Paul Andolina from Wrestling with Film is back with another seasonally appropriate horror film. I really appreciate him sharing all of these with you!

From this point on it will not feel like the Christmas season without writing at least one review here at B&S About Movies every year. It’s become one of my favorite things to do in December. You may remember my review for Mother Krampus last year, I wasn’t too fond of it and still have not revisited it like I had planned to. I did check out the sequel Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride this year though!

A sequel only in name, the film is about 4 young women, who almost having completed their community service, visit the house of a lovely old woman. Trouble is she isn’t the nice lady they first thought her to be.

You really have to stick with this movie as the first 15 minutes or so are not the most engrossing moments of the film for me. Those scenes are essential to plot development, though, and do not feel like they need to be cut out. After killing the family occupying the house, a masked intruder takes the place of the owner, Mrs. Smith. The faux Mrs. Smith is charming at first but it is always clear that she is an unsettling person. My favorite character of the film was Athena Slay, a drag queen with one of the sassiest attitudes ever. She is hilarious and really brings a little extra fun to the table.

The film is festive enough for me to get the feeling that this takes place around Christmas and though there is no snow it isn’t an issue in my opinion as not everywhere gets snow in December. This movie was filmed in Cleveland, Ohio possibly sometime in March if I had to guess, as a storefront shown in the movie has a Happy St. Patrick’s Day in the window. That’s just me nitpicking, though.

This movie had my attention in its grasp after the beginning plot set up and the characters made me care about their struggle. I feel that many slashers fail to accomplish this and just give us characters we want to see offed in violent ways. The kills are pretty good and the special effects were quite effective for me. Seeing the gradual decline of the antagonist after she welcomes these 4 ladies into her home ensured that I wanted to see what was going to happen to them.

This movie also has a connection to the world of professional wrestling as a bouncer in the film is played by former wrestler, Benny Benzino.

If you have 96 minutes to spare and want to check out a slasher film, you could do worse than Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride. Don’t let its title mislead you as this has nothing to do with Mother Krampus which could be a good or bad thing depending on your opinion of that film. Happy holidays!

While on a hike to find a secret lagoon, a group of friends must pass through an evil looking cornfield. Little do they know that the owner of that cornfield turns any trespassers into living scarecrows that rot in his fields.

This film goes from teenagers on vacation to stoner comedy to backwoods slasher pretty quickly in its hour and twenty-five-minute running time.  It’s the first film I’ve seen where an insane farmer sews peoples’ mouths shut and hangs them as living scarecrows that get their appendages bitten off by birds. So there’s that.

Directed and co-written by Stu Stone (Ronald Fisher from Donnie Darko), Scarecrows works best when it moves away from comedy and becomes pure horror. It has nothing to do with 1988’s Scarecrows other than its title. However, there are some decent practical FX and some pretty intense lighting and mood during the film’s torture scenes.

Scarecrows premieres on VOD December 11 and will be released on DVD February 1.

Disclaimer: We were sent a screener of this film, which has nothing to do with our review.

You might think that movie night in the B&S About Movies household means a never-ending barrage of the dead rising from the grave, slasher killers wiping out the teenage populations of small towns and rivers of blood. And for the most part, you’d be right. But then you need to remember that the B in B&S stands for Becca and she runs the TV set during the hours that normal people are awake. That means when it comes time to pick what we watched tonight, Dumplin’ won out. And as she said, “You’re going to bitch every single moment that this starts, but you’ll probably be crying and say that it’s nice and cute when it’s all over.” She’s always right.

Based on the novel by Julie Murphy (you can see her in a cameo near the end of the film and she’s recently written a book called Puddin’ that follows the story of the supporting cast of this story) and directed by Anne Fletcher (who also directed Hot Pursuit, a movie we saw as the second feature at least five times at the drive-in throughout the summer of 2015) from a script by Kristin Hahn (who in her youth lived with star Jennifer Aniston and has a production company with her), Dumplin’ hits home. The story of a teenage girl trying to understand how to fit in with a world she doesn’t fit into who loves Dolly Parton may seem like the exact opposite of something that would reach me, but what you don’t know is that I grew up in a small town with one country station that played nearly all day long playlists of Ms. Parton. And despite my collection of black shirts and a patch ridden jacket, I’ve proudly stood in the front row, singing out loud to every song at Dolly shows.

Willowdean Dickson (Danielle Macdonald) was raised primarily by her Aunt Lucy while her mother Rosie (Aniston) relives her beauty queen past as a semi-celebrity in their small Texas hometown.

After the sudden death of her aunt, Willowdean has to deal with pageant season, a time of the year that she finds ridiculous. She convinces her best friend and fellow Dolly fan Ellen Dryver (Odeya Rush, Goosebumps) to enter the Miss Teen Bluebonnet Pageant as a protest. Willowdean isn’t the same body shape and size as her mother, so she’s fiercely against the beauty contest and willing to defend others, like shy Millie Michalchuk, who ends up coming out of her shell. Joining them in their “protest in heels” is Hannah Perez (Bex Taylor-Klaus, Hell Fest, TV’s The Killing), whose short hair looks and love of metal are in sharp contrast to every other girl.

Miss Teen Bluebonnet will test Willowdean’s friendship with Ellen, as well as strengthen her love of her lost aunt by meeting many of her drag queen friends, including Harold Perrineau from TV’s Lost and Ru Paul’s Drag Race contestant Ginger Minj. Willowdean also learns that even the cutest guy in school, Bo, might be able to see through society’s views on beauty to see who she is inside.

Sure, Dumplin’ is sentimental and at times schmaltzy, but it’s also a well-made and at times, pretty amusing film. It was also nice to see Kathy Najimy in the film (her husband Dan Finnerty is also in the movie as beauty contest host Eugene Reed). And who doesn’t love hearing a soundtrack packed with Dolly tunes, including a new one that she wrote just for the movie?

To answer any questions, yes, I did get a bit teary-eyed by the end of the film. I’m going to have to watch hours and hours of Italian splatter and obscure slasher movies to get my street cred back now, huh?

You can watch this exclusively on Netflix.

Walker’s life changed once he was in The Fast and the Furious. But he strived to give of himself and to charity, as well as raise his fifteen-year-old daughter, who had just moved to Los Angeles from Hawaii at the time of his death.

The really interesting part is that despite working hard and struggling hard to be credible, Walker never really considered himself an actor. For example, his take it or leave it attitude led to him turning down the role of Superman for four movies. He just didn’t see himself in that sort of role or being typecast.

I really enjoyed seeing and hearing more about Running Scared, a movie that I feel is underrated. Walker delivered in that film and it’s a film that I’ve gone back to several times and enjoyed more and more with each view.

Sadly, Walker’s death still feels pointless. Hearing what a great person he was doesn’t make it any easier to understand. It just makes it even sadder, as Walker left behind not only a big career but a major hole in the lives of countless people.

I Am Paul Walker originally played on the Paramount Network, but is now available on demand and on DVD with 30 minutes of additional footage. Visit the official site to learn more.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this film by its PR team but that has no bearing on our review.

Christmas horror is the best time of the year — who wants Halloween to go away so soon? And who is ready for Christmas so early? It’s a great way to ease into the holidays. Thankfully, Paul Andolina is here with another seasonally perfect movie. Want to read more of what Paul has to say? Then check out Wrestling with Film.

I’m back for yet another guest review on B&S About Movies, this time around it’s the 2018 film Mrs. Claus. A sorority house is struck by violence 10 years ago when after vicious pranks take their toll, a recent addition to the Delta Sigma Sigma sorority flips out and kills one of her fellow sisters at a Christmas party. She then hangs herself in the yard. Fast forward 10 years and the sister of the girl murdered has become a sister at the same sorority.

It’s Christmas yet again and someone dressed in a creepy mask and Mrs. Claus costume is killing everyone at the recently revived annual Christmas gathering. This movie borrows its inspiration heavily from other holiday-themed slasher films, namely Black Christmas and Silent Night Deadly Night with its families with troubled pasts, a sorority plagued by a violent history, and some surprising plot elements sure to throw you through a loop.

This movie is low budget but that doesn’t mean it lacks heart and it I think it was a good effort overall. There are some things that had me scratching my head that didn’t make sense but it was still entertaining. The movie is largely confined to the Delta Sigma Sigma house, but the festive decorations of the sorority really do help bring the film some holiday charm that so many lower budget Christmas horror films tend to lack.

The actors were decent, with the actors portraying Kayla and Jake being strong points in my opinion. The lead actress who played the main protagonist Danielle was also very good. The effects when used were excellent with plenty of red syrupy blood that made me think of candied apples. Brinke Stevens from the Slumber Party Massacre movie is in the film as campus security and seeing her in a genre role will certainly tickle some slasher fanatics’ fancies. Brinke Stevens also has a small connection to films that star wrestlers as she has an uncredited role as an extra in the film … All the Marbles.

… All the Marbles is about a female tag team called the California dolls. It stars Lenny “The Bull” Montana and Jumbo Hori, a female Japanese wrestler.

If you’re looking for a newer film to check out that involves a killer on Christmas this may fill your slasher stocking with some much needed goodies. The kills are festive and overall it was a satisfying way to spend 86 minutes. Make sure to sit through the credits or you’ll miss some important stuff related to the plot.

Mrs. Claus is available to rent on Amazon Video or if you’re lucky enough to still have a Family Video around you mine had it in stock. If you feel like picking up a copy Amazon also has it on DVD. It’s also availble as a free-with-ads stream on Tubi.

Pail Andolina from Wrestling with Film is jumping in to help out this month with some Christmas horror reviews. He’ll be sharing several over the next few weeks, so if you have the holidays and horror, good news!

It’s that time of year, the time for Christmas fear. I find the genre of holiday horror fascinating. It is a time usually associated with happiness and celebration but the genre likes to skew those things in favor of the gritty ugliness of the world. Nowhere is that more prevalent than in my viewing for the evening, Good Tidings.

Good Tidings is a film from the United Kingdom that would never fly in per-certification England. It’s ugly, it’s mean spirited, and although it centers around a homeless veteran with a heart of gold, in the world it portrays, no good deed seems to go unpunished. Whereas most good deeds are rewarded, our protagonist Sam’s deeds for the local homeless who have taken shelter in an old courthouse are met by hellish slayings by 3 deranged men in Santa costumes.

At the beginning of the film, a drunken Santa impersonator is killed by three masked men in hospital gowns who discover a small cache of Santa costumes in the boot of their victim’s car. We then meet Sam, our good natured veteran on the hunt for some food for his friends back at his shelter, on his route he is approached by another vagrant, John, who is hungry and begs to come with Sam. They arrive back at the building where he and his friends have taken up residence but the car full of demented Santa Claus have spotted them and chooses them as prey. Tying up the doors to the outside and rigging most exits with holiday-themed booby traps, the men go on the prowl to deck the halls with bowels of the lowly.

Although the movie is two years old I’d hate to go into more detail about the film as it’s something that really needs to be watched by anyone who enjoys horror. This movie feels like a movie that would be shown in seedy parts of the city or scratchy screens at the local drive in in the 70’s or 80’s.

The soundtrack is mesmerizing, it is full of old school synths, and grindhouse grooves. The soundtrack also seamlessly melds holiday tunes into far more sinister sounds. The antagonists are mostly mute throughout the film except for excited shrills, shrieks, maniacal laughter and guttural growls. A majority of the dialogue in the film is between the homeless occupying the courthouse and apart from the first half of the film, dialogue as a whole feels scarce.

The emotion in the film is largely conveyed through soundscapes and visuals. All in all Good Tidings was a very pleasant surprise for me and it’s a shame I’ve waited so long to finally give it a viewing. Among the many Santa killer fronted films this one rises to the top of them. I don’t hear or read much about it but it is deserving of repeated viewings and I do recommend it to everyone who likes their Christmas dripping with red and mean.

Good Tidings is available on Amazon Prime.

Since losing his wife, Erik Black has given up on life and even his son, spending his days alone and drunk. However, his son was chosen by the divine to reveal three prophecies to the world. The first two have made the world even more violent as confusion reigns. Now, his estranged son has asked to meet him with a mission: help him reach the place where he will receive the final message that will change the lives of every single person on Earth.

The full-length writing/directing/producing/editing debut of Nathan Leon, Prodigy was nominated for four International Christian Film and Music Festival awards (including Best Picture), yet it’s a movie that also can speak to a secular audience.

Erik’s son Caleb has been a divine messenger, able to predict two potentially apocalyptic events, including four minutes where every single human beings’ mind was linked together. For many, this led them to a path of bliss. But for even more, they were faced with the realities of just how flawed they were and react with violence.

Caleb and Erik goon the run, joining up with a waitress named Maya who ends up being a true believer. They’re followed by Dr. Faron, his government troops and several mercenaries, all trying to control the young boy and his ability to see a divine future.

Prodigy reminds me of the Left Behind books somewhat and I don’t mean that as an insult. It’s an interesting idea that may not be fully realized but still feels like a unique enough movie that it’s worth a watch. There are some amateur performances, but against the overall scope of the film, it’s not anything worth worrying about.

Prodigy is available on VOD December 4 and DVD January 1.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team, which has no bearing on this review.

Three criminals are planning to rob an elderly lady, but it turns out that her caregiver is an ex-special ops agent that’s more than ready for them. Intensive Care starts with a pretty simple premise. Can it deliver?

Director Jared Bentley has come from the world of music video, documentary and reality TV, mostly working as an editor. After years of being frustrated by the process of getting funding for a feature film, he and his producing partners at Engenius Productions decided to self-finance this film instead.

Tara Macken (Sons of Anarchy and plenty of stunt work are on her resume) plays Alex, the live-in nurse who cares for Claire (Leslie Easterbrook, Sgt. Callahan from the Police Academy series and Mother Firefly from The Devil’s Rejects). Turns out that Claire’s grandson Danny needs money but Claire won’t help him any longer. So he turns to two of his pals, Seth and Rudy, to break into the house and steal her fortune while he takes Alex out for the evening.

We know those two guys are pretty ruthless because they kill a prostitute earlier in the film, but there’s no way they can match up to Alex and her special ops training. If you’re going to get a nurse when you’re old and rich and have horrible dependents, always get the one who can kill everything in her way, I guess.

Somehow, Alex agrees to go out with Danny for the evening and they end up hitting it off way better than expected and come back to the house as romance takes its natural — well, maybe unnatural in this case — turn. She wakes up with the masked Seth and Rudy taking over the house and tying her to a chair, as well as learning that Danny was behind everything.

Of course, Alex escapes, beats the hell out of them and recovers from any injuries by taking a bloody bath. As she gets dressed, she’s interrupted by Seth, who tells a story about how he was kicked out of the military. He tries to drown her in the bathtub — why she didn’t drain that gory water is beyond me — and she recovers and shuts him down.

She comes after the rest of the crew, only to be hung by her neck as Rudy tells her all about being stuck in the Delaware state prison system, the last state to still do lynchings. That’s when the cops come and they let her down — which is strange as she’s perfectly fine after this and willing to help the bad guys’ with their deception as the officer investigates and is killed. She stops them and we’re back to this cat and mouse game, but Danny can’t decide who to shoot.

There’s also a young kid that fits in somewhere in here and gets put in danger, as well as some double and triple crossing. However, storytelling wise this is where the film gets a bit confusing. And man, who knew how hard it was to hang someone?

When viewed as a vehicle for the stunt and fighting skills of Macken, this movie is more successful than it is as a narrative thriller. She’s got some pretty great moves and Intensive Care gives her plenty of moments to show them off. I just wish there was a better overall story to go with her flashy abilities.

Want to see it for yourself? Intensive Care is available on demand and on Amazon.

Disclaimer: I was sent this movie by its PR department and that has no bearing on my review.

Last year, Paul Andolina from Wrestling with Film covered The Elf for us. Good news — he’s back to take on the sequel.

Over the past few years it has become a tradition to find either new or new to me Christmas themed horror movies. It is quite difficult to find out what is being released any given year as these films aren’t often added to databases or lists until after the season, which is a major bummer.

Sam was kind enough to inform me that Elves was actually a sequel to The Elf which I enjoyed and reviewed last year. I would have had no idea they were related if it wasn’t for him letting me know this information. Of course hearing of their connection meant that it would be a must watch this December. I gathered my beer of choice for the evening and sat back and watched Elves.

The Christmas horror subgenre happens to be one of my favorite things about the holiday season so having something novel like a movie about killer elf dolls brings a smile to my face that I can’t quite explain. Elves centers around a group of friends who are told to write down their darkest secrets and add their names to a naughty list at a small holiday get together in an old industrial building.

It turns out that an elf will watch them and if they don’t act out what they wrote about or what the elf tells them, they will pay for it with their life. The elf will even possess them to accomplish what is on the list and in the process kill its host.

This movie has about three different plots all interconnected and happening at the same time. I can see it being an issue for some but I felt like watching these stories play out through the movie kept me on my toes and invested in the film. The reasons why this is happening is explained, and it has some connections to the first film but it’s not enough that it warrants a watch of the first one before this.

However, I would suggest it anyway because the first is solid in my opinion. One of the sub plots involves an occult obsessed girl and the other a mysterious robe clad figure in a Krampus mask killing folks. It’s all tied together pretty neatly near the end.

The music is repetitive but festive and the sound design is killer. The constant whispering of the elves can be heard throughout the movie and I suggest watching this film with headphones to really appreciate the work put in by the foley artists. The movie was not directed by the writer and director of The Elf but it was produced by him.

I really do recommend this movie, it is an island among a sea of Santa clad killers and worth even just a rental if you don’t feel like committing to a purchase. I can see this being a conversation starter at a Christmas party for fans of genre film.

Please give this and The Elf a watch this season, it’s a double header best enjoyed with a cheese plate and some good company. It may be a bit too cheesy for some folks because of the premise but I don’t feel it jumps the shark at all and manages to keep itself grounded yet still wildly entertaining. Happy Holidays, folks!

NOTE: Elves is available on DVD and VOD.

Disclaimer: We were sent a screener of this film, but that doesn’t impact Paul’s review.

On July 5, 2010, legendary NHL tough guy Bob Probert collapsed on his boat on Lake St. Clair and died of a heart attack. He was only 45 years old, but sadly, his death wasn’t all that surprising. Probert lived hard:  Chain smoking, alcoholism, even doing lines of coke in a jail cell after his arrest. He even took nurses home with him when he quit rehab.

Probert was on his eighth OxyContin that day, something he took to deal with the aches and pains that came with the aftermath of seventeen years of being the NHL’s undisputed champion of enforcers. He averaged 40 fights a year — nearly one every other game.

How do you make such an unsympathetic person so sympathetic? That’s the beauty of Tough Guy, which is based on the book that director Geordi Day’s mother Kirstie McLellan Day wrote with the late Probert.

From archive interviews with Probert to truly raw interviews with his widow Dani and children, Tough Guy attempts to show how Probert got the way he was. After his father died at young age, the hockey star was shipped off to start in hockey’s minor leagues the very next day at an incredibly young age and had to fend for himself.

There are plenty of great stories here from a who’s who of hockey —
Bruise Brother teammate Joe Kocur, rival Tie Domi, legendary announcer Don Cherry and teammates and rivals like Jeremy Roenick, Chris Chelios, Stu Grimson, Sheldon Kennedy, Troy Crowder,  Steve Yzerman, Tony Twist, Ptr Klima, and Marty McSorely.

Probert was a complex man. Sure, he was one of the biggest goons in the league, but he’d also finish seasons with over twenty goals, well beyond what you’d expect from an enforcer. And he actively supported young hockey players and often bought tickets for kids who couldn’t afford to go to games.

On April 9, 2017, Probert’s family spread his ashes in the Red Wings penalty box — he ranks #5 of on the NHL’s list of all-time penalty minutes — during the final game at Joe Louis Arena.

Tough Guy may not be the kind of movie we usually cover here, but it’s one that’ll really make you think about the sacrifices that athletes and tough guys have to make.

Tough Guy will air in Canada’s Super Channel on December 14 and will be released in the U.S. later this year.

Disclaimer: I was sent this movie by its PR team and that has no bearing on the review.