RED CHRISTMAS (2016)

Studio:       Artsploitation Films
Director:    Craig Anderson
Writer:       Craig Anderson
Producer:  Craig Anderson, Belinda King, Bryan Moses, Dee Wallace
Stars:     Dee Wallace, Geoff Morrell, Sarah Bishop, David Collins, Janis McGavin, Bjorn Stewart, Gerard O’Dwyer, Deelia Meriel, Sam Campbell

Review Score:

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Summary:

A mother’s shocking secret comes back to haunt her at Christmas when a mysterious man arrives to brutally murder her family.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Having discovered that she is pregnant with a second Down syndrome child, Diane decides to have an abortion, but later hides it from her family as a miscarriage. A clinic bombing interrupts the procedure and unbeknownst to Diane, her fetus survives. The priest responsible for the bombing finds the disfigured child and steals him from the facility, naming the boy Cletus and raising him in secret.

20 Years Later – Now a widow, Diane hosts Christmas at home for her extended family: brother Joe, son Gerry with Down Syndrome, rebellious teenage daughter Hope, pregnant daughter Ginny and Ginny’s husband Scott, and minister son-in-law Peter and daughter Suzy, who is preparing for fertility treatment to have a child of her own.

Wrapped in bandages and wearing a cloak, Cletus stumbles through the woods and comes across a drunken farmer. The farmer laughingly urinates on Cletus as an insult and Cletus responds by killing him.

Cletus comes to Diane’s house bearing an envelope addressed to “Mother.” Diane invites Cletus inside, although the others are repulsed by his smell and appearance. Cletus eventually begins reading his letter aloud. After inferring Diane is his mother while mentioning the abortion clinic tragedy, Diane has Cletus forcibly kicked out of the house. Diane denies to her family that she had an abortion, believing it impossible that Cletus could be that child anyway.

Cletus returns later that evening and murders Hope with an ax while she is alone on the lawn outside. Panic ensues when the family finds her body. Joe calls the sheriff while everyone else hides inside the house.

Scott is the next person killed by Cletus’ ax. Joe is strangled to death while trying to start the car.

Diane realizes Cletus was telling the truth when she finds that he left behind the necklace she lost at the clinic. Diane confesses to Peter that she lied about the miscarriage and had an abortion because she did not think she could raise a second son with Down syndrome.

The sheriff arrives outside, but is killed when a bear trap clasps around his head.

Cletus confronts Diane several times, asking if she loves him. During one of their standoffs, Diane recovers a pistol and fires at Cletus repeatedly before fleeing back to the house.

Cletus breaks into the house. While Peter prays with Cletus to prevent him from attacking, Gerry overhears Peter revealing the truth about Cletus having Down syndrome and Diane attempting to abort him. Peter grabs a knife and lunges at Cletus, but Cletus kills him.

Gerry confronts his mother about her abortion. Convinced that she must not love him either because he also has Down syndrome, Gerry locks Diane in a closet and joins her brother.

Diane escapes and recovers a shotgun. While searching the house for Cletus, Diane accidentally shoots and kills Gerry. His disfigured face revealed, Cletus confronts Diane once more and the two of them begin a chase around the property.

Ginny goes into labor upstairs. After helping deliver the baby, Suzy hears her mother’s screams and rushes outside. Suzy ends up falling into a trap and impales herself.

Cletus finds Ginny hiding in a bedroom and stabs her to death before taking the baby. Diane recovers from being beaten down outside and surprise attacks Cletus. Diane inadvertently falls out a window and breaks her neck when a chain Cletus previously attached to her leg catches against the sill. Caught off guard, Cletus is unexpectedly killed when the chain forcefully cuts through his torso. Ginny’s baby survives.

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Review:

“Red Christmas” left me with the impression that writer/director/producer Craig Anderson probably set out to make a full-on schlock shocker, something along the lines of Frank Henenlotter meets Lloyd Kaufman with a dash of Herschell Gordon Lewis to ensure nothing got too cartoony.  Then, Anderson didn’t exactly get cold feet about going hog wild on the camp or the carnage, but he realized best interests suggested treating controversial themes with an eye toward earnestness instead of exploitation.  Those second guesses and conflicting intentions create a tone so disoriented over which direction to take, the likeliest audience reaction is utter uncertainty over what to make of the movie.

The story starts with an abortion clinic bombing and the unexpected survival of a disfigured fetus whose termination is interrupted by the religiously-motivated blast.  This is about as far from “safe” for a starting point as any holiday horror film can get, particularly one with a tongue of black comedy attempting to tickle its cheek.

20 years later, that fetus has grown into a mangled man named Cletus (groan), a cross between the Elephant Man and Belial from “Basket Case.”  Cletus tracks down Diane, the woman who presumed him aborted, and finds his would-be mother celebrating Christmas with her extended family of bickering children and their assorted spouses.  Diane’s fractured family gathering grows uneasier when she invites Cletus inside for some holiday hospitality only for him to spring the surprise that he is her long-lost, long-thought-dead son.

Her secret shame exposed, Diane clings to the longstanding lie that she only had a miscarriage those 20 years ago and the imposter in their midst is a liar.  Cletus’ ass forcibly meets the lawn when he is swiftly thrown out the door, but his brother, sisters, uncle, mother, and in-laws have not seen the last of him.  His rage triggered, Cletus later returns to the home after the tree is trimmed and the turkey is carved to do some sadistic slicing and deadly dicing of his own.

Not long into “Red Christmas,” I was confident it would be an irredeemable disaster.  Dee Wallace is the only actor without an Australian accent, inspiring the question of how everyone else in her family ended up with one, including her brother.  Early scenes include a drunken man pissing on another man, a pregnant woman smoking pot, and a minister spying on a brother-in-law having sex with his wife in the bathroom.  Factor in that its Michael Myers is named Cletus because it rhymes with fetus, the film initially appears to be carelessly conceived for the sake of supposedly subversive snickers, and not something to be taken seriously.

As uncomfortable as the subject matter can be to confront, the film is just as unpleasant to look at.  Haphazard camerawork with an obnoxious aversion to using a tripod appears shaky from rushed setups as opposed to an intentional aesthetic choice.  And you certainly don’t need this sentence to tell you the movie was shot digitally on a low-end camera.  Christmas light bulbs burn with an ugly, VHS video haze.  Unmotivated colors drench one side of scenery while unbalanced contrast obfuscates the other in muddied darkness.

If it weren’t for genre giant Dee Wallace’s presence as Diane, “Red Christmas” might not appear like a professional production at all.  There may be no better actress in horror as capable of playing the go-to mother figure with such an impressive range of warmhearted sweetness, frightening furtiveness, and fierce resolve.  Wallace changes the cheap feel by keeping “Red Christmas” anchored in some sort of sincerity even when gushing blood sprays, taboo topics, or other actors go off the rails.

Director Craig Anderson knows what he has in Wallace, yet the smart way he utilizes her actually adds credibility to the notion that when its assets are regarded respectfully, the film fights against its nature to be a satirical splatterfest.  When Anderson rears in the reins of offensiveness and low-rent atmosphere to go for straight thrills with a streak of social commentary, “Red Christmas” is exposed as the usual slog of hide and seek horror where victims have their heads ventilated via ax, appliance, or bear trap one at a time.

Handled differently, “Red Christmas” is a workable idea for an EC Comics-inspired revenge slasher.  Challenging concepts involving unwanted pregnancies, dealing with Down syndrome, and the stress of dysfunctional family dynamics make for unconventional entertainment, though potentially thought-provoking material to frame within a fright film.

However, a misplaced undercurrent of comedy combined with a low-budget look leaves “Red Christmas” off the list of perennial Xmas classics like “Gremlins,” “Krampus” (review here), or either edition of “Black Christmas” (reviews here and here).  As far as Christmas chills go, “Red Christmas” doesn’t even rank alongside any of the “Silent Night, Deadly Night” sequels, even if it has slightly more substance stowed away inside its goofy, gory core.

Review Score:  50

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