Gabe Reviews Horror

Twelve More Slays of Christmas #12 - The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) [This one does not appear to be streaming anywhere for free, but it's included in a subscription to Disney+.] Merry Christmas, everyone who celebrates! The Nightmare Before Christmas tells the story of Jack Skellington, a skeleton living in a place where everyone and everything is Halloween. Despite everyone else's love and excitement over another Halloween come and gone, Jack has grown dissatisfied- he wants something more. Something new. So when he stumbles across a mysterious grove of trees, each of which seems to serve as a portal to another place, each centered around a different  holiday- Jack immediately becomes smitten with the idea of Christmas, and sets out to create a Christmas of his own- even going so far as to have Santa Claus kidnapped so he can take the reins (no pun intended). But something tells me Christmas is going to be a bit different this year... I first saw this movie back when it...

Twelve More Slays of Christmas #11 - Better Watch Out (2016) Watch it here on Tubi! Wow. That's really all I can say right now- wow. This movie is fantastic. I'm hesitant to even give a plot synopsis because there's a significant bait-and-switch that really makes this movie into something special. The shift happens about thirty minutes in, so it's not really a HUGE spoiler to say what it is, but as far as I can tell, none of the official marketing gave it away (in fact, the red band trailer makes this look like a feel-good revenge flick with tons of laughs, which it VERY MUCH is not). I will do my best not to give away what's going on, but I urge you to go into this movie with an open mind. At its core, Better Watch Out is a home invasion movie. It follows Luke, a twelve-year-old whose parents are going out to a Christmas party, and Ashley, the babysitter he desperately has a massive crush on. He's got a whole plan to try and woo her (coordinated with his friend...

Twelve More Slays of Christmas #10 - Elves (1989) Watch it here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dluvUGMCt5Y Before I get to the plot, I have to say: this is a WILD movie. I don't think I'm going to rate it super high but in some ways it might be the best movie I watched all year. There is a scene in this film where a goblin/troll/elf thing shoots a nazi with a gun . Have you ever seen that in a movie? I haven't! I don't think they intended anybody to jump up and cheer at that part but I really wanted to. Anyway. Elves is almost certainly a made-for-TV-movie, and if it isn't, it sure looks and sounds like one. (Considering the amount of T&A in here I would bet money it premiered on Cinemax.) The first half really failed to grab my interest, but the second half- hoo boy, the second half brought it right back around. Elves begins with our teenaged protagonist, Kirsten, taking some friends out to the woods in late December to try and perform a feminine-f...

Twelve More Slays of Christmas #9 - A Christmas Horror Story (2015) Watch it here on Philo! A Christmas Horror Story is (ironically) not one story, but five stories (some of which are intertwined with one another) centered around Christmas and various folklore. First, William Shatner plays a radio DJ who loves Christmas but is forced to report on an unfortunate killing spree at a local mall. Next, three college students break into a boarding school or something where a brutal murder took place on Christmas the year before to make a documentary on the killings, but find out that some of the horror has lingered. Then a mother, father, and son go out to someone's private property to cut down a Christmas tree- the son goes missing, they find him after a short while, but it soon becomes clear that the child they brought home is not quite the child they lost. Next, a family on Christmas vacation runs into some bad luck after their bratty kid disrespects Krampus, and they learn that the S...

Twelve More Slays of Christmas #8 - The Christmas Tapes (2022) Watch it here on Tubi! The Christmas Tapes is a low-budget found-footage horror anthology film starring Greg Sestero, of The Room  fame. The framing device starts off with a family celebrating Christmas Eve by having each member open one present first, and the daughter's gift- a video camera- comes in handy when a stranger knocks at the door after apparently having car trouble. The family invites him in to share the warmth and community, but this soon turns to fear and danger as he takes them all hostage and forces them to watch a series of short horror films centered around Christmastime. As each story comes and goes, the family has to grapple with whether the horrific events they saw- both mundane and supernatural- have any basis in reality, and whether any of them are going to make it out of this alive. Apart from the framing device, there are four stories told in this movie: 1. Travel Buggies- A couple of travel blo...

Twelve More Slays of Christmas #7 - Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972) Watch it here on Tubi! Note: This is a small thing but IMDB and Wikipedia list the title as "Whoever" Slew Auntie Roo, but everywhere else I've found anything about it on the internet, it's simply "Who" Slew Auntie Roo. I don't know why this is, usually in the case where a movie has multiple similar titles IMDB has the official one and there's a little section for "Alternate Title", but this one has nothing of the sort. It's weird. Speaking of weird things about the title, though, what's the deal with that title? It makes this film sound like a whodunit murder mystery, which it very much is not. Auntie Roo (spoilers) dies at the very end of the film, and nobody is wondering who did it- it looks to the authorities like an accident, and the only people who suspect anything otherwise are the people responsible. In truth, this is a kidnapping movie, not unlike 1990'...