RED CHRISTMAS. (2016) WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND CO-PRODUCED BY CRAIG ANDERSON. STARRING DEE WALLACE, GEOFF MORELL, GERARD ODWYER, SAM CAMPBELL, DAVID COLLINS, SARAH BISHOP, JANIS MCGAVIN, BJORN STEWART, DEELIA MERIEL AND ANTHONY JENSEN.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
Artsploitation Films Sets Dee Wallace-Starring RED CHRISTMAS Under the Tree October 17th -- Available Nationwide on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD
Picture the scene. It's Christmas Day in Australia. G'day mate! and all that sort of thing. The family in question isn't celebrating the festive season on the beach, as we tend to think they do, firing up the old barbie and suchlike. Just because they can doesn't necessarily mean they want to.
Incidentally, I fired up my own Barbies once when I was a troubled nipper. Child psychologist didn't know what to make of it at all.
Anyway, go back to picturing the scene. Family's all set up for Christmas in their lovely big house in the Australian Outback. No neighbours for miles around, as they're pretty isolated out there in the old Outback.
Grown siblings who've come home for the holidays are squabbling like kids within minutes of sighting each other. Funny how quickly you fall back into old patterns, isn't it? Old habits die hard.
Mom's doing her best to keep the peace and make sure everyone has a story-book Christmas, but tensions still run pretty high. Dad's died and Mom has the audacity to want to sell the family home and go travelling on the proceeds, now that she's done rearing her kids.
One daughter in particular is outraged that this will be their last Christmas in the family home, but you can bet your bottom dollar that she doesn't spend five minutes in the place during the rest of the year.
This same daughter is bitching at her Mom too for putting their adult Down's Syndrome brother into a home but the brother- Gerry- is well up for a spot of 'assisted living' with a new job in a cafeteria to look forward to. He's got the best attitude by far of all the horrible siblings.
What's annoying is that this sister, who's incidentally pregnant and sex-mad, probably would never offer to have the brother come and stay with her and her hubby. These people are always the ones who mouth off the most. Why is that? It really gets my goat, that does.
Anyway, just as this argumentative bunch are sitting down to open their presents with Mom and Mom's weed-smoking brother Uncle Joe, there's a knock at the door. Hmmm. Who'd be calling unexpectedly on Christmas Day to a house that's in the middle of nowhere?
It can't be a casual passer-by. The family can't stand the suspense and Mom gets up to do the only thing she feels she can do in such bizarre circumstances, although she lives to regret it. She opens the door...
Dee Wallace is superb as the sensible, ballsy and kind-hearted Mom of this f***ed-up family. Her acting credits include THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977), THE HOWLING (1981), E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) and CUJO (1983), so as you can see Ms. Wallace was quite the scream queen back in the day. And her day is a long way from being over, if this fantastic star turn is anything to go by.
She's really terrific at playing a Mom. She has the perfect look for it too and, speaking of looks, she does not look her age. (Pssst! She's 67 but she looks at least ten years younger.) She fights tooth-and-nail, as bravely as any tigress whose cubs are under threat, to save her young
'uns from the nasty boogeyman she's inadvertently unleashed on them all.
It's hard to feel sorry for this family, in the sense that what happens is kind of their own fault for letting such an obvious weirdo into their house. If I look through the spyhole in my front door and see what they see, there is no f**king way I'm opening that door. Are they blind, I wondered? Jesus Christ. Common sense sure is in short supply around that place.
I loved the character of Gerry, the Down's Syndrome brother. He adores Shakespeare and his family and he doesn't wimp out when the chips are down. Funny expression, that. No-one ever talks about what happens when the chips are up. Uncle Joe was good too, easy-going and the exact antithesis of some of the really uptight members of the family. That'd be the weed...
I also loved the boozy farmer who gets to say: 'You're wrong, boy! You're f**king wrong.' to the guy he's correctly identified as the biggest weirdo to ever walk abroad on Christmas Day, unlike the main family who make the mistake of inviting the weirdo in and giving him peanuts. Yes, peanuts. I swear, they take the f**king biscuit, they do.
In their defence, I did like that the people in this family sensibly use their cell-phones to contact each other from different rooms while the crisis is ongoing. I hate when stupid people in films throw away or smash their cell-phones in anger or disgust when they run out of power at a crucial moment.
Throwing the phone away or breaking it won't solve the problem. Hey f**k-wads, ever heard of a little thing called a charger? It's a miracle of science that enables you to get more than one use out of your phone. Heh-heh-heh. I'm being awfully mean but seriously, people in movies are so dumb sometimes.
RED CHRISTMAS is an excellent and exciting addition to the canon of festive films that have colours in their name. BLACK CHRISTMAS is one. WHITE CHRISTMAS is another. That's about it, I think. The list isn't as long and all-encompassing as I thought it was.
Maybe someone should make a movie called GREEN CHRISTMAS, in which a bunch of really annoying environmentalists get trapped on this mad island where they hope to stop a big corporation from, say, engaging in seal-clubbing or something, but then the seals turn on the environmentalists for some reason and engage in a spot of 'clubbing' of their own. F**k me. This thing writes itself...
Artsploitation Films Sets Dee Wallace-Starring RED CHRISTMAS Under the Tree October 17th -- Available Nationwide on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD
"A tightly constructed, unapologetically nasty little thriller, given depth and weight by Wallace's interpretation of a sweet woman suffering for her past" --Los Angeles Times
"One of the most beautifully lit and photographed horror films since Dario Argento's Suspiria" --Film Journal International
"One of the most beautifully lit and photographed horror films since Dario Argento's Suspiria" --Film Journal International
“Red Christmas has style out the ass.” --Bloody Disgusting
“One of the craziest, most surprising horror films of the year.” --HorrorTalk
"Striking, bold and brilliant; a sure-fire Christmas classic for horror lovers.” --Scream Magazine
The Blu-ray (SRP $22.99) and DVD (SRP $17.99) releases of Red Christmas will exclusively include a feature-length commentary with writer-director Craig Anderson, interviews with Dee Wallace, Gerald Odwyer and Craig Anderson, bloopers and more.
Following a theatrical rollout across the United States, Red Christmas will be available nationwide October 17th on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD, including iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, Vudu and more.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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