Director: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Year: 2022
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Demonic Christmas Tree
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Attempting to seek revenge on a wrong-doer, a woman casts a spell to resurrect her dead husband but inadvertently casts the wrong version sending his spirit into a Christmas Tree who sets out on a bloody path of bloodshed to strike back at the girl who originally killed him during a Christmas party.
Review:
This was a bit better than expected for what it is. The main aspect to be had here is the means through which this brings the titular tree across as a viable villain. Ignoring the ludicrous nature of the idea overall, the setup employed here to showcase that comes off incredibly well with the opening black magic ritual that inadvertently puts his spirit into a Christmas Tree which brings it to life and going out on the rampage. The motivation and reasoning for doing so are based on her relationship with him when he was alive with both being serial killers who went around killing people on the eve of the holiday that included the girls’ parents in one of the rampages makes this such a fun and involving backstory to tie everything together and serve as the proper grounding for everything to take place.
This then allows the film to indulge in a fine series of cheesy attacks with the tree utilizing its supernatural powers. Shown to have the ability to extend the light cords as tentacles, grow elongated arms to stab or rip victims to pieces, and use ornaments as projectiles, this manages to produce a fine creatively original monster that has a lot to like. Knowing the backstory of its creation makes the scenes of a walking ambulatory Christmas Tree running around wreaking havoc and ripping people to pieces offer a rather fun brand of cheesy action scenes throughout the mansion grounds that become fun for how silly it all is. That this brings up the thrilling finale with the creature rampaging through the house that lets the holiday decorations add a festive atmosphere for the final showdown is all that keeps this one enjoyable.
This one does have some big issues present. One of the biggest factors in this one is the rather jarring and scattered tempo here that comes about due to its shorter length trying to rush things that don’t need to. The extended setup showing the party at the house and all the various sidestories going on with the friend group is a bit overlong with the repeated nature of several subplots but then rushing through a massacre scene where it rips multiple people apart in a minute-long sequence that should’ve gone much longer. This leaves the film somewhat odd with how it plays out and sets up the final confrontation coming out of nowhere that has no time to explain what’s going on, and when combined with the cheesy effects on display due to the cheesy CGI are the few issues that bring this down.
Overview: ***.5/5
A fun enough holiday monster mash-up, there’s some fun stuff on display that manages to be just enough to overcome the few issues here that bring it down. Those that appreciate this kind of cheesy genre fare or are fans of the creative crew will have the most fun here while most others that aren’t a fan of this approach should heed caution.
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