...(...Christmas, in the Summer...heck, why not?? Christmas horror movies, in the Summer...oh, hell yes!! Besides, we did this last year, with 2012's "Christmas with the Dead", and as I recall, it was a deliciously chilling and comical hoot, remember??)...
...so, how do you like your horror?? A straight up, balls-to-the-walls, over-the-top, freight-trained splatterfest, which give cause to want to take a shower, afterwards?? Subtle, creepy, unnerving and uncomfortable..the kind of horror that chills to the bone, even in a hot & sweltering movie auditorium, where the air conditioning is broken down (...oh, glory be, those good ol' bygone grindhouse theater days)?? Or do you relish a brand of horror that's darkly humored, with a deftly applied, mischievously severed tongue firmly in cheek...the kind of horror that elicits more a maniacal cackle, than a belly laugh, amidst the gratuitous bloodspray and the waywardly rampant rendering of free-flying flesh & limbs?? As far as the latter genre flavor, we've definitely seen some great ones...from Sam Raimi to Edgar Wright...from Don Coscarelli to Peter Jackson...and many others. Balanced comical moments, to temper the onslaught of scares, shocks and gore...laughing fearlessly (...or at least putting up a good front) in the face of gruesome, sometimes monstrous horror. Yes indeed, folks...in truth, and in a twisted way, horror is really not all that removed from comedy...in fact, one might say that they're complementary of each other, like the perfect ice cream, paired up with the ideal (...and blood rare) meat & potatoes. Point in case...
...alas, what's a dude ta' do...when it rains, it pours. Especially when you're a starving, desperate and 'legend in his own mind' young actor, during the Christmas season, fighting tooth and nail for the next acting gig. Paired up with a dimwitted, hygiene-deficient older brother, whom you cannot help but heckle and hack on, because of his unstable relationships with women, and...well, for just being
him. Hopelessly shackled to a ditsy, gum-chomping agent, who wouldn't know a good employment opportunity, if it picked her up by the shirt lapels and slammed her back against the nearby wall. But if Caesar has anything to say about it, all of this is gonna change...and in ways he never considered, nor imagined...
...but, what's this?? An acting opportunity?? As if in answer to his prayers, Caesar gets wind of a charity performance opportunity, to play a traveling Sant...what, NOOOOOOO!!! And as Caesar flashes back to a time when he was a kid, when he was disturbingly traumatized by his grandfather, about the 'evil truth' about Santa Claus, he bemoans the thought of putting on that snowy beard & 'jolly ol' elf' suit, and with the help of his brother, instead devises a plan to feign activity towards the gig as Santa and elf, and underliningly have the accumulated charity funds directed towards a movie production, starring Caesar, himself. However, as Caesar and Otto's juxstapositioned plans begin to fall into place, they find themselves in an inescapable quagmire, as people begin dying gruesomely all around them...hapless victims of a mysterious psycho Santa Claus killer, who seems to have some sort of vendetta against ol' Caesar & Otto, and as such, appears to be taking great pains in setting them up as prime suspects for the killings...
...slapstick, pratfalls and 'wink-wink' parody take priority over straight out horror, in "Caesar and Otto's Deadly Xmas", and although many of the gags, herein, seem to falls flat (...though, in an amusingly knee-slapping way, which recalls the old Vaudeville staple of the stage performers playing out a stale gag, pausing their performance when the audience doesn't react, waving to the audience for a reaction, and then resuming the performance, when the audience does laugh, in getting the joke that the gag was stale), the overall effect of these proceedings elicits some respectable chuckles, all around. Taking center stage, writer/director David Campfield (...as Caesar) and Paul Chomicki (...as Otto) manage to capture a flavor of comedy, albeit on a contemporary slacker level, not that far removed from that of classic comedy teams of the past, with a big toe deftly stuck in Abbott and Costello territory, seemingly the most obvious, here...and surprisingly enough, such an approach, as written here, genuinely works, for the most part...
...some of the film's best moments are derived from clever pokes at holiday-themed splatter flicks, with the 'Silent Night, Deadly Night' franchise, getting the brunt of the heckling. Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman provides a hysterical SNDN moment, in giving his rendition of the 'you better be good, or else' grandfather of the Caesar character, and even veteran scream queen Linnea Quigley...as Caesar's ditsy agent...offers up a cute and silly 'oh, no...not again' moment, which recalls her classic scenes in the original 'Silent Night, Deadly Night" film. Also contributing to some of the more sillier moments, some 'blink, or you might miss them' appearances by genre favorites Robert Z'Dar (...of the 'Maniac Cop' films), Joe Estevez, scream queen greats Debbie Rochon & Brinke Stevens, and even a surprise appearance by Felissa Rose (...yes, it's Angela, from the original "Sleepaway Camp"), who for most folks might not stand out particularly, in
this film, but was probably more applicably and hilariously used in director David Campfield's previous 'Caesar & Otto' outing, three years previous, called "Caesar & Otto's Summer Camp Massacre"...
...as surprising as it might be to most ardent viewers, as it definitely was to this viewer, who'd never heard of the films, "Caesar & Otto's Deadly Xmas" is the
fifth of five 'Caesar & Otto' outings, with a reported sixth film, "Caesar & Otto's Paranormal Halloween", on the way; brandishing a great feel for slapstick and satire, with each film reportedly being more solid than the last, "...Deadly Xmas" might just inspire the uninitiated to seek out the other films in the series (...as has happened, with this viewer), and in fact, the 'extras' section of "...Deadly Xmas" comes with multiple short films by director Campfield, including an abbreviated episode, called "Otto's First Job". But then, taking into account that "...Deadly Xmas" made for a pretty amusing night's viewing, in itself...oh heck, why not?? If the powers that be, decided to one day come up with "Caesar & Otto's Backwoods Arbor Day Cannibal Lunchbox"...well, you can deal me in, on
that one, as well.....
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