The Santa Box

I can only speak for myself, naturally, but... this is a very good Xmas flick!

This review may contain spoilers.

'The Santa Box' surprised me, a lot. I knew nothing of it before watching and only selected it as* it looks like one of those standard cheesy festive flicks - which my mum, who I watched these Xmas films with, can't get enough of. And the opening few scenes, granted aside from the cold open, only seemed to confirm that it was indeed one of those.

*I also, amusingly, thought that was John Malkovich on the cover, which I had only seen an icon-sized version of. Just me? Probably. Anyway, unfortunately, 'twas not him.

However, by the end, I was almost shocked at how pleasant it was to watch. Like, don't get me wrong, it most definitely still has cheesy moments, but it has a more emotive side to it than I was expecting - it genuinely hit me in the feels a fair few times. If they followed through with the ending, I'd have been fully hooked in. I completedly get why they didn't go that way though, it made sense for the story to go the way it does.

It is a slightly odd film in that it does feel rough around the edges almost across the board, like the camera work has an amateur side to it as does the acting, the dialogue, the music (which is still nice) and whatever else. And yet it all comes together very well, impressively so.

I enjoyed the whole cast. Cami Carver gives, in my opinion, an excellent performance for a relatively young actress. She has good daughter/mother chemistry with Tatum Langton. Shawn Stevens is also ace, even if I barely recognise him out of character online.

There's only been a low amount of ratings so far, so too small a sample size, but it seems to split opinion across various websites. As noted at the top, it's opinion-based, but I'm closer to the latter than the former. I was inches, and I mean inches, away from giving this 4*. I think it narrowly falls short, as mentioned if they actually 'did' the ending I'd be giving it that rating, fwiw. Not that it ends badly, at all.

A very swell film, one I'd be more than happy to revisit. Would you like it? Who knows, but I would recommend it.

This movie not only made me feel all the good happy holiday feelings that I love to feel but it made me laugh and cry too! Great all around movie!

This is the perfect holiday movie with such a great meaning!

Kallie thinks she's cursed by Christmas. For the past 5 years, something bad has happened every Christmas season. One day she finds THE SANTA BOX on her doorstep. Inside is a note that changes how Kallie feels about Christmas forever.

Where do I start? Probably the Story. The story is great. It's a fairy tale type story about a girl, Kallie ( Cami Carver) who has suffered loss so dislikes christmas, a girl who bullies others to feel better, an old man who's war experience left him wanting to be nice to everyone, and a collection of sad people who's lives were blighted in one way or another. There's even an evil witch in the shape of Nelly Green (Cindy Perez). Through the story the old man, Otto (Shawn Stevens) enables Kallie to bring every single person in the story together to be friends, and they all live happily ever after. I wish I had been able to read this story, it's a lovely one.

However this is a film and the reality is awful. The acting is B movie grade. Nelly Green is played by a surgically enhanced actress who I honestly thought was made to look like she does for artistic licence and she would look much nicer at the end. There's not a single strong performance from any member of the cast, so that brings the story down. Also, it tries too hard to bang home the morals of happiness, forgiveness, loving others no matter how they harm you etc etc. Lovely ideals but not ones that humans are capable of keeping forever. Yet there are so many speeches, with rising music as if the very voice of God was being heard, encouraging everyone to be good and wonderful. But the speeches keep coming til you get to the point of fast forwarding til you get to the next one.

As I say it is a lovely story, it would have worked as an animation, but with poor actors and poor direction and poor editing, it feel completely flat as a film. I gave it a 3 for the story alone, but I would like to see an animated version which might be better.

The poster suggests that this is a bigger production than the average Hallmark film. This impression is almost confirmed by the opening scene, which takes place during WWII. However, this "Christmas movie" turns out to be nothing more than an overly sentimental, poorly acted B-movie with bad sound quality and little to no Christmas atmosphere. The constant tinkling of the piano becomes irritating after the umpteenth emotional moment, as does the poor German accent of the character Otto.

Cami Carver in the lead seems to be the only one doing a reasonable good job. That doesn't have this very disappointing movie though.