The holiday theme week ends on back-to-back horror versions of Christmas classics. I had actually only seen this come up when I was thinking about doing horror versions of other movies as a theme week but I had already seen most of them so I put it in the holiday theme instead. I assumed it was going to be some hyper low budget schlock, so imagine my surprise to be greeted with an actual talented cast of actors and a fun twist on the plot of the movie’s namesake.

Our story takes place in Angel Falls, a nice little town that loves Christmas, and focuses on the Carruthers, a nice little family that loves Christmas. Daughter of the family, Winnie, ends up killing a slasher but not before it murders several people including her best friend. A year later, the town and her family are doing great but things aren’t so amazing for Winnie. She is dealing with the trauma of having murdered someone, the loss of her best friend, she finds out her boyfriend has been cheating on her, and everyone refuses to talk about what happened the previous year. She eventually wishes she was never born while standing under an aurora and just like that, she wasn’t. Now she has to save a town where nobody stopped the killer and everything has completely fallen apart.

First off, I have to say that this movie immediately had my number because anything with Justin Long in it is guaranteed to be a delight for at least the scenes he’s in. Sure enough, he is fantastic as the sleazy, manipulative rich dude that wants to own the town. Really most of the cast does a great job in this. I love the fact that the story turns out to not just be about appreciating what you have but also being there for other people and standing up for what’s right. The movie is also very gay. There are more queer relationships than there are straight ones here and I kind of love it. The slasher stuff is also done well with a great, striking look for the “Angel killer” and good practical effects on the kills.

The place where the movie mostly falters is in the execution of its main conceit. In the original It’s a Wonderful Life, we have an angel that takes George Bailey into the alternate timeline to teach him a lesson. This movie decides to forgo the religious aspect and makes it so that the aurora is what did it but also the aurora is maybe the spirit of the killer because he died violently and they have to kill the killer again so that she can be sent back? But why would the spirit send her back? Is it like “Hey, good job, you killed me twice. Sorry about the whole ‘never being born thing’, I was just goofin’.” There is also another aspect of the ending that further muddies the waters on this whole thing. I know the movie doesn’t give a shit about the details and just wants its fun slasher premise but as soon as it presented an explanation I couldn’t let it go. Better to have just let it be a weird supernatural mystery.

I enjoyed this a good deal and think this is the exact right balance of goofy premise and serious slasher. I already watched it so it’s not going on the review list for this year but, if you enjoy this type of thing, I would also recommend Totally Killer, which is like the horror version of Back to the Future. Same goofy premise/serious slasher balance that I enjoyed here.

Score: 4.5 out of 5