{"id":26297,"date":"2017-09-15T00:42:46","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T04:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=26297"},"modified":"2017-09-15T00:59:26","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T04:59:26","slug":"red-christmas-2017-horrible-imaginings-film-festival-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/15\/red-christmas-2017-horrible-imaginings-film-festival-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Christmas (2017) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2017]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A widow, Diane, and her family celebrate their final Christmas at the family home. Typical family feuding is interrupted by a cloaked stranger. Unfortunately for them, he doesn’t\u00a0come\u00a0baring gifts but vengeance.\u202f Red Christmas was written and directed by Craig Anderson and stars horror legend Dee Wallace, Geoff Morrell, Sarah Bishop, David Collins, Janis\u00a0McGavin, Sam Campbell, Gerard\u00a0O’Dwyer, Bjorn Stewart,\u202fand\u00a0Deelia\u00a0Meriel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Dee Wallace gives the best performance of the film as the matriarch of the family. Not that the rest of the cast didn’t give\u00a0good performances,\u00a0they did. Gerard\u00a0O\u2019Dwyers\u00a0performance as Jerry is entertaining. However,\u00a0the dialogue was a bit clunky and awkward at times. Sam Campbell plays Cletus, the villain of the film. While dressed in a cloak and bandages, he gives the character\u00a0a bit of a Rain Man feel to it; an idiot savant who happens to excel in the art of murder.<\/p>\n

For only having four lights, the\u00a0cinematography<\/a>\u00a0done by Douglas James\u00a0Burrgdoff\u00a0is\u00a0pretty good. The red and green saturations parallel that of\u00a0giallo’s\u00a0from the past.\u00a0The atmosphere is blissfully reminiscent of slashers from the 80\u2019s.\u00a0The biggest drawback to the film is the script.\u202f For a film entitled Red Christmas, it doesn’t really utilize the holiday to its advantage. It serves only as a reason for the family to get together. There could have been many other scenarios to accomplish that.\u00a0And with its title, it\u2019s going to be compared to films such as Silent Night, Deadly Night and Black Christmas.\u00a0Some of the dialogue feels forced and throughout the film, there are situations that make the viewer scratch their head.\u00a0At one point, Diane leaves cell phones around outside to distract the killer. The way it was executed in the film felt forced and didn\u2019t make much sense.<\/p>\n

The central theme of this film is just as explosive as the bomb that goes off in the opening scene.\u00a0Abortion.\u00a0The message tends to go all over the place possibly trying to be politically down the\u00a0middle\u00a0but in the end, it comes across as a definite pro-life film. An entire family is being punished for the decision made by Diane\u00a0twenty years prior.\u00a0The other side of the argument is represented in the film as well but it\u2019s obvious by the plot where this movie’s stance is.\u00a0However, Anderson has stated that tongue is firmly implanted in cheek with this message stating, \u201cI tried to come up with the stupidest idea for a movie.\u201d\u00a0It\u2019s no Snakes\u00a0on\u00a0A\u00a0Plane but Anderson seemed to have hit the mark with his intentions.<\/p>\n

Overall,\u00a0though the script has its faults, Red Christmas is a fun exploitation film.\u00a0It gives off that old school slasher vibe and its always great seeing genre favorite Dee Wallace do her thing on the screen.<\/p>\n

A widow, Diane, and her family celebrate their final Christmas at the family home. Typical family feuding is interrupted by a cloaked stranger. Unfortunately for them, he doesn’t\u00a0come\u00a0baring gifts but vengeance.\u202f Red Christmas was written and directed by Craig Anderson and stars horror legend Dee Wallace, Geoff Morrell, Sarah Bishop, David Collins, Janis\u00a0McGavin, Sam Campbell, Gerard\u00a0O’Dwyer, Bjorn Stewart,\u202fand\u00a0Deelia\u00a0Meriel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Dee Wallace gives the best performance of the film as the matriarch of the family. Not that the rest of the cast didn’t give\u00a0good performances,\u00a0they did. Gerard\u00a0O\u2019Dwyers\u00a0performance as Jerry is entertaining. However,\u00a0the dialogue was a bit clunky and awkward at times. Sam Campbell plays Cletus, the villain of the film. While dressed in a cloak and bandages, he gives the character\u00a0a bit of a Rain Man feel to it; an idiot savant who happens to excel in the art of murder.<\/p>\n

For only having four lights, the\u00a0cinematography<\/a>\u00a0done by Douglas James\u00a0Burrgdoff\u00a0is\u00a0pretty good. The red and green saturations parallel that of\u00a0giallo’s\u00a0from the past.\u00a0The atmosphere is blissfully reminiscent of slashers from the 80\u2019s.\u00a0The biggest drawback to the film is the script.\u202f For a film entitled Red Christmas, it doesn’t really utilize the holiday to its advantage. It serves only as a reason for the family to get together. There could have been many other scenarios to accomplish that.\u00a0And with its title, it\u2019s going to be compared to films such as Silent Night, Deadly Night and Black Christmas.\u00a0Some of the dialogue feels forced and throughout the film, there are situations that make the viewer scratch their head.\u00a0At one point, Diane leaves cell phones around outside to distract the killer. The way it was executed in the film felt forced and didn\u2019t make much sense.<\/p>\n

The central theme of this film is just as explosive as the bomb that goes off in the opening scene.\u00a0Abortion.\u00a0The message tends to go all over the place possibly trying to be politically down the\u00a0middle\u00a0but in the end, it comes across as a definite pro-life film. An entire family is being punished for the decision made by Diane\u00a0twenty years prior.\u00a0The other side of the argument is represented in the film as well but it\u2019s obvious by the plot where this movie’s stance is.\u00a0However, Anderson has stated that tongue is firmly implanted in cheek with this message stating, \u201cI tried to come up with the stupidest idea for a movie.\u201d\u00a0It\u2019s no Snakes\u00a0on\u00a0A\u00a0Plane but Anderson seemed to have hit the mark with his intentions.<\/p>\n

Overall,\u00a0though the script has its faults, Red Christmas is a fun exploitation film.\u00a0It gives off that old school slasher vibe and its always great seeing genre favorite Dee Wallace do her thing on the screen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A widow, Diane, and her family celebrate their final Christmas at the family home. Typical family feuding is interrupted by a cloaked stranger. Unfortunately for them, he doesn’t\u00a0come\u00a0baring gifts but vengeance.\u202f Red Christmas was written and directed by Craig Anderson and stars horror legend Dee Wallace, Geoff Morrell, Sarah Bishop, David Collins, Janis\u00a0McGavin, Sam Campbell, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[200,219,477,703,950],"class_list":["post-26297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-christmas","tag-comedy","tag-horror","tag-mystery","tag-slasher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26299,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26297\/revisions\/26299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}