Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: After showing up for a Christmas dinner with the family, an engaged couple witnesses zany antics of the highest order.
Review: This holiday season is not off to a good start. First, I found out Riho Sayashi is abruptly leaving Morning Musume by the end of the month. Then I hear they are cancelling "The Soup" after all these years. Finally, and definitely the worst of all, I sat through this piece of shit movie! At first I was excited, because it appeared this was an Asian horror movie with Christmas being crucial to the plot. It didn't take long to realize that Christmas was nothing more than a bullet point to broaden interest in this disaster. I'm willing to overlook quite a bit of shenanigans when it comes to low-budget films, but this was some next level, insufferable bullshit. Typically I'd want to laugh at trash of this caliber, but they were taking the material far, far too seriously to even have fun with it. Needless to say, this was painful to get through. Well...on the bright side, at least Riho said she plans to learn English! Oh, did you expect something positive about this movie? Yeah...there won't be much of that going on here.
Hold on, I'm just reading that tagline. The price of eternal life...is eternal death? What the fuck are you talking about? My goodness. So what the hell is happening in this movie? I don't know, dude--something about a family get-together on Christmas to introduce the main chick's fiance to the family. This is actually supposed to be a found-footage film to boot so you can commence rolling your eyes right there. Supposedly there was a cult in France that moved around the world before settling in the Philippines, and somehow this family is connected to it through magic or whatever. I'm not even going to call this a Filipino movie. For one, I doubt the Philippines would want to be associated with this shit, and also because the filmmakers, by their own account, intended to shoot in Malaysia to begin with. Anyway, everybody dies in ridiculous ways while the end goal is to...ummm...come to think of it, what was the point to anything?
I'm just going to rant the many problems so try to make sense of what you can. Here we go: You set this at Christmas and yet there is no evidence of the holiday? Just because the characters say "Merry Christmas" doesn't mean jackshit. Speaking of which, who the hell thought introducing, like, 15 characters at once was a good idea? Who the fuck was anyone?! When these people are dying it's hard to give a flying fuck when I have no idea who they are or what they're relationship is supposed to be! I love how the camera boy just happens to be autistic and never says a damn word. Oh, but his POV can change at any given moment impossibly? Plus, how convenient this kid catches every important scene as if he's teleporting all over the place. No one reacts normally to this kid either as if it's perfectly normal to be filmed constantly with a supernatural camera. If your starting premise is this mind-numbing, why would you proceed further? But the footage we are seeing has been edited? By who, some retarded journalist? Well, whoever did it didn't understand how to keep things concise, however, they took the time to score shit music to highlight the laughable scares?! By the way, what the hell were they using for the audio equipment--a fucking tin can and string?! I can't hear half the dialogue...not that I wanted to though. How the fuck can there be a flashback in found-footage?! What, the ghosts edited that shit in? Did you seriously try to set up one of the worst sex scenes ever depicted? It's hot as fuck in the Philippines, they are in the woods, they know an autistic kid is filming them, the girl says the guy never even noticed her until now, the girl admits she's still a virgin, he strips randomly for her as a "surprise," he's seemingly her damn cousin on top of this, and she's like, "okay, let's do this." WHAT? jktdyghp. That's my face slamming into the keyboard.
This movie is utterly HORRENDOUS! The acting is pitiful, the sound is unbearable, and the script was clearly written in crayon on the back of a Denny's placemat. The only remotely positive things I can say are that the main girl was very attractive, a few actors were at least trying, and I'm cutting them a little slack for the obvious inexperience in film production. However, they're losing those points right back for having the cast and crew write their own wikipedia page and adding fake reviews to imdb. And the shameless tactics from these people trying to defend their film--which is sitting, generously, at a 3.5 on imdb--is embarrassing. Trying to claim people are judging it more harshly for being made in the Philippines? Get the fuck outta here. All films stand on their own merit regardless of who made them. And, as it stands, the only true Asian horror films with Christmas are "The Present" from "Kazuo Umezu's Horror Theater," and, to a lesser extent, "Ju-on: White Ghost." Avoid this movie like a lump of coal in your stocking.
Notable Moment: When that demon baby is born. This was so painfully stupid it nearly brought a tear to my eye from all the laughter. Almost.
Final Rating: 2.5/10
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