Santa's Summer House

What a load of garbage! I don't understand how films like this get made. Who thought a movie like Santa's Summer House was a good idea? Did anyone involved in the making of Santa's Summer House think it was going to be a quality movie? Is the straight-to-video market so lucrative that trash like this actually makes money? So many questions that I couldn't care less to learn the answers to.

There's really no point in listing all the bad aspects of Santa's Summer House. Everything about it is bottom-of-the barrel. The plot is beyond ridiculous, most of the acting is horrendous (Christopher Mitchum proves yet again that acting ability isn't inherited), the lighting is gawdy, and the sound is so poor you can hear echoes anytime a character walks across the tile floor. The plot has a message that's pretty decent, but it's handled so annoyingly hamfisted that it loses much of its effectiveness. The entire time I was watching, I was just hoping and praying that 90s martial art icon (am I overstating it?) Cynthia Rothrock would do some sort of spinning-scorpion-five-finger-Shaolin-death-kick on the rest of the cast.

If it's so bad, then why haven't I rated it lower? Well, as bad as it is, it's not unwatchable. There are a boatload of movies out there much worse than this. And, like I said, it does have a decent message. Finally, I'll give it a point for hilariously casting Rothrock in the role of Nanna, Santa's wife.

3/10

Well, this movie was never going to win an oscar but it is free from zombies, vampires, slaughter and mayhem which seems to be the general television fare these days. It has the lovely Jessica Morris to add a bit of glamour. It is a film you could watch in the height of summer or the depths of winter.

I've watched some garbage Christmas movies in my life, but this takes the Christmas cake!

Absolutely nothing happens, the acting is absolutely appalling, and there's a toe-curlingly long and pointless croquet match which appears unscripted and as if it was filmed on an iPhone.

-10/10

Robert Mitchum was no longer with us when this horror was filmed. I thank God for that. His son Christopher Mitchum plays the role of "Pop" in this...whatever this thing is.

Every single scene has the acting quality of an adult film. The bouncy Christmas music soundtrack is the icing on this cow paddy.

It's truly unfathomable that this exists.

Saw this as a Rifftrax presentation. Which is the only thing that made this remotely watchable (more so than most). Question 1: Who backs these movies? Question 2: Why? Question 3: Isn't this against the Geneva convention? As noted in other places, this has martial arts people but strangely does not make us of this talent. Not that they should be in this movie to begin with, but shows how much diregard the director has towards filmmaking and using acting talents. The dialogue is suitable for unlearning the English language or acting like an alien on their first contact on Earth after crashing their spaceship and suffering multiple brain injuries. The is no real plot, it's entirely predictable, the cute music is insufferable. Belongs in Lifetime's pantheon of 3 am Xmas filler spots 18 days before Christmas.