Cover Art

Credits

Director: Jeremy Wallace Starring: DJ Vivona, Jason Christ, Michael Hill, Chris Belt, Joy Payne, William Clifton, Eric Stanze Screenplay: Jeremy Wallace, Eric Stanze Music: Ven Rivoli Tagline: Twas the night before Christmas…and everyone's DEAD. Country: USA

The Christmas Season Massacre opens with what I thought was an ode to H.G. Lewis: a drawn out, cheap gut pulling sequence. The film segues to I Spit On Your Corpse, I Piss On Your Grave's Eric Stanze (who seems to be connected to many Sub Rosa films) with a woman he's trying to impress. Stanze tells her the story of his former classmate Tommy "Oneshoe" McGroo, a young boy who was constantly picked on. At one point, McGroo had one of his shoes stolen by bullies, but his parents couldn't afford to buy him another one. The missing footwear just gives his classmates one more reason to tease him, plus his sock is getting really dirty, so McGroo gets the idea to ask Santa for a replacement shoe. When "Santa" actually gives McGroo an eye patch, McGroo snaps and kills his parents, then begins offing his classmates annually at Christmas time. The handful of surviving classmates assemble so they're together if McGroo comes for them. In theory, anyway, as they often wander off alone.

The Christmas Season Massacre does have a few good gags, like the particular make of McGroo's eye patch and a well done pirate flag joke in an early scene, but it also has a LOT of padding. When all the classmates get together, they fuck around, and end up playing Trivial Pursuit. While I suppose watching them is slightly less boring than actually playing the game, it's still padding. There're also quite a few dumb jokes, bad libs, and low rent gore, so the film just gets boring. Part of the boredom factor may be that director/co-writer Jeremy Wallace thought things were funny that just weren't. In his commentary track, he explains that the early gut pulling scene was meant to be funny because it goes on too long, but you've already read what I thought it was. The movie may not be great, but it does have a bit of gratuitous nudity, which did a little to brighten up the dreary proceedings.

I enjoy having "Christmas movies" I can foist on unsuspecting relatives, but the holiday setting here is completely irrelevant. Change a few lines of dialogue and slightly refashion one prop, and the whole thing could be taking place at any holiday, or indeed any day at all. Given the summer climate, The Fourth of July would've made much more sense if Wallace really wanted to use a holiday.

Also included is a short (38 minutes) film called Frank Wang: The Vengeance. It's a low budget pastiche on kung fu flicks, with out of synch dubbing and low rent fights. The credits are really long, and the whole thing's pretty crap. Just watch Kentucky Fried Movie, or even a badly dubbed kung fu flick.

Smaller extras include some short notes on Sub Rosa, a seven-minute behind the scenes feature (I could only find one despite the sleeve saying there were two), song outtakes from the film, and a trailer. There're also trailers for a few other Sub Rosa films: I Spit On Your Corpse, I Piss On Your Grave, Insaniac, and The Undertow.

Not enough trailers? Well, there're also some as eggs. Pretty much press left on any trailer on the menu, and you'll highlight an acronym for another film. Press enter and you'll get to see the trailer. Left on Insaniac will lead you to the trailer for Savage Harvest. Left on I Spit On Your Corpse… will lead you to the trailer for Ice From The Sun. Left on The Christmas Season Massacre will lead you to the trailer for Scrapbook.