Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #79: Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus (1959, MST3K Version in 1993)

Forever at war.

Not sure what MST3k is? Read this first!

Apparently Santa was not in high standing in Mexico in '59. El Santo certainly was, but Santa and Christmas were, it was felt, a distinctly American tradition that had little place in the imaginations of Mexican children. How best to sell the Santa meme to Mexico? Why, the only way to properly bridge the gap is to put Santa in the service of god! You know, make him lock horns with satan and his minions! Kid movie stuff. The MST crew have a field day.

Santa lives in a cloud fortress made of crystal and filled with surreal anthropomorphic contraptions that monitor Earth. These contraptions were made by none other than fucking Merlin. Merlin lives in the fortress with Santa. Oh, and an army of 6 year old toy-making workers from every nation on the planet. These must be the purest child-souls to be found on Earth, to be working for god's newest general in a magic cloud city. The elves are nowhere to be found, and this will be a strange movie indeed. I can only assume that they, like the angels before them, grew jealous and rebelled and were cast down amidst the fire.

Soon enough we get a bizarre sequence with Santa playing organ and singing along with each nation's representatives in turn, and let me tell you, it is a badly dubbed buffet of racial stereotyping.

I'd have to say this episode possesses one of my favourite MST3K moments to date, a moment where the clockwork reindeer, having just been awakened from their year-long slumber, begin to laugh along with a merry Santa. Now, the reindeer's jaws open and shut in a jerking, string-pulled fashion and they can never blink. Their laugh grows into what I'm sure is an unintentionally disturbing cackle, a cackle the guys of course are compelled, in the evil spirit of Christmas, to join in on. It then becomes an unholy chorus of laughter akin to the scene in Evil Dead where Ash has his first true mental breakdown.

It's possibly the most offensive MST I've seen, and certainly one of the darkest. Given the subject matter of the film in front of them, the boys aren't afraid to make fun of every national culture they can think of in the name of fairness and in step with the flick, and poke fun at the rammed down your throat religiosity and fear of hell that this film tries to install into children.

So: Pretty damn awesome. Still with a bit a Hallowe'en in the brain yet ready for Christmas, this might be perfect for you sinners.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #29: House of the Devil (2009)

When I first saw the case on the shelves, I imagined the entire movie in my brain - it was going to be cheesy, poorly made, filled with awful dialogue, and a waste of time. I tend not to give new horror films much of a chance, and usually judge a genre flick by its cover. If it hadn't been for the two or three customers that made a point to say "Hey, have you watched House of the Devil? It's actually pretty good," I'd have missed out and become a serious Nicky No-Watch. That's about the worst thing I could be, apart from a Neddy No-Review.

House of the Devil was fantastic. What's absolutely amazing from the get-go is just how believably 80s they make the film feel - and not in such a way as to diminish the film and make it seem kitschy. It just looks, sounds, and plays out like a lost film from the early 80s. From the hair to the camera work, fashion to body type, body posture to soundtrack, to the yellow coloured credit sequences and to the film's overall cadence, you're really served a good portion of the kind of old horror-film-watching feeling you might have been craving for some time. It feels at points like a Kubrick film, which is very high praise in my world, and wields a quiet, drifting, tension-filled camera extremely effectively. House of the Devil takes itself very seriously, and presents you with some serious fear. Not a cheap scare to be found.

So: The best horror film I've seen since The Descent.

Dude Movies: The Prophecy

What's it about?
Angels secretly fighting a war to usurp humanity from God's grace wind up in Dustytown, USA* to play whack-a-mole with an evil body-bouncing soul of ultimate blackness. This is accomplished mainly by standing around and looking creepy.

Any chicks in the movie?
The disturbingly doe-eyed Virginia Madsen in a rare non-nude appearance as a local school teacher. She's terrible, of course, like she is in everything she's ever been in, but a sad by-product of her not getting naked is realizing just how weird her face is. She has cheekbones that look like they were lumped together by Matisse after a three-day wormwood bender.

Awesomeness factor?
There are two reasons to watch this movie. One: you, like me, have a soft spot for the supernatural-thriller subgenre that involve wacky Catholicisms like renegade archangels, magically enthralled suicide victims and scenes of delicious childhood traumas. The Prophecy never goes fully off-the-rails a la The Omen III: Final Conflict** or God Told Me To***, instead comfortably slotting itself somewhere between Wings Of Desire (from which it shamelessly rips off the now awesomely-dated long-hair-and-trenchcoat look that was apparently de rigeur for angels in the 90s) and Garth Ennis' Preacher comic. Packed with theologically loopy ideas and a very wise understanding of its own budget limitations, it's good fun, especially as the flashes of mordant wit keep it from taking itself too seriously. But what pushes The Prophecy from slightly-above-average 90s b-movie into a slice of grade-A cheeseball entertainment is reason two: the cast. Eric Stolz as a good angel Simon is one thing, but casting Christopher Walken as the crazed archangel Gabriel, leader of the current angelic rebellion, is a masterstroke of awesome. Walken's clearly having a blast, too, chewing through dialog like "I'm an angel, I kill firstborns while their mamas watch" like he was tearing through a particularly juicy Porterhouse. Which makes it even more incredible that he's upstaged right near the end by Viggo Mortensen's spectacularly creeptastic Lucifer in one of the most scene-stealingest scene-steals in scene-stealing history. Viggo's only got like five minutes of screentime but goddamn if he isn't the best cinematic Devil, well, ever. Take that, Robert De Niro in Angel Heart.

Mitigated by?
The dawning realization that, as hilariously goofball as this movie's take on Christianity is, there are like one hundred million Americans who probably think it's a documentary.

* Main export: grit.

** A movie unafraid to use the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to get out of a sticky plot resolution.

*** Ibid.