Monthly Archive: December 2020

Winslow The Christmas Bear and 3 Bears’ Christmas

Winslow The Christmas Bear

Written & Directed by Craig Clyde

Today we’re having a Bear-y Merry Christmassy double feature of supposedly family-friendly Christmas films, both of which happen to feature bears. Winslow The Christmas Bear is the timeless story of a bear, named Winslow, who wants to learn what Christmas is all about. This is a story within a story as a magic book that appears to a young girl while she is asleep, and this book contains the story of Winslow. Anyway, Winslow learns about Christmas by going around the forest he lives in and asking the other woodland creatures if they know what Christmas is all about. Winslow meets a raccoon, an otter, a fox, a fisher, a skunk, and many other animals, in a series of sequences that are not the least bit repetitive or pointless! If Winslow the Christmas Bear were animated or made using puppets it would be not even worth talking about, but it isn’t. This short film was made using live trained animals, and they are not having any of this.

The first few encounters are okay, Winslow meets with a raccoon and otter and they are okay with the presence of this massive Christmas-loving predator, presumably because they’re being bribed with massive amounts of treats, but as soon as he meets the fox, problems start. This fox does not want to be anywhere near Winslow and is constantly running out of frame because it just wants to, understandably, not be anywhere near him. Seeing that was kind of amusing at first but then things get much worse. None of the other animals want to be anywhere near Winslow, and though I am no animal behavior expert, they are visibly anxious, agitated, and defensive. When Winslow meets the wacky skunk, it is clearly petrified, tail up, and frozen in fear. When Winslow is forced up a tree to interact with a lynx, it is clearly stressed, ears pressed back, hissing and swatting at this bear who just wants to know the true meaning of Christmas. The ending is particularly misguided, wherein Winslow the bear arrives at the young girl’s house and she hand feeds him treats. I don’t care how much training that bear has, there is no way I’d ever feel safe with that. And I’d get this if it were made in the 60s or 70s, but this is from 1996! I can only imagine what would happen if this were released today.

3 Bears’ Christmas

Written & Directed by William Butler

Look at that poster. Look at it! Gaze upon it and let it seep into your unfortunate brain! However scary it looks on a poster, I will most definitely say that it is much much scarier in motion. The way the masks hang on their faces reminds me of Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and that would be great if this was meant to be scary. It’s a little less good for a heartwarming family comedy. Now that the horror elements are established, I’ll talk about the plot of this fine film is. When a woodsman chops down Mother Nature’s favorite tree, she kidnaps the woodsman’s wife, stops all snowfall (so we could film this movie in May), and grants all animals in the forest humanoid forms so that they can fight against humanity. About 10 years later, a young bear ventures off into the woods with his beaver friend to find the perfect Christmas gift for his parents. After accidentally taking a turnip that belonged to the Boo Hag, a witch who lives in the woods, the bear is turned into a human and must find the perfect gift for his parents or he will be forced to stay that way forever! Also, while out in the woods they run into the woodsman’s daughter, who wandered into the woods to see what her animal neighbors do on Christmas.

As far as the story goes, 3 Bears’ Christmas is totally fine. It’s a fairy tale type thing and that matches up with the whole aesthetic they’re going for. The most interesting thing here is something I’ve already talked about, the costumes/prosthetics, and even though I’m sure they spent a lot of time and effort setting those up, the downright creepy nature of most of the costumes is so distracting. One, and only one, animal person has her face painted to look like an animal without any other prosthetics and she looked perfectly convincing as a fantastical anthropomorphic fox. Unfortunately, this fox was a “gypsy junk seller” who enchants a small child, persuades the group to exchange all their goods for a useless trinket, and then leaves the movie unscathed. I don’t think I need to explain why the “gypsy con artist” is not an appropriate thing to feature in this family feature. Any snake oil salesman or flim-flammer could have been used, why even go there? Aside from that, this is pretty harmless, but I don’t think I would recommend either of these movies as good bad films. They’re curiosities at best and if that is what you’re looking for, two bizarre Christmas specials, then look no further!

Bloodbeat

Bloodbeat (1982)

Directed by Fabrice A. Zaphiratos

If you’ve heard of this movie at all, then what you’ve heard about it is this: “This movie is so weird, it’s a Christmas movie set in Wisconsin where a woman gets possessed by the spirit of a Samurai warrior!” That much might be true, I’m not completely sure because very little is clear about Bloodbeat, but it completely glosses over 99% of the actual weird stuff in this movie. It is impossible for me to overstate how aggressively strange Blood Beat is on every single level and I still don’t know if I love it or hate it. Probably both. Anyway, when siblings Ted and Dolly return home for Christmas it is a joyous occasion, that is until their mom meets Ted’s new girlfriend, Sarah, who she seems to take an instant dislike to. After a failed hunting trip, Sarah is possibly possessed by the spirit of a Samurai who kills people and I think she has sex with the Samurai ghost while he’s killing people, or he’s feeding off her sexual powers to take corporeal form? It’s unclear. But what is clear is that this happens halfway through, and the majority of the first half of the movie is everyone’s terrible relationship drama because everyone is miserable and weird. Oh, also Ted and Dolly’s mom is a psychic painter. Because that really matters in the second half of the film.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression with that introduction. The first half of this movie is really really hard to get through. Everyone’s dialogue is redundant and awkward, sequences go on for waaaaaay too long, and there are many scenes discussing stuff that has either already been talked about or stuff that we don’t care about. Sometimes there are other problems, many scenes towards the end have such bad audio that the subtitles just gave up, and entire sequences look so bad that they must have either been shot on a different camera or there was some kind of problem  with the film negative. This isn’t a high energy bad movie where anyone could enjoy the insanity, this is a movie for people who like unlikeable cinema. This is an experiment to see what would happen if a director put forth a movie that had no structure of any kind. Blood Beat bonelessly flops forward, sometimes being a haunted house movie, sometimes being an erotic arthouse piece, and sometimes being a terrible slasher movie with not nearly enough Samurai action. Once you get through the first half, the second half really ramps up the insanity and introduces a ton of stuff that should have been in the first half but now feels even more like a jumbled mess when everything happens at once. I desperately wish the first half of this movie was more enjoyable because no one is sitting through that in one sitting, I couldn’t even do it. I’d recommend Blood Beat, but only for people who want to see something really out there and who have a lot of patience.

Christmas In Compton

Christmas In Compton (2012)

Directed by David Raynr

When aspiring music producer Derrick finds himself hoodwinked by a big time record company executive, he’s desperate to get even and remain manager of up and coming singing group Suga Stuff. At the same time Derrick’s father learns about how to move on from the past, find new love, and accept his son for who he is. This may be shocking, but the dad’s storyline is significantly better, not only because it doesn’t include drugging, theft, and attempted sexual assault, but also because the dad is played by Keith David, and he rules.

Christmas In Compton plays like a better version of a Madea movie, there’s tons of racial humor, almost all of it directed as the lone Korean lead, a story about the importance of family/community, and a cast of colorful characters who don’t do a whole lot. There’s kind of a lot of plot that gets established, which I like that they tried to include, but the story isn’t exactly thrilling and I didn’t really “get” the movie so to speak. Is it obvious yet that this movie really wasn’t made for me? I can’t say I enjoyed it very much but I understand that the Madea movies are very popular and I can see the similarities between this and those, Though I do think this movie has better acting and less annoying characters than the Madea movies generally have. So if you enjoy that type of movie you might get more than I do out of this, but if not, then steer clear.

Once Upon A Time At Christmas

Directed by Paul Tanter

Once Upon A Time At Christmas (2017)

Another entry in the deceptively generic titled category, Once Upon A Time At Christmas is the story of a Santa and Mrs. Claus themed slasher duo who terrorize an Upstate NY town right before Christmas. While that is happening, Jen, a young woman who is dealing with her parents’ impending divorce, tries to make it through this tough time of year. Jen seems like protagonist material, which makes it even stranger that 90% of the movie focuses on the police investigation into the killings, rather than on her. Once Upon A Time At Christmas has a ton of problems, like bad pacing, bad editing, and awkward dialogue, but this plotline sticks out to me because unlike the other things I just mentioned, this plotline was a conscious decision to focus on these two cops instead of the characters you would assume to be the protagonists in a slasher film.

Combining elements of detective work with horror isn’t a bad idea, there’s an entire subcategory of Whodunnit Slashers that can be quite fun, but the problem comes from the mystery being completely obvious to the viewers from scene 1, and the identities of the Slashers should be obvious to the cops 20 minutes in. It’s very frustrating when you clearly see a pear being eaten by a villain in scene 1, and it takes the cops over an hour to figure out what the pattern of the murders is based on, especially when they bring the FBI in and even they can’t figure it out! There are so many breaks with logic that happen in this movie that it is impossible to list them all, but suffice it to say that the narrative definitely isn’t precise enough to work as a detective movie. Sloppiness is fine in a slasher film but when the plot is about a criminal case I need a bit more structure and clear progression to make it feel like things are happening. Not an hour of two cops standing in a room saying, “Well I’m stumped, let’s go look at more bodies.” It’s kind of fun to discuss movies like this but not much fun to watch them. If you see this on a streaming service you can give it a pass and not miss much.

Christmas In New York

Christmas In New York (2005)

Directed by Orlando Corradi

Ever wanted to watch a Christmas film that isn’t burdened by the cruel mistresses of logic and causality? Then do I have a movie for you! Christmas In New York is a deceptively blandly named film about the adventures of a young man named Ari. After living for an unspecified amount of time in an unnamed jungle, Ari learns about Santa Claus from his tutor, a talking owl named Professor. To get presents for his friends, two talking dogs named Fox and Winner, Ari travels to NYC by using a magic tree man that can transport him to any forest on earth so he can hand-deliver his letter to Santa. None of that was a joke. Those are the first five minutes.

What follows during Ari’s escapade in NYC is a cavalcade of high-energy nonsense. I regret not keeping track of how many times I threw up my hands and gasped, “WHAT?!?” during this movie because I’m sure it would be approaching the triple digits. What I love about this is that I was constantly trying to figure out either what was happening or why it was happening, so I never really got bored. Bad family films can so easily become boring but there’s always something weird and interesting happening, whether it’s a backstory that never gets elaborated on blatant animation errors, or even random English words on buildings. Seriously, there’s a building that has the word ‘Harem’ on it, in a CHILDREN’S CHRISTMAS MOVIE. Not everyone will get the kind of wild-eyed enjoyment I did from this movie, but if you’re looking to expand your Christmas horizons, this may be the good-bad Christmas cartoon for you.

Amulet and Uncle Peckerhead

This week I’m covering movies leading up to the end of the year best of countdown. It’s going to be a little different than other years, seeing as movie theatres never quite returned, but good horror has still been making its way to fans in the form of VOD and streaming, so there’s still plenty to talk about! The two movies I’m covering today both came out on VOD but could not be more different, Amulet and Uncle Peckerhead. Amulet is an art film with a capital ‘A’ and Uncle Peckerhead…is titled Uncle Peckerhead. But are they any good? Will they, or anything else I talk about this week shake up my end of year list? Let’s start answering those questions now!

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