affinity for the holiday. He wrote an extensive tribute to the holiday in his book Crackpot, has issued a Christmas CD compilation with tracks like "Here Comes Fatty Claus" and "Santa Was a Black Man", and has been known to tour with a one man Christmas show that "puts the X in Xmas". Waters was once even quoted as saying, "If you don't have yourself a merry little Christmas, you might as well kill yourself." I suppose if you don't get what you want for Christmas, then you merely have to run away from home, get raped, become a career criminal / fashion model, and end up in the electric chair. This is John Waters' Christmas after all.

Dawn Davenport (Divine) is a juvenile delinquent, one of the trashy girls at high school with her bouffant hairdo and bad attitude. On Christmas morning, when her parents don't deliver the Cha Cha heels she asked for, Dawn runs away from home and starts hitchhiking. She gets picked up, gets raped, and nine months later her daughter Taffy is born. Making her way in the world, Dawn goes from being a waitress to a go-go dancer before falling into petty crime and prostitution. Dawn marries a hairdresser named Gator (Michael Potter), but their relationship comes unraveled thanks to the interference of teenage Taffy (Mink Stole) and the fact that Gator likes to read magazines while penetrating Dawn with tools. The owners of Gator's salon, The Dashers (David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pierce), invite Dawn into a world of modeling. Crime modeling that is. They believe that "crime equals beauty" and the pair intend to push Dawn further and further down a criminal path. Hooking Dawn on "liquid eyeliner" (read:heroin), the Dashers drive Dawn to new heights of criminality and art.

Female Trouble was Waters' follow-up to Pink Flamingos, and the story contained in Female Trouble doesn't seem that far removed from Flamingo's quest for "The Filthiest Person Alive". Waters again populates his film with the collection of freaks, weirdos, and ne're-do-wells one would expect in his films. While the film clearly belongs to Divine, the supporting cast is magnificent. Mink Stole shines as Dawn's daughter Taffy. With her slapdash make-up and rebellious teen/little girl attitude, Stole provides an excellent counterpoint to Divine's over the top insanity. Edith Massey, a Waters regular best known for her role as Edie the Egg Lady in Flamingos, is all thrashing weirdness as Aunt Ida, Dawn's acid throwing rival who ends up as a one handed prisoner in a giant birdcage. David Lochary, who I wish had appeared in more films before his death in 1977, plays the artistically devious photographer with great aplomb. While all the actors hold their own, only Lochary seems like a real match for Divine.

Now onto the Divine one himself... or herself. I suppose both would be in order here. While Divine spends most of his time in tight dresses and sky high wigs, he also makes a rare appearance in Female Trouble as a man. In fact, he appears as the man who rapes Dawn Davenport. So when Dawn later tells her rapist to "fuck himself", it appears he already had. (Divine would appear onscreen in male clothes only two more times, in Hairspray and his only all male movie role, Trouble in Mind, co-starring Kris Kristofferson.) Dawn Davenport is the kind of character that only Divine could have brought to life. Waters wrote movies that went beyond the scope and scale of good taste, and Divine could bring the larger than life grandeur needed for a character that equates the electric chair with the Academy Award. Their pairing was a perfect one, and while Waters is held up as a paragon of cult film and Indie film in general, I hope that Divine's memory is not diminished to just kitsch. As good as Waters' films were, they were built on the performances and Divine's presence most of all.

The main theme of Female Trouble is the quest for fame and adulation at any cost. Dawn Davenport doesn't have any respect for her parents, her child, the law, or society in general. However, by the end of the film she is deeply concerned with the message she leaves behind for her "fans" as she is electrocuted. This brought to mind much that is rampant in the media today. More often than not, bad behavior only serves to increase celebrity. Take for example Kim Kardashian. While her mother is married to a famous athlete, Kim has made no discernible contribution to society for which she should be awarded celebrity. Oh wait, I forgot. She was in a home made porn and has a big booty. My mistake. I don't mean to pick on Kim, (Okay, maybe I do a bit.) but she makes a good example. While Kim's actions aren't tantamount to gunning down a live audience, they do prove that acting badly gets attention. Even after all these years, Manson still holds a token of celebrity among some people, and Charlie might have been on John's mind during Female Trouble as well. The "crime is beauty" idea came from discussions Waters had when he visited Manson family member "Tex" Watson in jail.

So Christmas, yep, there's nothing like watching Divine cut the hand off The Egg Lady to get yourself in the mood for the festive holiday. Okay, so it wasn't the most Chrissmassy movie around, but who can resist watching Divine throw a fit under her Christmas tree because of Cha Cha heels. I know I can't, and if you can, well your heart needs some Grinch sized growth. In the days leading up to the holiday, I've got some more festive titles lined up, but it was a real holiday treat for me to get to review this John Waters film. Somehow I've managed to get into year four without ever talking about one of the King of Trash's features, and every time I watch one I remember what a great gift they are to cult film lovers. So this season, when everyone else turns their thoughts to Baby Jesus, I encourage everyone to check out Female Trouble, leave the religious trappings behind, and turn your holiday into something Divine.

When it comes to Christmas films, there are some pretty weird ones out there. I should know. I've spent every December for the last three years digging around for them. While other films revel in the dichotomy between the holiday and their subject matter, what sets today's feature apart is someone actually thought this freak show was appropriate for children.  Of course those folks were the same fine people that brought you several Santo Mexican wrestling movies, Night of the Bloody Apes, and The Aztec Mummy vs. the Humanoid Robot. You know, the classics. So come along with me to find out all about the children that Santa keeps captive, how Lucifer will stop at nothing to foil Santa, and where Merlin the Magician fits into all of this. Okay, that last part I may not be able to deliver on as I couldn't quite figure that out.

As the movie begins, Santa (Jose Elias Moreno) is preparing for Christmas. In order to know what children all over the world want for Christmas... well, maybe not all over the world (Sorry, Canada, Australia, Philippines, and Greenland. No toys for you.), he has a few kid helpers that live with him to help him out. I suppose the elves couldn't just do a little research for him. Meanwhile, in Hell, (There's something I never assumed I'd say in a Christmas movie review.) Lucifer dispatches Pitch (Jose Luis Aguirre), a minor devil, to turn all the children of the world evil and thus defeat Santa.  By all the children of the world, apparently Satan means five kids, three of which were pretty much evil little shits in the first place. The other two kids are Billy, a rich brat who gets things he wants but misses his parent's love, and Lupita (Lupita Quezadas), a poor girl who desperately wants a doll. With the help of Merlin, who lives with Santa in a space castle along with the children, Santa must avoid Pitch's traps to stop him if he is to deliver presents to all the world's children.

I'm not sure if that synopsis simplifies the plot of Santa Claus or makes it more complex. The film, drenched in startling Eastmancolor, is a strange a peculiar ride, and if it was filmed ten years later, I would have blamed it on the drugs. However, I can come up with no obvious scapegoat to blame this film on. Far and away more bizarre than the more well known Santa Claus vs. The Martians, director Rene Cardona, who helmed no less than six Luchador movies, trades in Santo for Santa, but he keeps the bizarre nonsense that makes the masked wrestler movies work so well. How do letters get to Santa in space? Through a special tube, naturally. How does Santa get all the kids of the world to  go to sleep? That's why he's got Merlin hanging around. How many children does Santa keep in his castle and where do they come from? Ok, so they didn't answer all the questions, but they did manage to fit in some copyright infringement on Disney (Santa says, "A dream is a wish your heart makes.") that somehow slipped by Uncle Walt. I also have to mention that Santa has a computer that talks with lips. Yeah, human like lips. So creepy.

Creepy is the order of the day after all. Jose Elias Moreno's Santa literally wont stop laughing, and he's only out creepied by an animatronic version of Santa in a department store window. Everything Moreno does makes Santa come off stranger and stranger. I mean he approves a kid's wish list that includes a machine gun. Jose Luis Aguirre is all mincing energy as the devil Pitch. As if Santa wasn't odd enough, Pitch romps around trying to corrupt a handful of children and his ultimate plan involves trapping Santa in a tree. None of which really add up to that much deviltry. There's not much to say about Merlin as played by Armando Arriola, but the character's appearance here is the second strangest place I've ever seen the wizard. (Sorry, Armando, but the title still belongs to Ringo Star's Merlin in Son of Dracula.) The only redeeming performance in the film comes from Lupita Quezadas as the poor girl who wants a doll. She's so heartrendingly sad looking I feel like before she filmed every scene they must have taken away every doll she ever owned. Strangely, she gives the film an emotional center that shines despite the bizarre goings-on, something I never would have expected to find here.

Santa Claus is not a movie I would show a kid. That is unless I wanted to threaten them that creepy Santa will kidnap them, keep them in a castle, and have his personal wizard put them to sleep anytime he wants. (Strangely,Jerry Sandusky thinks this sounds great.) I can imagine that a good number of baby boomers who  saw this as a kid had a nightmare about a ceaselessly chuckling Santa sucking them up into space and feeding them to a compute. Honestly, I might have a nightmare or two about that thing. For cult movie fans, Santa Claus is a must see because there is absolutely nothing out there quite like it. Luckily, it's really easy to get a copy. For those of you with Netflix, it's on Instant Watch, but for those without, you're not left without. This baby is in the public domain, and there's a pretty nice copy over on Internet Archive you can download or, more conveniently,  you can just stream it from where I've embedded it below. I can't believe that I waited this long to catch up with this one, and it definitely belongs on the 'NICE' list... okay, maybe the 'WEIRD but NICE' list, like the kid who wanted the machine gun.

While today's film doesn't have any connection to the impending Christmas holidays, some of the chilly action does take place in the snowy climes of Norway and, like Santa, it does concern the stuff of fairy tales. If I just spoiled the whole "Santa isn't real" thing for you my apologies, but I think I can make it up for you by wrapping this review in bright paper and bows. It certainly deserves it because it is quite a gift. For fantasy and science fiction fans and horror buffs alike, Troll Hunter (a.k.a Trolljegeren) is one of the best examples of how to use the found footage formula since Cannibal Holocaust pioneered the style. As the film invites you into its world, it delicately balances the actual and the fantastical through the lens of a very real camera, and it ends up being something, well, for lack of a better term, magical.

Thomas, Kalle, and Johanna (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Tomas Alf Larsen, Johanna Morck) are a team of documentary film makers who think they have a lead on a string of mysterious bear killings. They track down Hans (Otto Jespersen), a hunter they believe is poaching the bears, but they soon learn that Hans has a more mysterious secret. He's a troll hunter dispatched by the Norwegian government to control rampaging trolls responsible for killing cattle and tourists, destroying property, and cause earthquakes. Agreeing to let the film crew follow him as long as they follow his every direction (and as long as they aren't believers in God and Jesus. Trolls can smell that kind of thing), they journey across the Norway to hunt down the trolls. As they get deeper into the country, Hans begins to believe something is happening to the trolls, and whatever it is will endanger them all.

Found footage is one of those tricky genres that sometimes works (Paranormal Activity) and sometimes doesn't (Diary of the Dead). When it's done right, the style can immerse the viewer in the world and add an extra layer of believability to some rather otherworldly goings-on. Director Andre Ovredal, whose only previous credit is 2000's poorly received Future Murder, hits the perfect pitch in Troll Hunter. As an audience, I found myself swept up in the proceedings just as the "documentary crew" is swept into Hans' world. The CG creatures are expertly inserted, and Ovredal uses their appearances to create tension, to astound the viewer, and to provide both laughs and scares. Not only is the Norwegian countryside beautifully filmed (making it the 'N' country I want to visit most after seeing New Zealand's giant bug); the trolls look like natural residents. The fact that the film works in Scandinavian folklore such as Three Billy Goats Gruff only serve to enhance the cultural ties and add a layer of winking realism.

As far as the monsters can take the film, it would fall apart like a troll exposed to sunlight if not for a couple of strong performances. Otto Jespersen is the real revelation here. The Norwegian comedian is perfectly cast, and he reminded me a great deal of a heartier Christopher Lee. Jerpersen delivers his lines with a flat matter-of-fact delivery that lends itself to dry comedy as well as deadly seriousness. Of the documentarians, only Glenn Erland Tosterud as leader Thomas makes an impression as his is the only one of them with a dynamic character. Tomas Alf Larsen and Johanna Morck do fine jobs, but neither of their characters stand out. I must also mention Urmila Berg-Domaas as the second camera operator Malica. She's barely in the film so I can't really comment on her performance, but her character leads to the only sticking point in the film.

When she is introduced she's asked if she was a Christian and believed in God and Jesus, and she replies that she is a Muslim. The Troll Hunter shrugs it off saying he doesn't know what might happen. Part of the tenets of Islam is the belief in Jesus as a messenger of God and certainly Muslims believe in an all powerful god, Allah. It is unclear why this inconsistency was included or if it was meant to refer to cultural differences between Norwegians and Muslims, Norway's fastest growing minority group. Nothing else ever comes of the character being Muslim, but I feel like that dialog was intentionally placed but it's unclear what writer/director Ovredal was trying to say. Of course,Troll Hunter also seems to be stridently anti-Christian as well. The one Christian character ends up getting dispatched messily and Hans lures in the trolls with Gospel music and the spuriously obtained blood of a Christian man. Clearly Ovredal is no big fan of organized religion, but he also revels in the legends and lore of Norway's early years. All I know is that, as an Atheist, if trolls invade, I'm going to church. Not to get religion, but to appear as a lesser snack.

The fact that the film's message remains a bit hazy is actually fine. Troll Hunter works best as a fantasy romp, and getting bogged down in possible cultural minutia only diminishes the amount of fun this film is. It's definitely a film I will go back to time and time again, and it's one that I can't wait to share with friends. Troll Hunter is one of my favorite films I've seen in some time. It's on Netflix Instant Watch right now. So take the time to make it one of yours.

There are many horrors associated with the holiday season. There's killer elves and ax wielding Santas, endless lines in the stores, the traffic on the roads, or the terror of trying to mail something. That's not to mention the constant ringing of bells, the endless din of carols rerecorded by a bevy of today's pop stars, and the barrage of  weak, uninspired television specials that premiere year after year. The biggest horror for most people may well be one of the holiday's main occasions, the family gathering. It's an event that is often fraught with mysterious relations, long distance travel to keep feuding relatives separated, and, if you're really lucky, someone will get drunk and start a fight. Hmm, maybe I'm just talking about The Lair's last office party. At some point in December it all runs together in a Nog fueled haze. Anyhow, for the characters in today's film,  the horror isn't in the holiday gathering; it's in the getting there that turns into a massive Dead End.

The Harrington family, father Frank (Ray Wise), mother Laura (Lin Shayne), brother Richard (Mick Caine), sister Marion (Alexandra Holden) and her boyfriend Billy (Brad Miller), are on their way to Grandma Harrington's house on Christmas Eve. Driving late at night, Frank decides to take a shortcut to keep himself awake and interested in driving. Instead, Frank falls asleep at the wheel only to be jolted awake by Marion seconds before they would have had a head on collision. While recovering from the shock, Frank sees a woman in white standing along the road with a baby, and in the spirit of the season, picks her up. Things really start going bad from there, the woman in white is carrying a dead baby, Billy disappears and shows back up as a heap of bones and flesh on the asphalt, and no matter how far or fast they drive they can't seem to get anywhere. Trapped in an endless forest on a lonely road, the family is picked off one by one, and their only suspect is the woman in white and the driver-less black hearse that takes each of them away.

It's going to be a little tricky discussing Dead End without talking about the film's last five minutes. In those 300 seconds, everything that has happened in the film feels like it should be looked at differently. Then, in the credits, a short clip realigns the film once more. As I don't want to spoil the film, I won't get any more specific, but I will say that the first ending pissed me off and the second confused me. Now to go back to the main portion of the film. Clearly directors Fabrice Canepa and Jean-Babtiste Andrea wanted to say something about the horrors of family in the context of people getting mysteriously mutilated. Dad turns out to have been a cheater, as does Mom (even the paternity of one of the kids comes into question). Richard is a pothead who can't stop jerking off even on the way to Grandma's. Marion is pregnant. Dad turns violent. Mom loses her mind. You know, Christmas.

The plot of the film is so basic that Dead End really is an actor's film. With only three of four locales in the film, with the majority of time spent in their SUV, there's little other than the performances to watch. Thankfully, they are worth watching. Wise, who I always love (especially his turn as Satan on Reaper), is pitch perfect. Wise's Frank goes from irritable to emotional to all the way to flat out crazy, and every step along the way. There's a ton of dark humor in the film, and Mick Caine's Richard provides much of the smirking laughs. When his character leaves the action, there's a hole the film never quite fills.Veteran actress Lin Shayne, who many will instantly remember as the landlady from Kingpin, has had a varied career and will soon play Eleanor Roosevelt in FDR: American Badass! (starring Barry Bostwick as the titular badass and, yep, Ray Wise as Gen. MacArthur) In Dead End she plays the repressed wife who harbors an awful secret perfectly, and that's more than  can be said of the film's weak link Alexandra Holden. When her character goes catatonic, I just didn't buy it. Especially with the path her character takes later in the film. Knowing the ending it makes a bit more sense, but not enough upon reflection.

That's really what troubles me about Dead End. It's not a film that can be taken on surface value, but then the film makers chose to change what it might mean in retrospect not once, but twice, and neither time is ultimately satisfying. While Dead End is well acted on the whole, it lacks an emotional punch at the end to bring it all together. While the film comes in like a lion, it goes out squeaking around for cheese. As a Christmas adjacent film (I hesitate to call it related. Die Hard has more holiday references), it does examine a portion of the holidays that often gets ignored in the horror genre. The only films I could compare it to are the 2008 French film A Christmas Tale and the 1995 Thanksgiving themed Home for the Holidays, but with more gore, less drama, yet the same amount of familial dysfunction.  So the next time you're dreading the ride to a holiday gathering, look at it this way, the chances are you wont get caught up in a supernatural time vortex where everyone dies... probably. You might wish it, but just like Dead End, it's not as fun as it looks.