I stayed away as long as I could from Christmas Alien movies, I really did. Can you actually blame me, though? There are so many movies about killers in Santa suits, killer Santas, and killers who just happen to be murdering people around Christmastime that I just needed something weirder and more out there to satisfy my ever deepening perverse desires. You don’t get much further out there than Feeder 2: Slay Bells, a Christmas themed sequel to a $500 budget shot on video alien attack movie from the mid 90s,and it’s almost always bad when a description of a movie feels like a Madlib. And before you ask, no, it does not matter at all if you haven’t seen the first Feeders, there really isn’t any continuity you have to be concerned about.

Feeders 2 has a plotline that is both incredibly straightforward but also needlessly convoluted, which is almost an impressive feat all things considered. In preparation for Christmas, a suburban family wraps presents, hangs out at home, and attempts to engage in snarky dialogue before the big day. After a scene of what I will generously call foreshadowing, wherein the patriarch Alan is awoken by the least subtle UFO imaginable, Christmas Eve continues with no problems. Unfortunately, the family’s neighbors aren’t so lucky. Small aliens lurk about the neighborhood, killing and presumably eating the residents and their pets, but it is always unclear whether or not they’re actually eating anything because the effects are…shaky at best. Just look at these things. this is really what they look like.

This is all straightforward but it’s interrupted by a guy being interviewed by government agents who explains the plot of the first movie because this 70 minute movie needed to pad every second that it could, and this explanation doesn’t even happen all at once, it’s gradually sprinkled in, interrupting any attempt at pacing out the movie.

The only reason I’m even talking about this movie is because at about the 45-50 minute mark, something amazing happens. UFOs find a sleigh pulled by reindeer flying through the sky and shoot it down, sending the one and only Santa Claus tumbling to Earth. Worry not! Santa did not die, he merely stumbled into the yard of our suburban family and then passed out on their slide, in a scene that looked straight out of Santa & The Ice Cream Bunny, except with a less drunk Santa. After the family home is invaded by aliens, everyone barricades themselves in the bedroom while the aliens jam their pipe-cleaner arms under the door like cats trying to get into a bathroom.

Noticing that a strange man is passed out on their slide, Alan braves the aliens to rescue who he assumes is a guy in a Santa suit or some kind of weird vagrant, and actually succeeds. Once they’re both back inside, Santa admonishes Alan for no longer believing in Santa and saying that’s why he never brings Alan or his family any gifts. For reasons never explained, Santa’s voice sounds like a muppet. Alan is reasonably confused by this before Santa teleports away and returns with a ray gun, vowing that as the family has helped him, so will he help them. What follows is a glorious compilation of Santa ray gunning down these absurd aliens, reveling in the violence he can inflict on these monsters before he finishes off the UFO with a patented Santa maneuver.

Feeders 2: Slay Bells is not a good movie, I’m not even sure if it’s a good bad movie. Most of the movie isn’t well paced or energetic enough to be entertaining, but there’s something almost hypnotic about the whole production. It’s clear that there isn’t any budget but I absolutely love how goofy the alien creatures and effects are, especially when we get into the third act. The performances never even approach being good, but there’s a bizarrely earnest quality to the cast where they don’t know how to act but are trying their hardest to do so, struggling to make the awful lines they’re given into meaningful dialog. Is this good, is this bad? I can’t say, but I can say this is an absolute object that demands to be seen during Christmastime. Available on Tubi.