Directed and written by Jeff Leroy, this follows the 2017 film Giantess Attack. 

Diedre (Tasha Tacosa) and Frida (Rachel Riley) have split up, as Deidre claims she will never use her giant powers again. Yet when Frida learns that Metaluna (Christine Nguyen) has made Doctor Drew (John Karyus) create Mecha Fembot (Vlada Fox) to destroy our world, she has to do the battle by herself. At least it has a nod to the sunglasses fight in They Live. Otherwise…how can a movie about giant women fighting be boring? This movie figured it out.

This has some of the worst miniature and standard-sized people integrated with giant people moments you will ever see, but you know, if you’re a macrophiliac — someone sexually into giant people — good news! This is for you. And if you like feet, well, even better.

That said, as bad as this is, it’s strangely charming. It knows what it is and mires itself in that know-how.

You can watch this on Tubi.

A student in her class asks Marianne (Noémie Merlant) a question. She wants to know about one of her works, Portrait de la Jeune fille en feu. This takes her back to the past when she was hired to paint the portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), who had been taken out of a convent to marry a Milanese nobleman after her sister’s suicide. The rich girl does not know that she is being painted, so Marianne acts as the hired help as she memorizes her features and creates the piece in secret.

As she finishes the painting, Marianne feels terrible that she lied, so she shares it with Héloïse, who thinks it doesn’t capture her. After destroying the painting, the artist is about to be let go when Héloïse says she will sit for a new portrait. After just five days, she begins a new picture, but this time is filled with them falling in love as the girl’s mother (Valeria Golino) leaves the house. They debate the meaning of Orpheus and Eurydice; they dance around a fire, help a servant get an abortion and make love. Then, after the portrait has been approved, Marianne must leave.

In her life, Marianne would only see her two more times, both in secret, as she saw a painting of Héloïse with a child but holding a book that had page 28 being revealed. This is the page where the artist drew a nude sketch of her. Then, many years later, she spies her crying and smiling as an orchestra plays Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, music that she had introduced the noblewoman to so many decades before.

Voted the 30th greatest film of all time in the Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2022, the highest of films released in the 2010s, this movie may not remind many of Jean Rollin, but its languid pace and the running down the beach reminded me of the times I have spent watching his syrup soft, slow-moving vampires emerge from grandfather clocks on French sands. Director and writer Céline Sciamma created a meditation on love, which made me sadder when I learned that she and Adèle Haenel had broken up before filming.

Based on the Hush storyline that ran in Batman #608–619 — written by Jeph Loeb, penciled by Jim Lee, inked by Scott Williams and colored by Alex Sinclair — this starts with Batman (Jason O’Mara) battling the man who broke his back, Bane (Adam Gifford). After assisting Lady Shiva (Sachie Alessio) from securing a Lazarus Pit — the life saving devices that have kept his enemy Ra’s al Ghul alive forever — Batman’s grappling hook is shot down, leading him to crack his skull on the pavement and nearly be killed by common hoods before he’s saved by Catwoman (Jennifer Morrison), who is soon chased off by Batgirl (Peyton R. List).

Alfred (James Garrett) and Nightwing (Sean Maher) cover for Batman as he heals from brain surgery from his childhood best friend Thomas Elliot (Maury Sterling).  At the same time, a mummy-masked man has been pulling the strings from behind the scenes, controlling Catwoman and using Poison Ivy (Peyton List) to take Superman (Jerry O’Connell) off the table.

Hush uses the Joker (Jason Spisak) and Harley Quinn (Hynden Walch) to kill Elliot, while Scarecrow (Chris Cox) takes out Nightwing and kidnaps Catwoman, to whom Batman has revealed his identity of Bruce Wayne. And he starts to figure out that Hush knows the secret, too, as he puts everyone he loves in teh crosshairs, including his son Damian (Stuart Allan).

The truth? Hush is The Riddler (Geoffrey Arend), who used the Lazarus Pit to heal a brain tumor and has figure out from the memories inside it of others who have been healed that Batman and Bruce are the same. He’s kidnapped the Catwoman, who has no problem shoving him to his death, a fact that keeps her and Batman from going off to be in love.

Directed by Justin Copeland and written by Ernie Altbacker, this is a lot cleaner at the ending than the comic, which goes on to show that Hush really is Thomas Elliot.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed and written by Paul Tanter and co-written by Simon Phillips, this is a sequel to Once Upon a Time at Christmas. Courtney (Keegan Chambers), the daughter of the killer Santa, Nick, (Phillips), has left behind Woodridge and is living in hiding in the big city. Yet when her father and his wife, Michelle, (Sayla de Goede) return, she has to come back home to face off with him once and for all.

Now that Agent Natalie Parker (Kate Schroder) is on the case, she visits all of the survivors of the first movie, many of whom don’t make it to the end of The Nights Before Christmas. Like Courtney, who spoiler warning, dies thereby ruining. the father and daughter dynamic of the original. Also: the roles of Jennifer, Courtney and Lucy have new actresses, with Susannah Mackay and Brook Fletcher being replaced by Shannon Cotter, Keegan Chambers and Meredith Heinrich.

It also has the Santa go all Dr. Phibes and get revenge on the people who ran the sanitarium where he and his Mrs. Claus were mistreated, making him the hero, which didn’t seem like a direction I expected.

This does have drone footage, which makes it seem higher budget than the original, but the cops — defund the slasher, giallo and holiday horror police — repeatedly have the bad guys held down by their guns and are too afraid to shoot them. This goes wrong every single time. In reality, they would have no problem unloading full clips into these seasonal slashers.

There’s also a fair bit of homage — let’s be kind, it’s Christmas and not say thievery — to Silence of the Lambs. But that said, this looks better than it should and in the world of cheap Christmas killers, it feels like a better gift than you usually get.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Christian Cashmir, who co-wrote the story with star Brielle Carter (who also was on second assistant camera), Elfette Saves Christmas is about an elf — yes, named Elfette — who heads to Florida on a vacation in the busiest time of the year.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Santa Claus (Quinton Aaron) has been kidnapped by an organized crime boss named Little Georgie (George Vricos), who wants Santa to stop cutting into his profits, as he now owns a company that makes pencil phones for $900. There’s also an elf hunter named Ernest Killingsworth III (Zachary Vazquez) who wants to make an elf dinner, so he starts hunting her and her best friend Sparkle (Aléa Figueroa).

I have no idea who the audience for this movie is, as the mob shoots the elves with freeze guns, which is scary enough, but then you have Santa getting tied to a chair and threatened by a crazed killer, as well as a man who loves to eat elves. Who can say. Elfette’s outfit, however, is a little something for daddy, as they say.

Who knew that elves were placed in castes with the wrapping paper elves at the lowest tier? Not me. I mean, I knew one elf who wanted to be a dentist and everyone treated him like garbage. What’s really amazing is that this movie got to Red One‘s plot five years before it did with about 5% of the budget. Then again, Santa got kidnapped is an easy story to tell, just look at Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

One plot point I want to break down and discuss: Why is Elfette the one saving the day when Sparkle is the destined one? What is she supposed to do, bring balance to the naughty and nice? Why do I base so much of my life on dumb allusions to the Star Wars prequels?

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Asylum put this out one day after Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Your grandmother would have bought you this for Christmas and said, “I know you love that Godzooky so much.”

Directed by Mark Atkins (Planet of the Sharks) and James Thomas with a script by Atkins, this has an industrialist named Billy Ford (Adrian Bouchet) is drilling on the ocean floor — the Kermadec Trench off the coast of New Zealand , if you want to be precise — when there’s an accident. He sends two of his people, Cherise (Donna Cormack Thomson) and Riley (Chris Fisher) to learn the truth, along with a government agent and myth expert Sarah Murray (Natalie Robbie). They find a kaiju that looks like a giant winged starfish, which means that they need to awaken The Living Mountain to fight it.

General Horne (Eric Roberts) is also involved, as he leads the Navy. Wouldn’t he be an admiral? And what’s he going to do against a giant monster with magma for blood? That said, the starfish looks good, but this is a movie that gets all the parts of giant monster movies wrong. Forget humans and their problems, give us a quick reason why two monstrous beings must battle and let them go at one another.

I am a simple man and I understand these rules.

You can watch this on Tubi.