Once Upon a Time at Christmas

Pretty sure I'm at the "scraping the bottom of the barrel" point with the holiday horror movies! This wasn't outright terrible, but it was pretty bad.

This has a killer Santa AND Mrs. Claus! Mrs. Claus looks like she's somebody's mom trying to channel Harley Quinn in a Christmas costume for Halloween because yeah she's still got the body but absolutely no self esteem and all she really knows how to do is make terrible choices and kill people. I wanted to slap her every time she popped up on the screen. Not sure if that's a case for or against her honestly I was conflicted.

At least it's gory? Although some of the cgi gore was unforgivable. It actually looks pretty decent for the budget, but then the writing is so awful and the acting is worse so every scene where two people have a conversation was just embarrassing and I kinda loved it.

Unsure if this was meant to be a deliberate so bad it's good B Movie but it's mostly just bad. Awkward dialogue full of cliches. Inconsistent performances with some actors trying hard for a serious tone and some trying to wink at the camera.

Someone clearly wanted to make a serial killer Santa Claus and then added a Mrs Claus in the style of Harley Quinn. It's hard to get the tone right for a B Movie but even harder to do a decent Harley Quinn impression.

Even those with a high tolerance for cheap horror films will find this hard to love. Perhaps save yourself the time watching this and seek out a better Xmas horror like Anna and the Apocalypse or Krampus.

I am not going to write a in depth long review of this movie because a few words will sum it all up, it sucks. im glad it was free on VUDU because I would really hate to spend any on it, even a penny....it was that awful. The story was horrible. The acting was really horrible. it was not scary at all....so do yourself a big favor, pass on this...i wouldn't even watch this garbage even if i didnt have anything to do, I rather sit and look at a wall for 2 hours than watch 15 minutes of this pile of poop.

The casting director of this film didn't put in any effort, nor did the producers when it came to selecting actors who could truly act. The level of mediocrity in the performances is beyond terrible. Despite its potential to be a good Christmas slasher, the film falls apart entirely due to the dreadful work of its cast. But the biggest thing about this and what kept me from loving it at a "so bad it's good" level is that this is a British production filmed overseas with everybody straining to use American accents and CLEARLY British locations that are supposed to pass for Woodridge, USA (that's the actual super generic American name they give the town) and WHY? Why would you make that choice when your actors can barely talk let alone do an accent why would you do that. And why is Santa using a regular British accent why does he get a pass?! Maybe they worked him being British into the story and I missed it but whatever I don't care.

This has the same terrible writing and dialogue. The two guys that wrote it have no idea what they're doing so everything happens solely to move the plot forward without any nuance and there's just tons of stuff I could rag on like the bad acting and half the cast doesn't even bother with the fake American accent and this could all be a fun bad movie if it didn't take itself so seriously!!

Like I can just see the two guys that wrote this sitting at a bar giving each other congratulatory slaps on the back and that just drives me nuts for some reason!! Ok in all fairness, they actually do try to inject some humor in ONE scene, but it's so awful. AWFUL!!

But I'm still gonna give it two stars because the lead is a Clarice Starling knockoff FBI agent who wears the same outfit for the entire week or whatever this movie takes place over and in some scenes she has blonde highlights and in some she doesn't and I absolutely loved that.