Good Tidings

What's the only thing better than one killer Santa? Three of them! I must say, this film exceeded my expectations big time. Despite being a bit on the low budget side, the acting was good, the story was unique and the soundtrack was awesome. Stu Jopia (who played one of the killer Santas) would also serve as one of the film's writers and producers, while Stuart W. Bedford served as writer, producer and director. And seriously, the film's soundtrack by Liam W. Ashcroft is truly outstanding.

Arriving at a homeless shelter, a man joins his fellow homeless members in a closed-down bank for the shelter when they notice a trio of escaped mental patients dressed as Santa Claus is going around killing everyone and forces his friend to rely on his old Army Veteran skills to save them.

This here was a decent enough though flawed genre effort. One of the strongest elements to be had here is the heartwarming nature of the setup at the shelter. The beginning here brings us into their hardship of the season and what they're doing to make the best of it in the grandest Christmas traditions despite being unable to enjoy the finer things in life and to notice that everyone here is getting into the holiday spirit before the rampage starts is rather nice. The scenes of the group coming in and taking over the bank killing them off one-by-one carries a nice sense of shock at the audacity to go through the plan the way they do like the scenes of them chasing through the building generate some pretty tense moments. There's a nice sense of action and brutality between these continuous confrontations taking place throughout the bank as the group tries to outwit and survive the group which leads to some great deaths and some nice gore. These are really all that work here. There are a few flaws to be had here. The main issue with this one is the decidedly underwhelming killers who provide this one with some troublesome moments throughout here. That they're clearly unhinged mental patients that aren't capable of doing anything in a manner that should make people scared of them is a major stumbling block as a gang of them who take a stand against the intruders will overcome them rather easily considering their slow speed and incapacitated mental facilities who can't fight fair. Anyone who would've taken a fight to them would've been able to overcome them easily the way they're addicted to childish toys and games and becomes far more obvious how they're able to stand up to them later on. The other issue with this one is the continual reliance on characters getting tied up and dragged away by the killers instead of outright killing them. While this plays into their simplistic nature and toying with them is what they would be comfortable with, that they're clearly smart enough to come up with the plan and execute it to the point of success as well as they have which shows there's a level of planning and viciousness to their methods. Yet rather than do something chilling with the killers' interactions with the captured victims it favors demented gift-giving rituals or just simply standing there chuckling at them. This isn't scary at all and is repeated far too often to make any kind of impression. Coupled with the off-screen kills whenever something should be happening and this one does come down quite a bit.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

A decent rating for a decent effort,as long as you like films about psychos running amok with machetes and knives causing death by beheadings,along with gore aplenty.

The effects were pretty good and for once,the acting was too.

The whole is rather like 'Die Hard' in reverse,in that the putative hero ultimately fails and relies on another character to save the day.

Very entertaining,if you're into that sort of thing.

I saw Good Tidings at the Grindhouse Planet Film Festival.

It was pretty standard horror fare. A group gets locked in a court house during the Christmas season and gets tormented by three killer men in Santa suits. A couple of pretty effective grizzly moments aren't enough to balance out the over-long, boring sequences of the Santas staring and cackling as their hostages say things like 'please don't do this' etc.

You could cut out half an hour easily and although that wouldn't leave you with much of a film, that is kind of the problem. There is simply not enough plot and not enough imagination to justify this being feature length. In a year which has seen so many brilliant (admittedly higher budget) single-location horrors come out, (Green Room, Don't Breath, The Invitation) Good Tidings simply can't complete.

Good Tidings (2016) is another holiday movie I recently caught on Tubi. The storyline focuses on a courthouse where three vicious men dressed as Santa holds everyone hostage and begins randomly killing the hostages one by one. A soldier uses his skill sets in hopes of stopping them and save the day. This movie is directed by Stuart W. Bedford in his major motion picture debut and stars Colin Murtagh (The Curse of Hobbes House), Liam W. Ashcroft (Crying Wolf) and Giovanni Gentile. The storyline for this movie is crazy but fun to watch unfold. I did enjoy the intensity of the characters and the kill sequences. The candy cane usage was solid and original and the Santa killers were well presented. There could have been more gore, but I still enjoyed watching this film unfold. Overall this film nailed the intensity, missed out on the opportunity for fantastic gore and had weak acting except for the killers. I'd score this a 5/10 and recommend this if you're looking for a solid holiday horror pic.