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roboticusdrake
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Red Christmas (2016)
As an Australian, I apologise...
Hmm. Something this bad should have been funny, and I did laugh a couple of times. It was hard not to - watching an old Aussie drama actor destroying whatever regional American accent he was going for, seeing that the messed up priest is played by a physical comedian known for slapstick and t.v. ads, even half way through when I recognised the voice of Cletus as a young comedian (if by now I had had any reason to take this movie seriously, it would have been gone. I didn't anyway though).
As others have mentioned, the camera work is terrible, moving from scenes, to shaky cam, to POV, to all kinds of weird angles. While this happens, solid single filter colours are used with the subtlety of a sledge hammer. Dark to light transitions with no significance. Characters are one dimensional, and become even less believable as the actors struggle with the script...oh what a script. If the directing is 1st-year university level, the script is high school. Massive plot holes, quirky details that are as inexplicable as they are completely unnecessary , and horrible cliche - "You can do this, you're a fighter!", to a thematic tie-together as complex as a word association game.
There is one or two neat gore bits, but they are slotted so badly into the mess that they are simply a relieving distraction from the real horror - the quality of the movie. The practical effects look like they could have had potential, but just...no.
Some great shots of the house and surrounding bush serve to demonstrate just how the setting is wasted in the badly staged and lit indoor scenes.
It must have been a blast to film, what with the cast, but that seems to have killed any sense of terror any of them could portray. Heck, even the family drama before the killing starts is below Australian soap opera quality...eeeh maybe even.
Ugh...so many more faults, but I will stay out of spoiler territory. This is just a flat out stinker, only watch for fan reasons - Dee, Aussie comedians, or because it is part of this recent wave of Aus horror and you need to see just how good some of the other ones are.
Landfall (2017)
Didn't get there
Unfortunately this movie is let down by a few major points. The main characters are competent but not engaging. The secondary characters are downright unbelievable, but Vernon Reed is gold, as expected.The tropes are obvious, the twists are tacky, the violence is neither gratuitous nor shocking...it's very pedestrian considering how hard it tries. The effort is to be admired, because production values are high, and buffs will love a few references to better films. Aaaaaand I just watched the final shot - I will never raise my rating above 2 stars.