A CHRISTMAS NIGHTMARE (2001)

O Axe of wonder, heads to hit,
Axe that really makes you shit,
Downward leading, death's proceeding
Guide it to a skull to split

THE CARD:

12 axes chopping, 11 gardeners peeping; 10 jerks a-slapping, 9 ladies drowning, 8 broken cell phones, 7 damsels fleeing, 6 snipers aiming, 5 weenie husbands, 4 possessed agents, 3 holey shovels, 2 gloomy ghosts and a Psycho not far from Elm Street!

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

According to the fake news cast, a politician is gunned down on live TV. Edward Anderson (Charlie Finelli) and his wife Alice (Tiffany Baker) witnessed the slaying and can identify the killer. For their own safety, they are sent into hiding by the FBI in the Witness Protection Program. Just a few days before X-mas, Agent Simmons (Hugo Armstrong) escorts them to their new life in the countryside, but they have to brave a violent storm to get there. Wet and exhausted, they arrive to find the house unfurnished and ill-prepared to receive the Andersons, especially Alice who’s a few weeks pregnant. The Andersons share a tense relationship, possibly due to the impending arrival of the child, and there is trouble brewing between the pair. Simmons leaves them in the dark house to get a better signal on his cell phone, but when he returns in the morning, he acts strangely towards the Andersons, eerily distant as if under a trance. As they wait for help over the next few days, Alice begins to see and hear strange things in the house – shadows moving, disembodied voices, and the apparition of a strange man in overalls and two sad ladies in white floating in the pond. She finds a diary in a creepy barn that belonged to a man who worked for the long-dead owners of the home. She learns the tragic history of the farm where the man murdered for revenge and desire before hanging himself from the windmill. The strange stuff intensifies but skeptical and clueless Edward is in denial about the emerging evil in the house that has taken a grip on Simmons. Meanwhile, a bigger threat looms in the scary woods. A hired killer, perhaps the same man who killed the politician, is stalking the Andersons and Simmons’ every moves. Simmons’ behavior gets weirder and weirder and the Andersons begin to fear for their lives as something far more sinister than a bullet may be waiting to claim their souls.

THE FINISHER:

Sometimes the best X-mas gifts are those wrapped the lousiest. And the X-mas thriller A Christmas Nightmare is wrapped in the usual low-budget trappings of irritating electronic soundtrack, amateurish acting, and lack of characterization. But after all that is tossed aside, the movie turns out to be quite a nice surprise. We have a good old fashioned ghost story here, told from the perspective of a tragedy in the past that continues to affect the present, an essential theme of a cracking good ghost story. Director Vince De Meglio, now a seasoned Hollywood screenwriter, displays solid if economic filmmaking here, holding back big scares and gory effects for an atmosphere of intensity and uncertainty, borrowing just a tad from The Shining. The pace is slow, however, sometime exceedingly slow but the story remained engaging enough to hang in there until the bloody end. So don’t prejudge Uncle Jeffro’s pineapple- shaped present wrapped in twine and street porn ads. What may look like a low-budget truck-stop DVD cheapo may turn out to be an effective, nicely shot, and spooky thriller perfect for a cold winters night.