Holiday Horror: P2 (2007)

* spoilers *

Angela Bridges is working much later than expected on Christmas Eve and almost everyone else . Her sister and the rest of her family are waiting for her at a party that she's desperate to get to. Her car won't start, so, with armfuls of presents and a Santa costume, she gets help from Thomas, the security guard. When he can't fix her car, she calls for a cab and waits in the lobby. The doors to the lobby won't open when her cab arrives and it leaves without her. She returns to Thomas for help, but she finds chloroform instead. Angela wakes up in a white dress and red lipstick chained to a table all laid out for Christmas dinner with Thomas across from her.

P2 is another mixed bag horror Christmas movie. It starts with businesswoman Angela, completely unappreciated and bossed around despite her ability to anticipate her bosses' needs at almost every turn. She's every person working hard at a job with no recognition and her frustration is palpable when everything starts to go wrong. Her actions are reasonable and thought out from her decision to wait for the security guard to walk with her down to her car to her decision to take a taxi. Unfortunately, her character isn't very fleshed out through the course of the movie. It's revealed that she grew up on a farm, but it's not very relevant since she doesn't do anything to indicate that. It seems to only be there to justify why she is final girl material as if a woman from a privileged background can't do the same.

Thomas starts out as a helpful if odd security guard who tries to help her start her car. He orchestrated the entire situation to spend Christmas with her. He knocks her out, changes her clothes, puts on her makeup, and acts like this is a totally normal situation. While she is panicking and looking for a way out, he is asking her where she is from and trying to get to know her, oblivious to her emotions. Through his ramblings, he has some points of clarity like when he points out that she has no time for herself. Everything else is delusional nonsense that includes some of the most abusive and misogynistic garbage. Gaslighting and guilting are two of his favorite tactics, typical of abusers and manipulators. He thinks he loves her but only seems to truly hate her. Thomas' whole line of thought and how he treats Angela shows exactly how he values women as objects he is entitled to.

Angela and Thomas have many discussions where Angela tries to convince him to let her go and he acts like the situation is normal. She talks about a boyfriend that doesn't exist, an unfortunate but effective tactic against unwanted male attention. This doesn't work since he has been spying on her for a while and knows much about her life. At a recent Christmas party, an older colleague assaulted Angela in an elevator and Thomas tied up that man for her to kill as a present. She had already addressed the situation with the man and is understandably horrified at the prospect. I get that she wanted to save his life, but rationalizing his disgusting behavior and calling him a good family man was gross. Thomas wants Angela to prove she's not a "slut" with the murder and then does it for her since she's such a good person. He tells her to "stop letting these assholes have their way with you," completely missing the fact that he is in fact one of those assholes.

P2 is a decent movie overall, but something is missing. The tension I expected simply wasn't there throughout. The gore effects are impressive. Wes Bentley makes Thomas sound almost reasonable with his delivery. Rachel Nichols' performance and the writing for her character left something to be desired for me especially in the responses and reaction to Thomas' insanity. The fact she had to run around in that white dress the entire movie and how it seems to be a selling point of the film is infuriating. P2 has some interesting ideas, but fails to impress.

My rating: 2.5/5 fishmuffins

Holiday Horror: Christmas Evil (1980)

Harry Stadling is completely obsessed with Christmas. Every inch of his home is covered in Christmas decorations. He dresses in a Santa suit for bed and he plays Santa in his own neighborhood. You'd think that it would just be dressing up and listening to the local children's wishes for Christmas, but it goes much further than that. He has ledgers full of notes about his observations in passing and with binoculars of each child in his neighborhood. This is a literal naughty and nice list made from creepy voyeurism and obsession.

Harry works at a toy factory and others think of him as a bit of a loser. He finally gets a promotion that only further exposes the corruption within the company. The higher ups create a program to donate toys to needy children with company money matching employee donations, but they lied. Only employee donations will go to the kids because the company wants to look good without actually losing profits, rightfully outraging Harry. His reaction is to become Santa (and truly believe it) in a fugue state on Christmas Eve, rewarding good children, punishing bad children, and killing bad adults. He takes a huge amount of toys from his job and delivers them to a hospital for sick children. 

This movie is a mixed bag a movie with odd editing and weird situations. The corruption at his work and in the adults around Harry seems to be enough reason for his mental break. He also has childhood trauma when he witnessed his mother and father (dressed as Santa) caressing each other after he was supposed to be in bed and then he dropped a snowglobe, cutting his hands on the broken glass. This part of film wasn't really needed and only served to show his parents' awkward foreplay scene several times throughout the story. My favorite scene is when Harry gives his neighborhood kids presents causing their parents to realize he's the killer Santa. The children form a shield around him and an angelic blonde girl gives her father's switchblade to Harry. It's a weird scene, but shows his genuine goodwill beneath the psychosis and voyeurism especially compared to every other adult (and some kids) in the movie.

Christmas Evil is a bizarre movie where creepy Harry who thinks he's actually Santa is the most likeable person in the whole thing. His grievances are valid and ones we are still dealing with today. The film has a weird mix of 80's tropes (consumerism and corruption), slasher tropes, and a heartwarming underbelly where hospitals and good children get deserved free toys. This film is surprisingly watchable and entertaining for what I expected to be a slasher dud. Despite the overall weirdness and bizarre ending, I enjoyed this killer Santa story that had much more heart than expected.

My rating: 3.5/5 fishmuffins

Holiday Horror: Jack Frost (1997)

Prolific serial killer Jack Frost killed over thirty people in eleven different states before being apprehended. He was on the way to execution when the police truck collided with a genetic research truck (like that's a thing). The accident and chemicals somehow made him melt and fuse with the snow. Jack Frost terrorizes the city of Snowmonton as a killer snowman, leaving bodies in his wake.

Jack Frost is one of the worst movies I've seen with terrible puppets, the worst fake snow, and the most dismal acting. The movie starts with an awful squeaky voiceover that sounds like an weathered adult trying to imitate a child. Cut to the police truck and the most comically filmed car accident I've ever seen. Somehow fire, chemicals, and a criminal makes him fuse to water which will become snow which becomes a killer snowman...Sure. The killer snowman has mitten hands that can launch deadly icicles and the ability to transform between water and snowman at will.

The fact that this serial killer's name is Jack Frost before anything even happens is both ridiculous and not apparent at the beginning of the movie. It seems like Sam, the sheriff of Snowmonton who took Jack down, has an irrational fear of Jack Frost, the personification of winter. For a town called Snowmonton, there is literally no snow in the town. It's all either ice on the ground and felt cut into vaguely icicle and other snow shapes, which the camera is unfortunately too focused on. The snowmen all seem to be made up of shaving cream and coconut.

The death scenes are predictably ridiculous, awkward, and ignore any sort of logic. Shannon Elizabeth's death in particular made me cringe as Jack mashed her against the shower wall while she was naked. Other deaths were more silly and ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous, apparently the reason for his transformation is the soul as a chemical and his only weakness is antifreeze, discovered by Sam's son trying to murder him with antifreeze in his breakfast oatmeal. So of course they fill a whole truck bed with antifreeze (even though most of it will uselessly sloosh out onto the floor) to defeat the killer snowman terrorizing their town.

Jack Frost is a movie that you watch with drinking with your friends and shouting things at the screen. The Final Girls Horrorcast had a fantastic livestream with some of their listeners watching the movie. If you're expecting an awful movie, Jack Frost is a lot of fun with ridiculous kills, terrible writing, slapdash sets, and dismal acting.

My rating: 2/5 fishmuffins

Holiday Horror: Better Watch Out (2017)

* spoilers *

It's the Christmas season and 17 year old Ashley is babysitting 12 year old Luke when his parents go out for the evening. He's a bit old for a babysitter, but he sleepwalks and can't be left alone at night. The evening starts out a little bumpy as Luke is pushy and annoying until an intruder enters the house. They throw a brick through a window that says, "u leave u die." Luke and Ashley are cut off from the outside and have to rely on each other to survive this ordeal.

Better Watch Out is one of the best Christmas horror movies I've seen. It starts out with a tried and true formula: a teenage babysitter and her charge are under siege by an intruder. The very beginning of the movie invokes dread with a black car following Ashley as she walks to Luke's house. When she gets to the house, the rich parents are hilariously hateful to each other, Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton in tiny but impactful roles. Luke starts off as incredibly annoying as he chugs champagne to impress and awkwardly seduce Ashley, supporting his beginning conversation with his best friend Garrett where they objectify women and talk about how to have sex with them.

The home invasion aspect feels familiar and I start to make mental predictions about what's going to happen, which are all wrong. Ashley and Luke sneak around the house, dodging the masked intruder with a shotgun. Ashley is terrified, but Luke acts like it's another opportunity to prove how manly he is. He seems to be feigning bravery in the face of real danger. The intruder subtly leaves signs that he's watching them like ordering pizza when he knew they wanted to but hadn't don it yet, calling them with a Scream-like question, facing a glowing Santa towards the window when Ashley placed just outside the door, and leaving a knife in the tire of her car where he knew they would see it. Then the identity of the intruder is discovered due to Ashley's attention to detail and the movie takes a significant turn.

The film goes from a home invasion to a hostage situation. Garrett was the invader, but Luke masterminded the entire thing. All of that detail that the intruder designed was his, showing his conniving and intelligent nature. Ashley is tied up, after Luke slaps her and causes her to fall down the stairs, and she tries to logically lay out for them the consequences so they will let her go. Luke enjoys his power over Ashley as he grossly touches her and forces her to play truth or dare. When Ashley's boyfriend and ex-boyfriend arrive (and then die), it's clear that Luke has much more in mind than he has shown. Garrett has no idea Luke would murder someone, but he follows his friend anyway. It's what he's always done.

I was mildly annoyed by Luke at the beginning of the film, but completely infuriated by him after the reveal. Luke is a sociopath with absolutely no regard or empathy for everyone else. He cleverly combines this with his privileged background and the sickly, stunted persona he has built up over the years. In his everyday life, he uses all of this plus charisma to get out of trouble at every turn whether it's getting Garrett out of detention or killing Garrett's gerbil. Whenever anything goes wrong and he loses control, he yells that someone made him do something, mentally absolving him of all blame. Even though he's completely naive, he acts confident that everything he does will turn out fine because it always has. Luke and Garrett talk about sexually assaulting Ashley and then making her forget as if it had never happened. The way we as a society treat young privileged white men and the very different way women are treated is exactly why he thinks and acts like this. 

Ashley, on the other hand, is right about to leave for college. She makes measured, though out decisions at every turn in the film. If it wasn't safe to move, she quietly waited, looking weak and complacent to her captors. When logic doesn't work with Luke, she pits him and Garrett against each other. She knows both well and takes advantage of the secrets she knows about them. When her boyfriend stumbles in (much better in person than what we had heard about him), she isn't sentimental about leaving together. Whoever gets free first gets out of there and brings help. I felt so much anger and frustration for her as well as admiration for how she kept a cool head through the whole thing. Olivia DeJonge, the actresse portraying Ashley, captures reactions very well. Much of the gory violence is off camera and we only get the horror due to other characters' reactions to the event.

Better Watch Out is a refreshing film. It starts off very much like The Babysitter and veers off into its own, much more interesting direction. All of the characters (except Garrett who stays a loser stoner kid) are dynamic and nuanced. Although Luke is an unrealistic version of a child, he still makes human mistakes. This film also puts ridiculous humor right next to tense and uncomfortable scenes that make it border a horror comedy. It's a must watch, especially for Christmas.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Knuckle Balled

RJ is back, escaped from LA into Austin with Bait's little sister Pinball and Eldritch, a Lestat wannabe. Austin has a new slew of vampire gangs with their own weird gimmicks and codes. Together, RJ and Eldritch aim to take orphaned and sickly Pinball to L. Byron Nightshayde, the onscreen vampire heartthrob who is apparently also a vampire in real life. He runs charities that help sick children and he's Pinball's best chance at getting treatment and a good life outside of dangerous vampire politics. Unfortunately, RJ is still a self absorbed junkie who creates more trouble than he solves.

I had a couple issues with Knuckle Supper, the first installment of this series. Knuckle Balled is leaps and bounds better. I couldn't put it down. The move to Austin and addition of Eldritch as a main characters are particularly welcome changes. First, the change of scenery throws RJ into a state of complete ignorance. He has no idea about vampire society outside of LA. The gangs are weaker, considering how he always pisses them off then tears some of them apart without fail. My favorite was the Chaplins, a group that dressed up like classic Hollywood stars. The drugs are weirder with the introduction of sunrise, a drug that replicates its namesake and also causes rot and accelerated healing in its users, namely a gang called the Real McCoys who could be mistaken for zombie burnouts. Some humans in the drug trade are actually aware of vampires’ existence instead of just providing food. The Minutemen are human mercenaries that clean up vampire messes and the vampire that caused them to keep the peace and vampire stay out of the public eye. Austin is hugely different and offers RJ an education of sorts.

RJ is continuing his growth started in the previous book. He ultimately wants to help Pinball especially after brutally killing her scumbag parent she in front of her. Pinball is rightfully terrified of him and is the complete opposite of Bait and brainwashed by her parents. Unfortunately, his drug addiction, general scumbagginess, and complete inability to recognize when someone is lying to him gets in the way. He’s always on the lookout for heroin and settles for other things like PCP that makes him rampage or coke which makes him incredibly manic. He takes everyone at face value and then acts surprised when there is much more to the person than they appear. The incident with the possum completely sums up RJ. He crashes under someone’s tarp to get out of the sun, kills an aggressive possum (to protect himself and take some heroin), and then guiltily tries to help after seeing the babies it left behind. He spectacularly fucks things up time and time again despite the good heart he has.

Eldritch is an amazing character. In the first book, he’s a bit of a punchline as a physical embodiment of Vampire Chronicles and Twilight type romantic vampires. He dresses in ornate style with stereotypical vehicles and furnishings that aren’t exactly low profile. Even his speech takes on that formal tinge that implies he’s much older than he is. His history is completely fabricated as he tells people he was raised by wolves. Unlike RJ, his real history is privileged with vampirism coming as a desperate cure instead of a Catholic experimental alternative to abortion for junkie mothers. His responsibility, caring, and civil nature contrasts greatly with RJ. Eldritch keeps Pinball safe, locking RJ out when he’s high or acting erratic, and is the most virtuous vampire in the series. It's nice to see someone whose morals haven't changed just because they became a vampire but it also probably helps to remember your childhood and have a conventional life.

Knuckle Balled is a another fun vampire novel with gore, violence, and heart. RJ is slowly changing and falling into drug addict traps along the way. The basic concept of the Catholic church inadvertantly creating these creatures because of their extreme aversion to abortion is awesome and sets the series apart from other vampire novels. I can't wait for more books in the series to see where the characters and the world as a whole will go.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Doki Doki Literature Club

* spoilers *

You are a high school boy uninterested in clubs, but Sayori, the annoying girl who lives next to you and is always running late, ropes you into to attending one meeting of her Literature Club. It only has three existing members, Monika, Yuri, and Natsuki, and they are all very attractive girls. How could you resist joining if only to spend time with them? The gameplay is conventional for a visual novel as you get to know these girls and start to share poetry with them. You have to choose which one to try to impress and choose words for your own poem that would mesh well with their style. It's all going well as you build your relationships and improve your writing skills by workshopping them with the other girls until something horrible happens. You are forced to restart the game without Sayori and without your previous safe files.

* major spoilers after this if you haven't played the game *

The second play through starts with glitched text that should have been Sayori's, glitches out, and then restarts once more. This game plays generally as it did before with some notable changes. Because Sayori was the peacemaker, the other girls are more argumentative and irritable without her. Natsuki seems much more rude than before as Yuri is much more obsessive than before. What is happening with this game? It is revealed that Monika somehow became sentient and is trying to manipulate the game so that you choose her for your romantic relationship. Through most of the game, she isn't even available as a choice, so she manipulates the game script and the other characters' stats to make herself more desirable in comparison.

The game starts out pretty slow with about 2 hours played with everything going as a romantic visual novel would. It does get a little dull because I was there for the horror, not for the conventional aspects. The music during these conventional hours is adorable, cheery, and catchy, although the piano music may mean a little more than it appears. The first indication that something creepy lurks around the corner is the complete absence of music. During those moments of horror, the music transforms from a conventional instrumental soundtrack to an electronic, ambient one with deep pulses, dissonance, and distortion that gives me that sinking feeling in my stomach. The horrific moments are deeply uncomfortable and suspenseful. I found myself constantly guessing what was going to happen and was only right a couple times.

This game has so many meta moments that puts itself in a game genre of its own. Just the fact that your save files are gone as you progress made me uncomfortable because a basic rule of this type of gameplay was broken. Monika herself is unsettling because she knows your name and that you aren't a game character. She also deletes other characters from the game and knows if you're recording her. She seems much too aware for a character in a game. Her sentience and manipulation of the other characters shows that these characters don't really belong in a visual novel game, as shown in a Game Theory video, and hint at a future game by the same company with a completely different plot and world but the same characters. This other Game Theory video shows the crazy amount of easter eggs and information in the character files showing addition clues that take some time and computer knowledge to crack (which I would never be able to do myself). I can't wait for that new game coming out later next year to see how the two games connect and what other craziness is up the creator's sleeve.

Doki Doki Literature Club is a fairly short game that only took me a few hours, but left a lasting impression on me. Depending on your decisions, a variety of endings can happen from a bleak ending where Monika destroys the game to a sweet one where you are thanked for getting to know the girls so well. The amount of theory videos on Youtube is staggering as people have theories about everything from the music to the meanings to the book inside the game to the endings. This game is completely free and well worth your time.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Knuckle Supper

RJ Reynolds is head of a vampire gang called the Knucklers addicted to heroin. They, and all the other vampire gangs, are under the rule of King Cobra, who sets all of the boundaries and jobs in LA. Dez, one of RJ's underlings, has an idea when they find a huge amount of unexpected heroine to sell it and undermine King Cobra. At the same time, a human girl named Bait latches herself to RJ, making him care for the first time about something other than drugs. Can RJ keep this scheme from the other gangs and keep control of his own while caring for a human child?

Knuckle Supper is a brutal disgusting book with heart. These creatures aren't the angsty Twilight vampires or the beautifully tragic vampires of The Vampire Chronicles. All of the vampires are photophobic, have superhuman strength and fast healing, and need to drink blood to survive. They are also addicted to some form of drug, forcing them to either mix the drug with blood or have a person ingest it before drinking from them. Most vampire lore is false like the effect of mirrors, anything religious, and fangs. Their origin is fascinating, twisted, and deeply topical to today's politics.

The cast of characters is an odd bunch. RJ Reynolds is a reprehensible person who thinks nothing of tearing people apart, stealing, or treating his own gang like garbage. His past is a blank as he only remembers scavenging in the streets as a teen. When Bait comes on the scene, he immediately refuses to kill her, an odd choice for him. Over time, he grows to really care about her and treat her better than he's pretty much ever treated anyone. Bait herself is a 12 year old runaway and sex worker who is attention seeking and kind of annoying. RJ keeps trying to show her how horrible his life is, but she's only amused and delighted. They have kind of a brother/sister relationship that brings RJ to really look at his life.

Knuckle Supper is a fun novel that isn't afraid to go to extremes. Bodily fluids are spewed on many a page in cartoonish quantities, so it's definitely not for the faint of heart. The only problem I had was how the one of the gangs were portrayed. This particular gang has members that are transgender, but are described by many other inaccurate terms, played for laughs, and all killed brutally. In the current climate when transpeople are the target of disproportionate violence and intolerance, this portrayal is tonedeaf. I get that it's from RJ's point of view, not the most sensitive person, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Other than that, Knuckle Supper is a bold start to a new vampire series.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins