A Christmas Ghost Story

Somerset Morn

A Christmas Ghost Story
by Kim Newman
Titan Books
ISBN 9781835410691

A short snip of a shout out of a review to the great Kim Newman’s latest, relatively short novel, A Christmas Ghost Story. Heralded on the front cover as “A chilling tale of dark days and long nights”, the story introduces us to Rust (formerly Russell), a teenage-ish boy and his mother Angie, a somewhat successful crime fiction writer. They live at Six Elms in a part of Somerset easily cut off from the rest of civilisation when bad, winter snow hits... which it does throughout the course of the novel, which takes place from the 1st to the 25th of December.

The basic plot is that they, or rather Rust, receives threatening and ultimately supernatural post, one a day for 24 days and, as they carry on over the length of the month, things get decidedly eerie. Is it all related to Angie’s imagined but seemingly fictional broadcast of an edition of Christmas Ghost Stories from the old BBC ones of the 1970s and 1980s, which were often adaptations of the works of M. R. James (amongst others)? Or is something even more sinister taking root in the household (and believe me, that first day advent calendar chocolate is a bitch)? Either way, it makes a good subject for Rust’s paraphenomenon podcast for sure.

The book is playful with shrewd insight and ideas, which is kind of what you expect from a writer with the talent of Kim Newman but, I always forget just how naturally he weaves his words and how his phrases and observations zing off the page. There’s some beautiful stuff in here, such as the idea of the mother using her computer spell check and the young boy’s response that a computer is just a box and it’s a subroutine of software she’s running. And I practically cheered (and quickly highlighted to my friends over whatsapp) when he says, in a scene flashing back to the mother’s earlier years... “Dad and Angie would have already been through the double issues of the Radio and TV Times with highlighter pens, flagging conflicts of interest.” He then goes on to absolutely nail, in the following paragraph, the difference between the golden age of 1970s Christmas TV and the current poor showing these days, when there’s rarely ever anything good on and the chaff hugely outnumbers the wheat, so to speak.

And throwaway lines such as “Supernatural curse delivery isn’t what it was before Brexit.” certainly liven up the prose and helps to build two central protagonists who are completely likeable in every way. People you care about and who the reader wishes to see no harm come to. Subsequently the wit and attitude of the prose blazes away into high gear and, to risk summoning the obvious clichés, makes the book absolutely binge worthy, like a really good TV show.

My only slight criticism is the supernaturally abstract nature of the book’s ultimate denouement. It felt a little less edgier than the rest of the novel but not entirely inappropriate and, to be fair, the good ship Newman did even surprise me with the direction the last part of the book took... which is something so rare that I always respect it in a writer when they are able to take me unawares.

People of my old age will also get something out of the many pop culture references (and even the made up parodies of such things) that litter the pages. References to stuff like Quatermass And The Pit, The Thing, Doctor Who and even The Shining are also all present and correct alongside the company of those old BBC Ghost Stories I mentioned earlier. So there’s a lot crammed into the book’s relatively punchy 150 plus pages, for sure.

So, a quick but also pacey read makes Kim Newman’s A Christmas Ghost Story, bulging at the seams with style and entertaining truths, something of a fulfilling read for the Christmas season, to be sure. This one makes a nice companion to the yuletide meanderings and rituals many of us go through each year and you could do a lot worse than to mark it up on your Christmas list, as far as I’m concerned.

Demonic Christmas Tree

Blood N’ Pine

Demonic Christmas Tree
aka The Killing Tree
Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield
UK 2022
Dark Abyss Productions

Warning: A treeful of spoilers.

Okay, wow. This is going to be a real short review and, for that I apologise but, it takes a lot of time and effort by all concerned to make a movie so... I don’t want to write too lengthy an article to tell you how terrible it is in various ways.

I watched Demonic Christmas Tree because it has an absolutely brilliant central concept. The wife of a Christmas themed serial killer uses her executed husband’s ashes in a black magic ritual to revive him so he can get revenge on the ‘final girl’ of his initial killing spree and carry on doing more killing... in the name of people who think it’s all about gifts and not knowing the true meaning of Christmas. So kill them all is the mindset. But the ritual goes wrong and, instead, her husband is brought back to life as a homicidal Christmas tree... a living Christmas tree with coloured lights, the killers voice, badly CGI’d twig appendages and, of course, it’s completely mobile and is even seen driving a car at one point.

Now, yeah, you’d think with an amazing, high level concept like that, there’s no way anybody could screw it up. You’d be wrong. The film is actually quite bad and, somehow, dull... considering it has a lot of good things going for it, which you would think would stop that from happening. The cinematography is absolutely fine and the various actors are also... well yeah, okay, nobody here is going to be winning any academy awards but it’s not that kind of movie and they’re basically all just fine too. So what’s wrong with this?

Well, the CGi is not great but, if you’ve ever let badly executed special effects stop you from enjoying a cracking movie then you probably shouldn’t bother watching stuff anyway. I think the trouble here... and I might be wrong as this is only a guess... is that the cast and crew here were maybe, deliberately trying to make a bad movie and, that’s a very fine line to walk. I’ve seen this kinda thing done well in the past, such as in movies like Santa Jaws (reviewed here) but even with a healthy dose of self awareness manifested on screen, as this one kinda has (I hope that’s what it was going for, or this movie is even worse than I thought), this can backfire quite badly if the film is just uninteresting which, I’m sad to say, is the case here. I think the real problem here is the script and dialogue, to be honest. It’s really dire and I could see how some of the actors and the lead actresses here might be singled out by audiences as somehow being bad at their job but, honestly, with dialogue this bad then the best acting in the world is not necessarily going to save it.

The cinematography is interesting because, as I said, it’s technically competent but it is all over the place. Once minute you’ll be following the camera through weird, moving or rotating dutch angles and the next you’ll be into intercut, static shots without any movement whatsoever. But the different styles of shooting various scenes doesn’t really jell very well, as it does on many other films. Here it just feels like different scenes have been shot by two or three different people, half the time. Which apparently is not the case. Also, there are a fair few moments in the movie where there are repeat lines of dialogue of the same thing shot from different angles which makes it feel like the producer was just trying to pad the film out. And it’s these scenes that lead me to believe that this film is deliberately trying to capture the ‘so bad it’s good’ vibe which has been successful for a fair few directors... except in this case it’s ‘so bad, it’s bad’. Because why else would you leave alternative versions of a scene in the picture?


Also, the kills in this are terrible. A lot of them are taking place either in long shot or even just out of the camera view and, instead, we see a lot of that awful looking ersatz CGI blood and, yeah, it certainly looks fake too. And, because it looks so artificial, like some modern, big budget Hollywood movies (to be fair), then it doesn’t have any kind of weight to it when somebody gets killed either.

And that’s me finished with Demonic Christmas Tree. Great concept but terrible execution, it has to be said. I certainly won’t be recommending this one to anybody I know and I certainly never want to revisit this one in future. Steer well clear of this one, would be my best advice.

The Possession Of Hannah Grace

Saving Grace

The Possession Of Hannah Grace
2018 USA Directed by Diederik Van Rooijen
UK cinema release print.

Well this is an entertaining little horror movie I saw the other night, based solely on the strength of the trailer I saw about a month before.

Now, it has to be said, the promotional trailer for The Possession of Hannah Grace is cut so that it seems to be a lot more subtle and atmospheric than it actually is... at least in terms of a slow burn film, that is. This one is anything but restrained and even during the opening pre-credits sequence we are treated to an ‘exorcism gone wrong’ with all the kinds of post-Freidkin possession shenanigans you’d expect to see in something like this, thrown at you in the first five minutes or so. It’s quite hokey, in all honesty but that’s okay, there are many kinds of horror films and this is just not one based on any sense of deepening mystery, is all.

The story is the tale of Megan Reed, played ably by Shay Mitchell. An ex-cop who is cursed with the cliché of failing her partner by not using immediate, deadly force and who has left the service because she can’t cope with the hesitancy that killed her colleague. And, yeah, if you think this back story is just setting her up for a shot at redemption and recompense towards the end of the movie... bingo. Like I said, not subtle but that’s okay, it’s a fun enough ride.

So anyway, shortly after we join Megan, she starts the first night of her solitary graveyard shift at the Boston hospital and, of course, as you would expect, the body of the victim of the exorcism gone wrong, Hannah Grace (played quite dextrously by Kirby Johnson), is brought in and starts causing all kinds of trouble for poor Megan, as it’s clear the exorcism didn’t quite take. And... yes, if you’re thinking this sounds a touch like The Autopsy Of Jane Doe (which I reviewed here) then you’d be absolutely right. This is a little like that film but with no slow build up or mystery and lots of demonic battles pushed to the fore. I mean, all pretense at mystery on this one is taken away at the end of the first pre-credits sequence anyway, when it’s made clear to the audience that Hannah Grace... or at least the cadaver of her which is inhabited by a demon of some kind... is not exactly dead.

Now, the film tries to have its cake and eat it by showing us Megan working alone in a dark suite of the hospital morgue while, at the same time, having her connect with, or sometimes meet and make, new friends and acquaintances over the evening. The reason why the story does this is very simple... the somewhat less than static corpse of the title character is slowly healing herself and, basically, the more people she kills, the less crippled, burned and wounded she is. So we get a steady stream of potential victims visiting Megan for various reasons over the course of the evening, specifically so they can be stealthily killed by Hannah in some kind of supernatural way. Which kind of works okay and I didn’t mind this way of doing things here... once I’d figured out the director was going for full-on demonic showdowns rather than trying to build a scary atmosphere. It’s a valid way of going about things and it... just about... works here.

There’s also a nice sense of symmetry in the mise en scene to this movie and, by that, what I mean is that this director seems to really love the middle of the screen. I would guess that for over 90% of this movie, the camera favours shots which pitch the main action or focus of the shot dead centre. It’s almost like Van Rooijen and his cinematographer have an obsession with this way of doing things. Sometimes he will just use the vertical slabs made by corridors, doors and windows to pull everything to the middle and often he will be moving his camera around, sometimes hand held, so that whoever the character he is following will still mostly stay at the centre of the frame. Occasionally, he will use the twisted, fast, creepy crawling cadaver of Hannah Grace and deliberately pitch her off centre in order to contrast this style and attempt to surprise the audience but, even some of the jump scares are pitched directly centre of the shot and are done by masking off visibility with fluctuating light and shadow rather than with peripheral details.

Strangely, there’s an obvious set up early in the film and he never seems to yank on that string later... at least not in this cut of the movie. Very early on the filmmakers go out of their way to make us understand that about 90% of the lights in the morgue are sensor operated on movement to save energy and this is further highlighted by constant scenes of Megan having to go into dark areas and wave her arms about so the lights come back on. So, yeah, I was just waiting for this to be used as some kind of set up to some big kind of jump scare but... no, surprisingly the director doesn’t really utilise this here. That being said, there could well have been a scene which did just that in an earlier cut, for all I know. I’m just guessing here though because, why shoot all those instances as a set up unless you were going to take advantage of it later on in the movie? Unless he just wanted an excuse to keep everything darkly lit, I suppose.

At the end of the day, The Possession of Hannah Grace has some nice acting, some likeable characters and also, I should add, a nice soundtrack by composer John Frizzel which, alas, doesn’t seem to have a CD release. The downside on this is it’s fairly predictable and there are no real scary bits in this one. However, as a ‘comfort horror’ film is works quite well and I think most lovers of the genre will quite like this one. Or at least not find much to complain about. So there you go, that’s me done on this one. If horror movies, no matter how hokey, are your thing, then you might want to give this one a go. If not... yeah, you can probably miss this one. I quite liked it and will be happy to watch it again when the Blu Ray goes into the bargain bins, for sure.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Clausferatu

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
2010 Finland/Sweden/France
Directed by Jalmari Helander
Icon Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Some slight, seasonal spoilers in here.

To say that Rare Exports is a movie about an intimidating killer-Santa is to do it somewhat of an injustice. I was looking forward to seeing this since it came out two Christmases ago but, for one reason or another, this is the first time I’ve been able to get a look at it. I finally picked up a cheap Blu Ray of it (why are Blu Ray discs cheaper than DVDs now?) and gave it some time. I have to admit, I was expecting something highly comical and camp from a film with this basic kind of premise of a group of people trying to trap some kind of “menacing Santa” but, as it turns out, this is not some piece of fluff which trades in laughs, mistletoe and wine... it’s actually a pretty decent stab at a Christmas themed horror film which doesn’t quite go the whole hog, perhaps, as I might have liked, but is certainly worth some of your time.

I have a slight problem with the ending of the movie but that’s only because the first two thirds of this thing were done so well that he ending felt a little flat after the intensity of the build up. I might be wrong but I suspect the ending could have been a lot more what I’d wanted if the film had gotten a lot larger budget... as it is, it just didn’t quite live up to my expectations of it when it came time for the “final showdown”, so to speak.

The film starts beautifully with 24 days to go until Christmas and an archeological team finding something “big”. The sponsor behind the expedition gets all excited about what he thinks they are going to find in some ice, packed in sawdust, deep within a mountain. Cut to the main protagonist, Pietari and his “friend” watching the team of archeologists. They have an argument about Santa Claus and return to their town, not far from the mountain. Pietari lives with his dad, Rauno, and they are getting through the days since the loss of Pietari’s mother and attending to their annual business with a small group of co-workers, ready to round up the year’s reindeer and slaughter them for meat.

The opening credits roll and we are treated to images from Pietari’s research into the Santa Claus legend. These show a grim portrait of Santa from a time when he wasn’t the benevolent fellow that the passing centuries have made him out to be. He tracks down the naughty kids and gives them a good, bloody scourging or dumps them alive into cauldron’s of boiling oil etc. The illustrations on display paint a nasty portrait of the “real” myth of Santa and after this, the film continues with Pietari and the gang investigating a large number of butchered reindeer and the disappearance of the archeological team.

The tone is amazing in this movie. Although there are some small laughs to be had, I think it’s true to say that the film eschews a humorous approach to the subject matter in deference to a much straighter, horror film approach to the material. This took me by surprise and really worked well. I was reminded more of David Slade’s 30 Days Of Night or John Carpenter’s The Thing while I was watching the intense build up as opposed to anything lighter, although there is actually a thin strand of dark humour weaved throughout... the film manages to establish some true moments of suspenseful terror in its short running time and even has a little trick up it’s sleeve in terms of the identity of the real Santa Claus... but I’ll leave that aspect for you to find out for yourself.

It’s really well put together, very cleanly framed and edited... you won’t have any trouble following this from a visual standpoint and there are no jumps or stutters in plot logic or fictional duration to jar you out of the action. This, combined with a very nice, almost classic 70s Hollywood style scoring by composers Juri and Miska Seppä ensures that you are both entertained and kept on the edge of your seat right until the end of the movie. This is one of those kinds of films which pull you in and keep you there until the director’s done with you.

My one real complaint is, I expect, due to financial reasons. I was waiting to see a run, jump and chase fight between our bunch of “out of their depth” heroes and what I can only guess is a giant Santa-monster. Instead, what you get is a very budget conscious third act where the true face of our legendary antagonist is not actually seen and, in the end, is fairly quickly disposed of. There’s a series of little sequences comprising an epilogue of sorts, by which time the film is now going for full on laughs, which also reveal the reasoning behind the title of the movie which are quite good, on the whole, and have an irresistible charm to them... it just doesn’t make up for the full on, gory Santa carnage I’d been led to expect from the rest of the film. Still, a slightly unsatisfying ending is no real problem for a movie that maintains such a high standard of excellence all the way through and I’m really glad I went along for this particular celluloid sleigh ride.

Rare Exports is a truly great little movie and is not to be considered a trifle of a Christmas film by potential viewers. True, there are no women in it, for some reason, but I have a feeling that this movie is going to be shown a lot on late night TV as part of one channel or another’s Christmas package for a great many years to come. More than just a piece of tinsel designed to cheer you up, Rare Exports has a real bite to it that you’ll want to sample for yourself. Make sure you get around to taking a look... and checking it twice.