All Through the House

ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE starts off with a short buildup, followed by blood-gushing, bodily dismemberment.

Yep, it's that time of year again!

It appears that once more, some lunatic has dressed up like Old Saint Nick, in order to spread good cheer with his shears, relieving the citizenry of their boring lives! This Yuletide season, Santa's come to town to punish the naughty AND the nice!

Unlike most of these Christmas-based slasher films, this one has a real mystery going on. It's also gory enough to get the gorehounds howling!

AMAZING STUFF IN THIS MOVIE: #1- Multiple -male- Yule logs are lopped off! #2- A woman in a wheelchair takes flight, just like Rudolph! #3- It features more mannequins than in any department store! #4- there's an actual attempt at having a story line! #5- The bonkers finale is well-orchestrated mayhem!

This belongs in every entrails-filled stocking this year...

Just in time for Halloween comes this slasher throwback about a man wearing a Krampus costume doling out death with a pair of hedge shears. This one follows all the rules of slasherness in a campy manor from the breasts to the surreal characters to the cheesy squirting blood. A no brainer Friday night flick for sure and it keeps you laughing.

The killer liked to shear off penises (the cat gets at one of them) and I thought maybe the writer is telling us something but later you see that he literally has a bag of dicks. The end tells me a sequel is coming. There now is a new film the whole family can enjoy on Christmas Eve.

What lured me in to watch "All Through the House" was the movie cover/poster, as it has a blood-drenched Santa holding a pair of hedge cutters. And knowing that this was going to be a slasher horror, then the movie did seem to have the potential to be a good movie. And given my love for the horror genre, then of course I gave "All Through the House" a chance.

The movie starts out quite alright, and there is action in form of killing right from the very beginning. But that was also just about as exciting and thrilling as this movie would be. The rest of the movie just settled into a monotonous trot and just paced onward in a pace that left no one winded.

There is actually nothing to be seen in "All Through the House" that hasn't already been established, done and seen in other slasher movies, both the established franchises and the stand-alone slasher movies. So you shouldn't expect anything out of the ordinary when you sit down to watch "All Through the House".

As for the acting in the movie, well let's just say that it was fair enough, taking into consideration the genre and the budget of the movie. However, I can say that there was nothing outstanding or memorable to be witnessed throughout the movie.

The effects in "All Through the House" were adequate. But again, not really special effects that left any lasting impression of awe or amazement. But the effects served their purpose well enough.

The killer himself, well he definitely is no next Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers that is for sure. Actually this serial killer is hardly one that you will remember once the movie has come to an end and the end credits start to roll.

There are far better slasher movies available, and this movie might be suitable enough for an off-beat slasher movies during a prolonged slasher movie marathon. Just don't get your hopes up for anything grand or spectacular.

All Through The House is a sexually saturated, viciously gory, low budget splatterfest with some great special effects.

There's a lot of T & A in this- and even some D- but they all get pretty mutilated by a serial killer who's wearing a santa suit and wielding a set of hedge clippers.

In fact, I haven't seen so many severed penises since Kim Ki Duk's Moebius.

And not even the pets are spared.

Like I said, pretty vicious.

The killer seems to be targetting the young adult men and women of a small town, our protaganess has returned to for Christmas vacation.

Her childhood friends start dropping one by one, as she investigates the fate of the girl next door- who had inexplicably disappeared- along with her own Mother, years earlier.

It turns out that her Mother was having an affair with the neighbour's wife...and now, all their fates have become intertwined...

Because this lady is a complete psychopath.

Ultimately leading to the film's twisted conclusion.

This is low-budget filmmaking done right (especially when compared to something like The Elf).

Although the story isn't particularly well developed, it makes up for it with gore.

Rendering it a fun little holiday horror Christmas slasher, in the end.

5 out of 10.

"All Through the House," written and directed by Todd Nunes, is a throwback to the 1980s slasher movies and has proved it meets all the objectives of this genre, having netted the Best Slasher award while also being voted the Audience Choice Award at the R.I.P. horror film festival held last year in Los Feliz, Calif.

The movie starts out with a simple premise. During a holiday season in Napa, Calif., a crazed person decked out in a Santa Claus outfit and wearing a hideous mask, is moving house to house and using a pair of hedge shears to slaughter victims who, naturally, are primed to enjoy some yuletide sex. As we all know, in films such as these, frisky people are doomed.

Returning to her hometown of Napa while on a holiday break from college is Rachel Kimmel (Ashley Mary Nunes, Todd's sister). Although her only family here is her wheelchair-bound grandmother Abby (Cathy Garrett), Rachel has made plans to meet up with friends Gia (Natalie Montera) and Sarah (Danica Riner) and go Christmas shopping.

Meanwhile, a neighbor is Mrs Garrett (Melynda Kiring), an ultimate tragic figure. Now living alone, Mrs Garrett has been dealing for 15 years with the mysterious disappearance of her daughter Jamie, reportedly snatched from her bedroom one night. As if this is not enough to merit her great sympathy, she seems a little off her rocker. She has several mannequins inside her home, all dressed up, and uses a couple of them as stand- ins for what used to be her family. Plus, she reenacts a dinner scene with one mannequin posing as her daughter and another as her husband. The scenario she concocts is anything but domestic bliss as she somehow feels compelled to re-experience some dark and rocky moments of her life.

Mrs. Garrett had sent Rachel a card, asking the young woman to stop by and help her finish decorating her house for the holidays. Rachel, too nice to blow this off, decides to recruit Gia and Sarah to help her assist Mrs. Garrett. Thus all the pieces are aligned for the inevitable violence that will explode upon Rachel and her pals. Meanwhile, bits and pieces of information are revealed, adding a few twists as Rachel is thrust into the Final Girl mode.

The Best Slasher nod given to "All Through the House" is well earned. The blood and gore are ample as well as particular acts of horror that will have viewers squirming. Ashley Mary Nunes delivers in the pivotal role as Rachel, the all- around sweet young woman thrown into dire situations. And Kiring nicely paces her performance.