Holiday Horror (pt. IV)

The Gingerdead Man

The White Reindeer

Ho ho howdy, my dear readers! I hope you don’t mind if we celebrate Christmas a week early—for it’s already the fifth night of Hanukkah and, more to the point, next week I’ll be covering my 599th and 600th films and I didn’t want those to be too Christmassy. I am more on top of and devoted to this blog than I am to any holiday or celebration, because watching movies is infinitely easier than any planning, cleaning, and decorating that goes into proper holiday celebration. Popping on a movie while you’re roasting chestnuts on an open fire, decking the halls, fighting with your family about politics, or doing whatever Christmas tradition you partake in, can be a soothing, welcoming presence during an otherwise chaotic time. So in that spirit, lets dive in to one of my favorite subgenres within one of my favorite genres, and explore another round of holiday horror. There really is a plentiful plethora of strange, subversive Christmas movies—as I’ve discovered with the other holiday horror films I’ve explored thus far, and my Psycho-Sexual Santa Claus double features—and I am positively fascinated by this phenomenon. Perhaps, in the scope of Western culture at least, Christmas is the purest, most wholesome event on the calendar, which makes it the perfect, juxtaposed backdrop for horror, thrillers, and action movies starring Bruce Willis. I was genuinely horrified by last year’s holiday horror selections, so it only makes sense that this year’s creepy crop of Christmas horror was a mixed bag—but at least they were both incredibly short.

Up first is a horror movie that sounds a lot better than it actually is, this is Charles Band’s 2005 horror film The Gingerdead Man. I had a good feeling about this movie because it was released as a part of Elivra’s 13 Nights of Halloween, and it always puts me at ease when the credits mention “creature effects by”, but I fear these elements did not save The Gingerdead Man from its flimsy, silly, undercooked execution. The film opens on a potentially frightening scene, in which a psychotic, gun-wielding man named Millard Findlemeyer (Gary Busey) is holding up an old school Texas diner. An old man tries to be a hero, and is subsequently shot, then the same happens to his son. The daughter, Sarah (Robin Sydney) is the only survivor, but this seems to be out of pure luck. After some time passes, Millard is caught, Sarah gives a testimony that sends Millard to the electric chair, and Sarah is left in charge of the family bakery since her drunken mother can’t be trusted to keep things running. Alone in the kitchen, Sarah speaks to her brother in the ether and says, “I hope wherever you are up there, that they have strippers and Lone Star.” It’s a sweet, kinda stupid moment, that is interrupted by Sarah’s paranoia surrounding Millard, and his final words: where he vowed to take his grandma’s advice and “finish what he started”, even from beyond the grave. Sarah is also paranoid when a mysterious package arrives at the back door, hand-delivered by a mysteriously-cloaked individual. The package reads, “Grandma’s Ginger Seasoning”, but Sarah ultimately isn’t too concerned by this, and begins to make a batch of gingerbread cookies with it—specifically: a giant gingerbread man. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate already, Sarah is faced with the possibility of selling her family’s bakery when a rich, shady business man named Jimmy Dean (Larry Cedar) builds a giant bakery of his own across the street. She initially turns her nose up to the 50 grand Jimmy offers, even when his bitchy daughter, Lorna, says, “50,000 dollars goes a long way at Walmart, Sarah.” But privately, Sarah seriously considers it, since her dad and brother died, the bakery has barely made any money and her mother’s drinking has only worsened. But this existential nightmare becomes a more physical one when the gingerbread man she baked is suddenly possessed by the spirit of serial killer Millard Findlemeyer, and begins wreaking havoc on the bakery. Now it’s up to Sarah, her drunken mom, this mean bitch Lorna and her sweet punk of a boyfriend named Amos to stop the Gingerdead Man before he makes it beyond the doors and kills everyone in town. I’m not sure what I expected from this film, but I didn’t think it would all take place in one night, in one setting, with such a promisingly-campy antagonist, and yet nothing really to do with him. This movie is only 70 minutes long, and yet it drags to a degree that compelled me to keep checking how much time I had left to watch. Everything is rushed, and not fully fleshed out. Everything fun is implied, but never shown. There were so many opportunities for memorable gore, fun kills, and satisfying revenge, and yet none of this ever occurs. It’s mostly just half-baked gingerbread man puns—some of which, I will admit, were pretty funny—and not nearly enough actual horror. There is one, singular, memorable moment in this film, to this critic at least, and this is when the Gingerdead Man attacks Sarah’s mom and says, “Ever try a ladyfinger?” before chopping off her finger. But all the rest of the best lines were delegated to Amos, such as when he refers to the killer as the “Killsbury Dough Boy.” I wish The Gingerdead Man had more to offer than just puns and off-screen gore, I wish it were campier, funnier, stupider, even. It’s not like I expected this low-budget, downright-poorly-shot movie to be a Christmas classic, but with a name as confidently funny as “The Gingerdead Man”, I did expect the hijinks and horror to be way more present than they actually were. The Gingerdead Man began as a rejected MadTV sketch, then after the film became a mild-cult success, it went on to have several sequels—Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust, Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver, while also joining forces with another flimsy horror character: Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong. I appreciated Gary Busey’s evident appreciation for this role, as he was paid only $25,000 for two days of filming his one live-action scene and voiceover work, and was apparently disappointed that he didn’t get to do more. I liked the corny puns, the CGI-less, practically-made Gingerdead Man, but I wish every element of this was more severe. Among the grand pantheon of bad movies, The Gingerdead Man is mid at best. And while I always appreciate an attempt to create a new horror movie monster, everything about this was only half-cooked. It seems that director Charles Band put more thought into the rock song that plays in the credits, which he wrote and performed himself. I’m not even sure if The Gingerdead Man can be considered a holiday horror film, given the lack of Christmas spirit in this movie. And while the same could be said for tonight’s next film, it at least presents a snow-covered setting and a symbol that is undeniably Christmas-coded.

Up next is a film with a similarly-simple story, but with a much more effective, satisfying execution, in an even shorter run time: this is Erik Blomberg’s 1952 Finnish folk horror film titled The White Reindeer. We are transported to a snowy, Finnish mountaintop, where a pregnant woman is being chased by wolves. When she finds safety inside a yurt (that is already crowded with a large family) she gives birth to her daughter, Pirita, and it is prophesized that she will be part of the traditional joik (a group of performers and singers) but Pirita’s destiny is proven to be far darker than this. Several years later, Pirita (Mirjami Kuosmanen) is all grown up and participates in the annual reindeer competitions, which basically looks like a crazier version of Mario Kart. She finds friendly, flirtatious competition with Aslak, a young reindeer herder, and the two quickly fall in love and are married before you can even blink. The wedding is joyous, jovial, full of drinking, and every person in the tribe seems to want to stick around to see the young couple consummate their marriage. Pirita and Aslak are happy and in love, the only problem is that Aslak is constantly away at the Finnish fells for work, and Pirita is constantly, tragically alone. And even when Aslak is home, he seems too tired to snuggle, cuddle, or even Esk*mo kiss (sorry.) Aslak gifts Pirita a beautiful, pure white, pet baby reindeer to keep her company during the long weeks of distance, but this, of course, does not satisfy Pirita. Desiring the company of her husband, or any man, it seems, Pirita pays a visit to the local shaman Tsalkku-Nilla, who says, unprompted, “Love potion, is it? You women—young and old—are all the same” before stirring up a mysterious concoction. The shaman bangs a drum and tells Pirita that in order for the spell to work, on her way home she must sacrifice the first living thing she meets to the Stone God, then no reindeer herder will ever be able to resist her. A sense of dread came over me as Pirita trudged home through the snow, and the first living thing she encountered is the gorgeous white reindeer her husband gifted her. With trepidation and guilt and the sounds of the shaman’s drums beating in her head, Pirita sacrifices this reindeer to the Stone God, among a graveyard of antlers that belonged to other sacrificial reindeer. Though nothing violent is shown, it is such a harrowing, haunting moment, because of how it is shot and how expressive Mirjami Kuosmanen’s face is as she makes this irreversible decision. When Pirita makes it back to civilization, something has changed. Not only have her husband and the other herders arrived home, but something has changed within Pirita. We soon discover that during each full moon, Pirita transforms into a stunning but murderous white reindeer—one who, to the shaman’s credit, is irresistible to the reindeer herders. Whenever she is in her reindeer form, Pirita easily coaxes in each man, lets them take temporary hold of her, then she cackles as she returns to her human form. The men are always bewildered, confused, then seemingly turned on, as we witness one man gleefully bury his face in Pirita’s neck as she then reveals sharp fangs, bloodthirsty eyes, and attacks him. Just as others arrive to help, she turns back into a reindeer and runs away effortlessly, and avoids capture every single time. Eventually, though, the tribe catches wind of this murderous beast, and they deduce that no regular reindeer would kill a man in such a violent way, so surely it must be a witch. Pirita grows worried as she watches her husband—finally at home for a long stint—sharpening his spears, and begs him not to go after the white reindeer. What follows is a thrilling, brilliantly-shot, and tragic sequence of events that mirrors several familiar fairy tales and yet remains fairly unique. I could not get over how gorgeous and vivid this film is—between its powerful music, daunting setting, superb lead actress, and the tragic fable fueling it all, all of it took my breath away. The story was adapted from Finnish mythology by director Erik Blomberg and lead star Mirjami Kuosmanen, and as of this writing, it is the first and only Finnish film to win a Golden Globe. The White Reindeer is a perfectly isolating Winter horror that was thoroughly freaky, and a surprisingly sneaky vampire film. I didn’t expect this film to be so captivating, so feminist, so artistic, and so bold for the era in which it was made and set, but I’m so glad that it was. Even though neither of tonight’s holiday horror films were particularly-Christmassy, The White Reindeer and its melancholic, mythological magic put me in the holiday spirit nonetheless. The ho ho horrors keep persisting on this perilous planet, so I appreciate the movies that make the most of this forcefully-cheery, hopelessly consumerist time of year. Until next time, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa to all, and to all an only mildly-fright-filled night!