Christmas at the Holly Hotel

Story is cute, but too predictable. The scenery is quaint, music is actually pretty good. However, the actors look like they never rehearsed and are reading off of cue cards. Wind blows into microphone in outside scenes. I really feel bad for the writers of the story itself, because the screenplay needs a lot of work.

I'm sure most people will be like me and not read the reviews before watching. During December we try to watch a new sappy holiday movie each night. Most of the time we find a better than mediocre movie, but this one just can't even live up to poor, even though we watched the whole thing.

In a nutshell:. Extremely poor acting, horrible wardrobe and makeup in a story that could make a decent film. Budget must have been around $1,000, and it probably still lost money.

This was one of the lowest energy movies I have seen in ages. The actors all looked and sounded like they were on the verge of falling asleep. Completely one note performances as though the only focus was spitting out the lines, but no warmth or feeling behind them. No chemistry between the lead characters, no excitement. The ending was not believable. I can't believe I wasted time on this!

There was a confusing plot point that also didn't work. I don't want to list spoilers but the flow was so random. Some of the hair /clothing choices were of poor quality as well. I did like the lead woman's dresses but that is not enough to recommend the film.

These Christmas romances are normally a go-to for me. They are formulaic, yes, but feature a charming and pretty woman who goes home for Christmas and in the midst of helping her parents, finds her dream job and dream man. Good so far. Until you realise that the female lead simply cannot act, that her 'charming' attempts to get out of a well-deserved speeding ticket make her look like a spoilt, petulant teenager, and nor can her 'parents'. The direction had them all sitting at a table featuring (for some reason) two bananas, a scene so dreadfully unconvincing that one found the fruit very interesting to look at! The male lead can, at least, act, but it's a small mercy given the rest of the film. Right, on that note, there's some paint I need to watch drying to wipe away the memory of this experience.

The rating according to Amazon Prime was 3 out of 5 stars. Not exactly sure why though. This movie had a cute story line, and the cast was picked well enough I guess. The acting was a bit plain as they seemed to be just memorizing their lines immediately before the scene was done. The producers definitely didn't seem to put much effort into making sure you could hear the actors clearly as there were several instances where the wind or other background noise would drown out the talking. You can tell they probably didn't have a very high budget for the movie to be made. I feel like there could have been more effort put into everything overall. Maybe someone else could do a remake of this movie and improve it immensely to a 7 out of 10 stars on IMDb?

I like many of the Hallmark Christmas movies (yes, I know this isn't Hallmark), even the cheesy ones. I thought I'd give this a try...bad choice. Even within the first few minutes of the movie, it's bad but you think, hmm...maybe it'll pickup, no..it doesn't. It is horrible. I couldn't even finish it and that says a lot because like I said, I usually like even the cheesiest Christmas movies. The acting is so poor. It seems like they didn't even try. It was actually painful to watch the actors interact. It was super awkward and just lame. Don't even waste your time with this slop. It is just one to pass on.