Thursday, December 19, 2013

The 12 Disasters of Christmas (2012)

SPOILER WARNING!!! This post spoils movie The 12 Disasters of Christmas (2012).

This is Syfy original. So it is kind of stupid to complain, how stupid this movies is, because that is kind of their trademark. There is audience for this kind of movies. Popularity of Sharknado showed that. I will do Sharknado as soon as I see it. It is still not available here. This genre makes me kind of sad, because all this money and time of everyone involved could have resulted better movie. Sometimes it feels like they are trying to do serious movie. This is not all stupid. Just majority of it is stupid.

Movie cashes on last year's mayan apocalypse. Still remember that? Jayce is having her 18th birthday on 21.12.2012. I live in Europe, so I use european date format. There have been couple signs of apocalypse and after 12th sign it is end of the world. Jayce's grandma realizes, apocalypse is coming after tap water turns red. She gives ring to Jayce. The ring gives marking to Jayce's arm. Grandma is speared by ice spear before, she can tell anything more. After couple other disasters Jayce and her father seek Grandma's old man Grant, who has told Jayce is chosen one, who can save the world. Grant tells them, they have to find five rings around town and then Jayce will know what to do.

There were 12 disasters:

  1. Heatwave

  2. Bird deaths

  3. Red tap water

  4. Raining ice spears. These killed Grandma and at least one other person

  5. Tornado out of nowhere, which killed Jayce's friend

  6. Dome over town preventing anyone from leaving or entering

  7. Freezing mist that freezes everything it touches. It kills Grant and Kane's brother

  8. Earthquakes

  9. Red mist, that makes humans fall into pieces

  10. Strange electricity on metal objects

  11. Geysers. I am not sure, if this is actually one or part of next one. I count it as one to get all 12.

  12. Volcanos erupting


I mentioned Kane's brother. Kane is big man of town, who has connections and want to build shopping mall or something like that. Jayce's father is against Kane and his plans. Kane start to lose his mind after his brother dies. He start to think they have to kill Jayce to prevent end of the world. Kane is best written character in this movie. Better director and better actor would have made him more memorable character. Writer did good job with him. I guess, he had to add all stupidity, because this is Syfy original and everyone expects that.

Mayor was another well written character. He tried to balance between Kane and Jayce's father. After dome covered town, there was potential for some interesting story telling. Only Kane and Mayor reacted to situation on their own ways. Others continued as nothing had happened.

The dog returning at the end. That is so bad cliché, it makes viewers angry. At that point, we had forgotten the dog. The dog could have been left from the movie. Yes, there was build up for dog returning. We saw dog few second before it run away. Characters even wonder, where did it go. That happened same time as Grandma had dramatic moment with Jayce and right before Grandma was impaled by ice spear. There might be reasons why audience don't remember dog being missing, when it comes back at the end. I don't blame writer. Director didn't use material correctly and buried dog running away in middle of more interesting events. I checked what else writer has done. Is resume contains other Syfy original and he teaches writing. That explains why movie stays together as well as it does.

Maybe this wasn't real christmas movie, but it had christmas decorations all over the place and had one christmas song in center of it. How lyrics of that song were connected to events, were never really explained. This isn't the worst Syfy original. It has some good things, but in the end it is Syfy original.

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