Back in their Hammer and Amicus heyday in the 60's and 70's, the Brits could churn out low-budget horror with the best of their American counterparts. As those production companies went under in the late 70's (Amicus) and mid-80's (Hammer), British horror continued to proliferate in the 80's and 90's via any number of small indie production companies and the occasional American team-up (i.e. The Shining, An American Werewolf in London), but by the early 2000's, the number of quality films started to dry up considerably.
Sure, you had the occasional international crossover hit, like Shaun of the Dead and The Woman in Black (from the resurrected Hammer Horror company), and the stray indie cult success like Eden Lake or Kill List, but the Brits aren't churning 'em out like they used to, that's for sure. The last British horror film I can recall watching was probably, interestingly enough, 2017's Once Upon a Time at Christmas, which was entertaining enough, I suppose, but hardly modern-day classic material, that's for sure. (Nevertheless, a sequel is due next year.)
Add to that list 2016's Good Tidings, a down-and-dirty Christmas-themed slasher flick that lacks the budget of even Once Upon a Time, but may well be a damn sight creepier than that film, in spite of its considerable faults. And mind you, it's not like the budget for Once was all that high, either, so this one is a borderline student film budget, as evidenced by all the cost-cutting going on left and right, particularly in regards to the special effects. (More on that later.)
However, what Good Tidings does have going for it is a halfway decent cast, a great location, and a nifty premise that is more thoughtful than most slasher films by a country mile. One of the things they drill into your head in film school is the importance of securing a solid location to shoot in, which is why they stress writing stuff around specific locations that you know you can get permission to film in.
It may seem a roundabout way to go about writing a film, but it can often result in some great films- think Reservoir Dogs, Evil Dead, Clerks, Cube, even Hitchcock's Rear Window, Lifeboat and Rope- all of which were set in a limited number of locations, if not one location, period.
Good Tidings has a doozy of a location: an abandoned courthouse, with lots of nooks and crannies to wander about in. It's like the more upscale version of the Evil Dead cabin in the woods or a small-scale version of the Overlook Hotel- a veritable maze of rooms and winding corridors to get lost in, and it's the absolute best thing the film has going for it overall- and that's no small thing.
The plot is fairly straightforward, yet more complex than it might seem at first glance. It begins with what appears to be three escaped mental patients, amusingly dubbed Larry (Giovanni Gentile), Curly (Stu Jopia) and Moe (Liam W. Ashcroft), who gang up on and decapitate a drunken department store Santa. Incidentally, the first two actors are also the co-screenwriters, so read into that what you will.
One of the Santas takes the dead man's suit and the other two find two more suits and three masks in the trunk of his car. Donning the suits and masks and absconding with the dead man's car, the three go off on a joyride, keeping an eye out for potential new victims.
Meanwhile, we see a homeless man, Frank Roland (Colin Murtagh), scavenging for food in the trash, when another homeless man, Jon Latham (Jonny Hirst), begs him for something to eat. Frank gives him a sandwich, and then, taking pity on the man, it being Christmas and all, invites him along to a place he's been squatting, the aforementioned abandoned courthouse. It turns out there's a host of other homeless people staying there, which they keep locked to keep others out, as there aren't a lot of resources to go around.
Unfortunately, the three rogue Santas spot the men going inside the place, and, after gathering up some supplies, lay siege to the place, breaking in and proceeding to knock off the occupants one by one. That's about it, but if you think about it, the plot also serves as a bit of an analogy of the struggle of the haves against the have-nots. The three Santas, representing the rich or their corporations, spot the homeless horning in on "their" territory, aka a location that once was representative of the law- a former courthouse.
Taking matters into their own hands, the "Man"- or, in this case, the "Men"- then set about ousting the less fortunate, aka the poor- on Christmas, no less. Bah humbug! You could also conceivably read into the fact that the "rich" are, in fact, here portrayed as mentally-challenged, yet sometimes wily, foes that simply pick on these poor unfortunate souls because they can, not out of any real sense of justice, much as the rich often pick on the less fortunate because they can, not for any specific reason.
Witness our current administration, which have preyed upon immigrant families and their children, and more recently, have set their sights on undoing certain aspects of Food Stamps and welfare- just because they can. All the while the (not my) President wastes literally millions of dollars traveling and playing golf on the taxpayer's dime- money that could easily be put to better use- and driving the country into trillions of dollars of debt. We could literally wipe out the homeless problem overnight with that kind of money, and yet the government only spends it on themselves.
I'm not sure how our situation compares to that of England's, but my guess is that it's not that different. Just look at the Royals- they have no real power, but they get to live like... well, the kings and queens they ostensibly are. I'm sure there's a lot of less fortunate people in the UK that aren't too happy about that, much less the mess the Parliament has become in light of all this Brexit insanity.
Anyway, you get the idea. The point is, this aspect of the plot, which I don't think was unintentional at all, gives the proceedings a heft they might not otherwise have, which alone sets this film apart from a lot of similar slasher movies that lack it. Just as many horror films reflect the times in which they came out- think Night of the Living Dead reflecting the Civil Rights Era, Dawn of the Dead reflecting Consumerism and the Vietnam Era, and movies like Saw and Hostel reflecting the use of torture in the War Against Terror and the like, to say nothing of the latter exhibiting a bit of xenophobia in light of the post-9/11 mentality- so does Good Tidings reflect the whole 1% vs. the 99% scenario that we're currently living through.
Factor in the fact that the leading character is a former war vet running from his past- part of which includes losing his child under mysterious circumstances, which, in turn, led to the dissolution of his marriage- that is forced to resort to the more feral mental state he had to be in while fighting the war, in order to survive this current ordeal, and hopefully save others along the way, and you have a lot going on underneath the surface for a slasher film. Needless to say, most such films do not have all these socio-political underpinnings going on, to say the least.
Now, don't get me wrong: there was an even better film to be made here. Unfortunately, despite the ambitious nature of the film's underlying plot machinations, the execution occasionally leaves a lot to be desired. Entirely too many of the murders happen off-screen, likely the direct result of the ultra low-budget. Instead, we get a lot of the aftermath, instead of clever and gory deaths, always the hallmark of a well-done slasher flick, if nothing else. While the underlying plot may make up for a lot of that, there's still no getting around the fact that the film lacks the graphic, sometimes show-stopping kills of the slasher films of yesteryear that us fans of the subgenre love.
That said, there are a few decent kills- the beginning decapitation and another one later on in the film, a bit in which a steel pole is driven into someone's skull and then pulled out- we don't see the actual kill, but we do see the latter action- and various Christmas-centric items are used as weapons (i.e. sharpened candy canes and Xmas lights), always a plus in a Xmas-themed horror flick.
Unfortunately, some of this is furthered offset by the fact that the attacks are ill-staged and you can sometimes see the "dead" breathing or moving in what would otherwise be effective scenes, an aspect it shares with the aforementioned Once Upon a Time at Christmas. Thankfully, though, there isn't much, if any, in the way of ill-advised post-film CGI inserted, like in that film, which is a plus, as that aspect all but ruined that film for me.
Beyond that, though, the film moves along at a nice clip, the suspense is fairly steadily maintained throughout, and there's not a lot of pointless exposition to contend with. We get a nice conversation near the beginning, as Frank talks to one of the denizens of the courthouse, a former junkie he helped get clean, Roxy Muller (Claire Crossland), where he explains his background to her and why he doesn't talk about it much, and that's really about it, beyond a few exchanges between a homeless couple about how they ended up here.
As such, there isn't a lot of heavy characterization going on here, which is too bad, as we might have cared more about the various characters and their respective fates had we gotten to know them a little better. At the same time, it's also pretty effective that, once the killers arrive and lock things down, they waste no time in taking everyone out, occasionally holding a few hostage just for the sheer pleasure of tormenting them.
Granted, this aspect is used perhaps one-too-many times, as we spend a little too much time with the most mentally challenged and childlike of the bunch, who is calmed down by the singing of Roxy, which keeps him from killing off more of the hostages. Had this been reduced to one such scene, it might well have shaved off a good five minutes of the film's running time, which is around 100 minutes- not that bad, if you include the credits, but still, verging on a little long without good reason to extend the proceedings.
And like I said, there was actually plenty of wiggle room to do just that via a little more exposition that let us get to know the characters that much more and drive home the underlying allegory of the film's plot, in regards to the whole poor being besieged by privileged maniacs. I mean, if you're going to have most of the kills happen off-screen, then at least replace it with something that matters, you know?
Be that as it may, it's still a pretty entertaining, watchable film, especially if you're a big slasher fan. That location makes all the difference, as does the decent acting and plotting. And those outfits the killer wear, especially the masks, are admittedly pretty creepy, if a bit reminiscent of the one in All Through the House, which I reviewed last year. (See here for that and other Xmas horror-centric reviews.)
The film is readily available on DVD and is also available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and iTunes and for digital download, including via Vudu. There's also a Blu-Ray available which you can find at various auction sites, such as eBay and the like. It's worth the buy, faults and all, IMHO, and I look forward to seeing what the director, Stuart W. Bedford, comes up with next. (His latest film, Dawning of the Dead, looks promising.)
Check it out, especially if you dig a solid slasher flick! 😉
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