Hello folks, and welcome back to… dear god, it can’t really be week eight of the fall season already, can it? Is November even a real month, or just a collective hallucination that carries us directly from Halloween to Christmas? Anyway, yes, it is apparently time for the Week in Review, and I am still embarrassingly behind on my annual anime catch-up. I know I should really be watching this year’s outstanding productions rather than more Armored Trooper Votoms, but the heart wants what it wants, and right now it wants to watch Chiricho to emerge from the bloodstained field of battle only to discover his own personal war has just begun. Alongside that, we’ve been marking the encroaching holiday season with a variety of seasonally appropriate film productions, which I’m sure you’re eager to hear all about. Let’s celebrate the increasingly all-consuming Christmas spirit with the latest Week in Review!
First up this week was Wizards, a ‘77 Ralph Bakshi feature set many thousands of years after the nuclear apocalypse, in an age where elves and fairies have returned to claim the earth. In this era of magic and mystery, the fairy queen Delia gives birth to twin boys, the noble Avatar and nefarious Blackwolf. While Avatar preaches the primacy of nature and magic, Blackwolf invests himself in science and technology, dragging guns, war machines, and even Hitler’s propaganda back from the mists of time. Eventually, Avatar will have to assemble a group of brave heroes to face his brother, or risk all of creation falling back into humanity’s self-destructive ways.
Wizards is narratively disjointed, stylistically discordant, and consistently fascinating. Though it’s framed as a battle between the ills of technology and the virtues of nature, it never really digs into why this hierarchy exists – we know that technology eventually led humanity to ruin, but the conflict’s guiding principle is clearly more “let’s contrast tanks against elves” than any deeply felt philosophical point. This “because I felt like it” principle also applies to the film’s scene-by-scene storytelling and characterization; there’s no real sense of continuity or rising tension, and the film is peppered with scenes following the more skit-based dream logic of Bakshi’s earlier features, meaning our setting frequently seems to shift from dingy paperback fantasy to the bowels of ‘70s New York.
But a thrilling, coherent narrative is clearly not Wizards’ draw. What the film does offer is stylistic flourishes in spades, as post-Tolkien renditions of dwarves and goblins rub shoulders with Heavy Metal heroines, rotoscoped soldiers, lovingly cross-hatched backdrops, and even archival footage of Nazi propaganda. Wizards’ aesthetic effect is utterly transportive, drawing the viewer back to a time when epic fantasy had not yet solidified into various flavors of Warcraft and Dragon Quest, and offering the same salacious appeal as a dime-story Frazetta-fronted novel. It’s not a great film, but it is utterly emblematic of an era where films could simply be bold and interesting, and where fantasy was something you conjured in poorly lit basements beneath watchful KISS posters. I very much enjoyed it.
Our next viewing was the recent Christmas comedy Hot Frosty, our viewing of which likely requires some context. One of my housemates has a perverse fascination with Hallmark’s treacly Christmas features, and has been watching basically one a day ever since October’s end marked the start of America’s two-month Christmas season. As such, Hot Frosty star Lacey Chabert has become a fixture in my household, as Hallmark’s perpetually game protagonist of features such as Christmas in Rome, The Sweetest Christmas, A Christmas Melody, A Wish For Christmas, The Tree That Saved Christmas, Family for Christmas, Time For Us to Come Home for Christmas, Christmas at Castle Hart, Haul Out the Holly, Christmas Waltz, and Haul Out the Holly: Lit Up (that one was actually pretty good).
Given our undeniable status as dedicated Chabertheads, it didn’t take much convincing to screen this Netflix feature, which is at least three steps closer to being a real movie than the collective Hallmark catalog. Chabert stars as a widow whose life is turned upside down when a suspiciously muscular snowman is brought to life, knowing nothing of the world except that Chabert’s scarf was the magic that animated him. The two engage in a variety of feel-good wintery adventures, while town cops Craig Robinson and Joe Lo Truglio (Brooklyn 99’s Agent Boyle) do their best to convince you that this is indeed a real movie, with movie stars and everything.
The mixture basically works. The script is sharper than Chabert’s Hallmark work, offering genuinely effective jokes and an acknowledgment that the holidays can actually be a tough, isolating time for those not brimming with Christmas cheer. Chabert also gets to show off her genuine comedic muscles, demonstrating the delightful snappiness that served her well as a Mean Girls costar, long before she was sentenced to the mines of Hallmarkia. Self-aware, effervescent, and exceedingly warm-hearted, Hot Frosty evokes the same buoyant atmosphere as something like Will Ferrel’s late-career work – it’s a film that’s having an excellent time, and dearly wishes you would have one too.
Next up was Weird Science, a lesser John Hughes feature starring Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith as two horny social outcasts, desperate for love but too nervous to actually talk to girls. As a test run for actual romance, the two decide to program themselves up a digital girlfriend, which a convenient bolt of lightning transforms into the living, breathing Lisa. With Lisa guiding them, the two set off into a world of partying and romance beyond their imagination.
Weird Science lacks the personal psychology and heavier drama of Hughes’ most acclaimed features, trafficking instead in pure adolescent horndog farce. In spite of this, alongside some jokes that could not have aged more poorly, it’s a largely agreeable feature, mostly thanks to the film itself agreeing that its leads are losers suffering from problems of their own making. Kelly LeBrock basically carries the film on her shoulders as Lisa, and the theme song is a genuine banger provided by Oingo Boingo. Nothing I’d actively recommend, but even a weaker offering by Hughes still offers an interesting snapshot of ‘80s culture.
We concluded the week with Silent Night, Deadly Night, an ‘84 slasher with the obvious “what if Santa was a slasher killer” premise, that somehow manages to bring an odd sense of tragedy to its lurid proceedings. Robert Brian Wilson stars as Billy Chapman, a young man who was severely traumatized after his parents were killed by a man dressed as Santa Claus. Growing up in a Catholic orphanage, he is frequently abused by the Mother Superior, who teaches him to associate any manner of alleged wrongdoing with a need for swift punishment. Then at eighteen, Billy is tossed off on a local toy store, where the ensuing mixture of Santa imagery and holiday frivolity will ultimately unleash the monster inside.
You really can’t blame Billy for developing a violent complex regarding Santa Claus and corporal punishment. It’s frankly hard not to feel sorry for the dude – he is failed by his alleged caretakers at every step of his life, and ultimately provoked to violence only after every possible confidant has ignored, attacked, or otherwise disappointed him. Interestingly, the film seems similarly enamored with Billy’s sad psychology; the actual “slasher” portion of this film comprises maybe twenty-five minutes, with the rest dedicated to exploring Billy’s failed attempts at overcoming his trauma and living a normal life.
The film’s climax offers another unexpected moral wrinkle, as we return to the Mother Superior that so abused Billy, and find that she has softened to the point of total adoration of her orphan charges in her old age. Billy thus returns to the source of his suffering only to find a frightened yet self-sacrificing old woman, not the monster who taught him that fear is the heart of love. Neither the film’s performances nor production are particularly noteworthy, but there is a sadness in Silent Night, Deadly Night that harshly counterbalances its genre staples, and makes it a notably more interesting watch than your usual slasher also-ran.
