Friday the 13th: The Series -- Season 1 Episode 9 (Root of All Evil)

One of the things about Friday the 13th: The Series is a lack of explanation as to how the cursed items work.  In the pilot, it’s said that Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil and that, as a way for fortune and immorality, he sold those cursed items to unsuspecting customers in his antiques shop. After his death, his niece and nephew were left to clean up the mess with the help of an old business partner of his.

This episode starts with a mother and son doing some yard work.  The son becomes possessed with rage and shoves his mother into a mulcher/wood chipper.  The next scene is in curious goods some time later.  Jack, the old business partner, finds a letter addressed to Lewis.  In it, he finds references to knowledge from below, indicating that the writer knew about the cursed items.  Also enclosed is a $100 bill.

This leads Jack, Micki and Ryan to track down the sender.  They find a vacant house, but they know that the item is the aforementioned mulcher, as the return address matched an entry in their ledger of items that Lewis sold.  They are able to track down the mulcher to the maintenance crew at n estate that’s about to become a park.

Smitty is the new owner of the mulcher.  He has no idea what it is.  However, Smitty has an employee named Adrian.  Adrian becomes possessed much like the son did in the opening scene.  When someone tries to hit Adrian up for some hush money, Adrian feeds the guy to the mulcher and receives a few bills, all dated 1937.

For those wondering, there is no Series 1937 American currency in any denomination.   There is Series 1937 Canadian money.  Given that the currency shown is American and the show is filmed in Canada, I think the person checking facts for the show might have gotten the countries mixed up.

At any rate, Adrian soon realizes that the richer the person is, the more money he gets.  Adrian is in luck, as the estate he works on has lots of rich people walking around.  He tries to mulch people as quickly as he can, resulting in a bag full of cash.

During all of this, Micki’s fiancé, Lloyd, pays a visit to the antique store.  At the beginning of the series, Lloyd and Micki were engaged to be married.  Inheriting the store put that marriage on hold.  It’s somewhat surprising that it took this long to deal with it, but it was bound to happen.  Micki tries showing Lloyd around, as he has a right to know what she’s doing.  He doesn’t buy any of it, even when he sees her help get the mulcher back.  In the end, she decides to stay with Jack and Ryan; Lloyd goes home without Micki.

Overall, the episode is still a little thin.  The episodes seem to be relatively self-contained so far, with this one being a notable exception.  If not for the engagement aspect, you could have watched a lot of the episodes out of order.  There’s very little continuity so far between each episode.  In fact, if this was the first episode you watched, it would probably be easy to figure out what’s going on.  (There wouldn’t be many revelations going back and watching the pilot episode.)

Also, it seems like much of the episode is spent trying to contain the artifact.  Jack, Ryan and Micki seem to find the mulcher rather quickly, meaning there has to be a good deal of chasing people around.  (I suspect that this is why this episode was chosen to deal with Micki’s engagement.  They held off until they needed the filler.)

This episode, like many of the others, probably could have been shortened to a half-hour format.  Either that, or find something else to fill the time.  Some of the items have a historical connection, but little is said about it.  Here, we just have a garden tool that seems to spit out money.  There’s no debate on what determines a person’s worth.  The resulting cash is simply a function of their net worth.

I’ve decided that I’m going to finish out this season.  I’m really hoping that the episodes get better.  This one at least shows some promise.  I hope that it’s not misplaced.

IMDb page

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

Sometimes, having interconnected stories can work.  Usually, this involves having a single narrative with several different aspects.  It tends to work best when it’s done subtly.  A Christmas Horror Story isn’t such a movie.  I’m not saying that it’s not entertaining.  It’s just that you have four stories that probably started out having nothing to do with each other.  Someone apparently got the idea to put them together when they probably would have worked better as four short films.

In one story, you have Santa Claus battling undead elves.  There’s no explanation where the infection came from, but one elf dies and reanimates.  Elves aren’t supposed to die.  They’re cheerful and immortal and they definitely don’t refuse Mrs. Claus’s cookies, at least not in such a vulgar fashion.  Yet, Mr. Claus has to rid his workshop of his undead helpers.

In a second story, a family of four is going to visit the father’s Aunt Edda.  The wife, son and daughter see it for what it is: a chance for dear old Dad to hit her up for an investment in his company.  After promptly being kicked out, the car gets stuck.  This makes it easier for Krampus to pick them off one at a time.

In the third story, three filmmakers go to a school’s basement to make a documentary.  Two girls were murdered in a gruesome manner.  One of the police officers had to go on medical leave because of it.  (The daughter from the second story would be joining them if not for her father’s dragging her along to Aunt Edda’s.)  They get locked in and have to hope that someone finds them in time.

In the fourth story, a father decides to take his wife and son along to steal a tree from private property.  (It just so happens that the father is the police officer that’s on medical leave.)  The son disappears, but is found again hiding in a tree.  It isn’t until they get home that the parents realize that something is off.  The landowner contacts the wife, telling her to bring the kid back.  She hangs up on him, but eventually comes around.

Tying it all together is Dangerous Dan, played by William Shatner.  He’s a DJ who is pulling a double shift Christmas eve to bring everyone some Christmas music.  He’s not too happy about being there, as evidenced by his consumption of spiked egg nog.  In the studio with him is Norman.  When Dan asks Norman about his impending trip to the mall’s food drive, Norman holds up a nasty note for Dan to see.

The four stories are told intertwined as Dangerous Dan plays his songs.  The result is something that’s not quite coherent.  Each story probably could have done well as a short film.  The Student Filmmaker story was what you’d expect of those teenager horror movies that are heavy on the scares and maybe even the sex appeal.  Similarly, the family trip to see Aunt Edda was your basic awkward outing movies where everyone has an epiphany and grows.  The thing is that no one really has a chance to learn from their revelation.  They admit something they did wrong and are promptly dispatched with.  In fact, the son is taken away rather quickly.

The Santa Slayer and Tree Poacher stories were at least entertaining.   Santa having to kill undead elves has the makings of a great feature-length slasher film.  There were even a few good lines, to boot.  I also got the sense that the father that stole the tree had some issues.  This also could have possibly been made into a feature-length film, or at least maybe an episode of an anthology series.  I think the only hindrance that either story had was the time constraints.

I had had this on my list of movies to watch on Netflix for a while.  After seeing Rare Exports, I thought that a movie like this could have been done well.  Instead, A Christmas Horror story wound up on the other end of the spectrum.  It’s somewhat entertaining, assuming you’re into that sort of thing.  However, it doesn’t really stand out for me.

The movie was only 99 minutes.  Had the Santa Slayer and Tree Poacher stories been developed more, the movie could have made it to two hours, but it would have been a very lopsided movie.  I think that’s the weakness of the movie as a whole.  You have four ideas that could have been contenders, but were merged into one film that wasn’t really that great.  In fact, the only character I really felt any connection to was Dangerous Dan.  I absolutely don’t blame him for drinking.

IMDb page