(IMAGE: Mutt Productions)
Random Media, 2020. Horror-Comedy
Grade: 1 out of 4
As rip-off ideas go, “Scream but with a killer Santa” isn’t bad. And make no mistake, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear is blatantly that, up to and including the killer asking the same trivia question about Friday the 13th, and this time getting the right answer (Pamela Voorhees, of course). It doesn’t make any sense for this particular killer, with the motives we ultimately learn, to be particularly into horror trivia, and in fact, he ditches it as a gimmick fairly quickly. But the filmmakers want you to know they know their horror films. Characters have names like Romero and Campbell, and the killer’s lair is located on Elm Street. A low-key Michael Berryman even underplays it as the school principal, the only familiar face in a sea of unknowns.
Director Stephen Allen Gutierrez also channels a bit of Terrifier in the opening kill scene, in which a solid fakeout jump-scare is followed by two young ladies on a dark urban street going back to their car, with trouble following then. (Gutierrez seems to have a “type” when it comes to leading ladies – let’s just say his favorite adult film actress is probably Mia Khalifa.) The look of the night-time sequences, overall, is vastly superior to those shot during the day, perhaps because darkness necessitates putting more thought into the lighting and cinematography needed. A key sequence where the “Santa Slayer” menaces two girls in a high school gym in broad daylight never musters the tension it badly needs, a problem some creative lighting, sounds, and camera angles might have helped a lot with.
On the plus side, most of the menaced teens are believable as such, particularly leads Drew Pipkin as Jeremy, the protagonist with a hidden past, and Jaden Riley Juarez as Minka, his platonic (for now) best friend. One of the movie’s best conceit tweaks is when glasses-wearing nerd Minka does her obligatory glamming up, she still keeps the glasses; again, looking at some of the rest of the cast, this seems to be an aesthetic Gutierrez is fond of.
On the downside, one never forgets, watching this, that it’s an amateur production. The sound mix is just not good, mostly highlighting tinny-sounding production dialogue mixed in with the sort of songs that one suspects are either public domain stock tunes, or some friends of the filmmaker. Combined with the cheap-looking video and uninteresting daytime visuals, the result is a final product audiences might feel bad paying for, except perhaps to offer tips out of sympathy for the effort.
There’s enough in here to show occasional signs of potential – a twist that seems obvious gets cleverly reversed during the climax, for some genuine surprise. But not all the actors seem up to the task of believable reactions – one moment involving a character touching a severed finger has her handle it, pick it up, hold it in front of her face…and only THEN scream. Like, wasn’t it clear when you were picking it up what it was? Gore effects are acceptable, if not spectacular, but one wouldn’t expect the latter here anyhow.
If your friends made a movie like this, you’d enjoy it with them over a couple of beers. (My friends made All Cheerleaders Die, the original, so I know of what I speak.) If nobody’s bringing this or the beer to your place gratis, though, you might find the evening wanting.