Christmas in Harmony | 2021 Christmas Movies

I really wish Hallmark (and all of the other channels) would pick better names for their movies. And don’t tell me that Hallmark has no say in the titles. They have renamed movies before. Christmas in Harmony sounds nice until you realize that there was a 2018 Lifetime movie called Christmas Harmony and that the female lead in this movie is named Harmony. This is less the title of a Hallmark movie and more the title of an X-rated film.

Harmony (Ashleigh Murray) was just fired from her job at a music publishing company. When she goes home for Christmas, she runs into her ex-boyfriend, Kyle (Luke James). The exes get talked into co-directing the local church choir for the annual Christmas fundraising concert. Harmony’s big name client, Melo D (Michelle Williams), is having trouble getting to their small town to help save the church. Kyle tricks Harmony into singing the big solo herself, giving her the self-confidence she needs to become a singer on her own.

While this is yet another movie that doesn’t really have anything to say, Harmony at least offers some nice music. If anything, the problem with the movie is that there isn’t enough music. With a title like Christmas in Harmony and promo graphics with music notes all over, you should be begging them to stop singing. Instead, the chorus sings a few times, Kyle performs part of a song, Melo D (which is a dumb name) tries a piece of a song, and there’s the finale where Harmony sings a song then everyone sings a song together. That may sound like a lot of music but it’s really not. We see more about the crappy world of music publishing than we do hearing music.

With all of that said, it is a pretty decent movie. Just pretend it’s called something else. Harmony of Christmas would have been better and sounded less pornographic. Or maybe The Harmony in Christmas. Just be sure to leave me a comment with your name for the movie.

The Santa Stakeout | 2021 Christmas Movies

Before I even start talking about The Santa Stakeout, can we address how dirty someone did Tamera Mowry-Housley in this pic? Her face does not look like that. She is a very pretty woman. She does not need to be photoshopped like this.

Tanya (Mowry-Housley) is a police detective that recently moved to Denver. After a string of thefts from high-profile holiday parties, she goes undercover with her new partner, Ryan (Paul Campbell), to catch the crook.

I don’t think that I have seen a police-themed Christmas movie recently. I can understand why it isn’t done more often. There isn’t a lot of police work going on here. As a matter of fact, when the partners go to set up their stakeout house, Tanya begins decorating it for Christmas the minute she sets foot in the door. It makes sense when they are forced to play the parts of a newlywed couple but before that? They were supposed to be hidden. Christmas decorations aren’t exactly what you use when you want to hide.

Stakeout isn’t a particularly interesting movie, to be honest. It felt like Campbell wanted to portray his character like a discount Joel McHale but the snark that is in every McHale character just wasn’t there with Ryan. It just made him look like a jerk.

Eh, this is another one of those movies that is fine. Just fine. It’s not boring per se but I found myself playing games on my phone a lot. Everything felt very forced. Even the big romance at the end. There wasn’t anything in the rest of the movie that showed me these two were about to fall in love. There wasn’t a lot that showed me they even liked each other! Sure, they came to an understanding but that isn’t the same as enjoying someone’s company. Give it a watch if you are a fan of Tamera. Otherwise, it’s probably best as background noise as you do chores.

Boyfriends of Christmas Past | 2021 Christmas Movies

Last year, Hallmark gave us the very terrible A Nashville Christmas Carol. This year they gave us another twist with Boyfriends of Christmas Past. I hope this one is better than last year’s.

Lauren (Catherine Haena Kim) and Nate (Raymond Ablack) have been best friends since college. No matter what Lauren has gone through, Nate has been by her side. Unfortunately, Lauren is afraid of long-term commitment. As Nate gets ready to reveal his true feelings to her, Lauren is visited by the memories of three past boyfriends who show her how she pushes away anyone that wants to be close to her. Can she overcome her fears before it is too late?

While Boyfriends does share some similarities with Nashville, this year’s foray into A Christmas Carol does it better. Both movies let go of the ghosts of Christmas Present and Christmas Future to focus on Christmas Past. However, that is entirely the point of Boyfriends. Lauren is blind to the fact that every time a boyfriend wants to move their relationship to the next level, she bails. The boyfriend spirits/memories even keep pointing out how she runs to Nate every time she breaks up with someone and Nate is always there to help her pick up the pieces.

To be honest, my only real gripe about the movie is how Nate has been basically throwing himself at Lauren the entire time they have known each other and he hasn’t given up yet. The movie doesn’t tell us how many years have passed since college. There’s only vague references like “so many years ago” or “after all these years.” I’m pretty sure they have known each other for at least eight years. There were three boyfriends - the first she dated during her junior year of college for at least a year, we do get that much information; the second was after college and asked her to move in with him, so that had to be a couple of years at least; and the third was asking her to marry him, so that had to be another couple of years. Why wouldn’t Nate try to confess his feelings earlier? Why would he stick around for so long pining after her? It’s pretty obvious that he isn’t happy with the current status of their relationship.

Since this is a Hallmark movie, that one issue is pretty small. The characters are fleshed out a little more than most Hallmark movies so it’s easy to overlook. It’s a safe bet that this will be one of the better Hallmark Christmas movies this year. Give it a watch. At the very least, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is always entertaining.

You, Me, and the Christmas Trees | 2021 Christmas Movies

Hallmark begins their Countdown to Christmas with a bit of a sad note. You, Me, and the Christmas Trees is Danica McKellar’s last Hallmark movie for awhile. She has signed a deal with the new GAC Family channel, which runs through 2023. I believe her first GAC Family movie will premiere in January 2022.

Jack (Benjamin Ayres) runs his family’s Christmas tree business. When the needles start falling off the trees within hours of being cut, he turns to famous evergreen arborist Olivia (Danica McKellar). Can she save his trees before the Christmas deadline?

On one hand, this was an interesting take on the Christmas tree romance trope. Usually the tree salesperson (usually a man but not always) is big into the Christmas spirit and deems it necessary to school the romantic interest about “what Christmas is really about.” On the other hand, the movie was still fairly boring. Let me elaborate.

Olivia is a scientist and she does sciency things in the movie. However, science takes time. So there are way too many times where Olivia has to say “Now we wait 10 hours.” or “We can do a test! But it will take two weeks…” I don’t think the traditional Hallmark viewer would want to see the science behind solving tree problems but I think it would be more interesting than watching Olivia and Jack build gingerbread trees or use science to come up with the best Christmas drink.

Even though You, Me, and the Christmas Trees wasn’t the best Christmas movie ever, it was quite watchable. I enjoy watching McKellar on the screen. She didn’t seem to have a ton of on-screen chemistry with Ayres so the movie does rely on her heavily. He’s a bit…bland, to say the least. I don’t think there was ever a point where he actually showed an emotion.

I know there is a group of people that really don’t like Danica McKellar. Those people probably shouldn’t watch this. But if you enjoy her acting, this is for you. Don’t expect a whole lot from the rest of the cast though.

The Best and Worst Halloween Movies of 2021

Alas, we have come to the end of Spooky Season. While that does mean that the Halloween movie reviews have ended, it also marks the beginning of Christmas movie reviews. There is something like 135 new Christmas movies this year between all of the various channels. I won’t be able to watch all of those but I will be watching a lot. (I think it’s like 95?) Before the Christmas spirit descends, let’s take one last look at the best and the worst Halloween movies of 2021

The Best

5. The Medium
4. Fear Street Trilogy
3. Squid Game
2. Midnight Mass
1. Nightbooks

Honorable mentions: Till Death, Malignant, Horror Noire

The Worst

5. Lamb
4. Hypnotic
3. We Need To Do Something
2. Prey
1. In The Earth

Dishonorable mentions: The Guilty, Intrusion, There’s Someone Inside Your House

Let me know your favorite and least favorite scary movies this year!

Horror Noire | 2021 Halloween Movies

Anthology series, especially horror anthology series, vary a lot. There are way too many terrible horror anthologies out there. Thankfully, the few black horror anthology series I have seen have been amazing. Let’s look at the latest one.

Horror Noire is a six-story anthology show on Shudder. “The Lake” stars Lucifer’s Leslie-Ann Brandt as a woman who moves into a lakeside house. She is told not to swim in the lake but she doesn’t listen. “Brand of Evil” gives us Brandon Mychal Smith as an artist commissioned to draw some mystical brand artwork for a mysterious client. “Bride Before You” is the story of a new bride (Lenora Crichlow) tasked with giving her husband a son. When she has difficulties conceiving, she turns to a magical old woman. “Fugue State” has Malcolm Barrett becoming a victim of a cult. “Daddy” turns a insecure father (Luke James) against himself. “Sundown” twists racist sundown towns into the supernatural.

These are all amazing stories. I don’t think there was one that I didn’t enjoy. My favorites were “Sundown,” “Brand of Evil,” and “Bride Before You.” I love that all of these stories took stereotypical black issues and twisted them into something new. Yes, for the most part, they all still held onto their racist core but they took that history and gave it a supernatural life.

I absolutely recommend watching Horror Noire. The show definitely needs more eyes on it. And since each story is only about 20 minutes long, if you don’t like one particular story, another will be starting soon!

Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 | 2021 Halloween Movies

In 2020, Netflix released a Polish supernatural horror film titled Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight. The movie had all of the right things - good acting, a decent plot, and an interesting twist that made you wonder where the characters would go. Thankfully, the sequel came out recently and I am dying to see what they do.

Despite being a police officer, Adas (Mateusz Wieclawe) is a rather meek person. When he arrives at the station, Adas finds both Zosia (Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz) and the brothers locked up. As they wait for a more capable unit to arrive, Sergeant Waldek (Andrzej Grabowski) takes Zosia back to the house to figure out what exactly happened in the massacre. At the house, the meteorite transforms Zosia into one of the monsters. Is this the end for humanity?

Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 takes a different turn from not only the original but most horror movies in general. Like most horror movies, the first one was about the victims, how they died, and how they tried to get away from the murderers. This time the movie focuses more on the monsters. I thought it was an interesting change of pace.

This is a difficult one to recommend. I liked it but there are a lot of people that thought it was too slow and didn’t focus on the killing as much. Which is true. It is a little slow and there aren’t a ton of murders. However, I thought that seeing the monster relationships was different. If you are into that sort of thing, you’ll probably like this sequel. (You should watch the first for context though.) But if you are looking for something more bloody, this isn’t where you will find it.

In The Earth | 2021 Halloween Movies

This is the movie that broke me. You don’t need any more of an intro than that.

In The Earth is a thriller released on Hulu back in April 2021. The plot is pretty sparse. There is a deadly virus ravaging the world. Scientist Martin (Joel Fry) and guide Alma (Ellora Torchia) head into the forest to meet up with Martin’s former colleague Olivia (Hayley Squires) to assist with her studies. On their way to her camp, they come across Zach (Reese Shearsmith). Zach kidnaps Martin and Alma in order to force them to help him…contact a sorcerer in the forest? Eventually the pair escapes, only to be subjected to similar pains when they finally find Olivia.

Supposedly, this movie was written and filmed in 15 days. And it shows. There are giant holes in the plot that make no sense. There are these strange flashing images that seem to have nothing to do with the plot either. It feels like writer and director Ben Wheatley wrote a handful of pages and filled the rest in with strobe lights.

I watched this movie almost a week ago. This review was supposed to be written on Monday. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about this pile of crap because I was so upset I watched it in the first place that I didn’t want to address it. But it should be addressed. People should know how terrible this “movie” is. I mean, look at the poster! They couldn’t even put together a good poster. They just cut the eyes out of characters. (Yes, there are multiple posters - one for each character.)

Gah, don’t watch it. It’s terrible. Hulu should just delete the damned thing and we should all forget it even existed.

Hypnotic | 2021 Halloween Movies

I haven’t written a review in a couple of days because I have been extremely disappointed in the spooky movies recently. While a lot of the Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies are boring, the Halloween fare lately has just been bad. I might try to squeeze in two extra reviews over the next few days in order to make up for the two days I’ve missed but, to be honest, that will depend on the quality of the movies I find. Then again, maybe I’ll give in and write the bad reviews anyway. Until then, here’s one of Netflix’s newest releases.

Hypnotic is about a woman named Jenn (Kate Siegel) who is feeling stuck in life. She doesn’t have a job currently and she suffers from depression after the death of her child and subsequent collapse of her romantic relationship with Brian (Jaime M. Callica). She turns to psychiatrist Dr. Collin Meade (Jason O’Mara). Dr. Meade hypnotizes Jenn in order to help her overcome her troubles. But this is only the beginning of her troubles.

As I said before, boring movies are different from bad movies. This one is just boring. Before the movie even reaches the halfway mark, we know what is going to happen. Thriller movies are only thrilling when you don’t know what is going to happen next. The suspense comes from knowing something bad will happen but not knowing what that something is or when it will happen. Hypnotic spells it out for you. Even if it didn’t tell you up front what was going to happen, this plot has been done before. Multiple times.

The sad part of this movie being boring is that it actually has a decent cast. Kate Siegel was amazing in Midnight Mass, Jason O’Mara was in the acclaimed Amazon Prime series The Man In The High Castle, and Dulé Hill’s career is way longer than any of us realize. These are people that could have some stunning things with a better script. It makes me sad that their talents were wasted.

Needless to say, you shouldn’t watch Hypnotic. Go watch literally anything else. You’ll thank me later.

Till Death | 2021 Halloween Movies

Till Death actually came out back in July 2021. But it is more of a thriller than most of the October releases so we’re going to look at it anyway.

Emma (Megan Fox) is unhappily married to Mark (Eoin Macken). She’s been cheating on him with his employee, Tom (Ami Ameen). On their anniversary, Mark takes Emma to a secluded lake house. They have a fairly nice evening but when Emma wakes up the next morning, she finds herself handcuffed to Mark. Mark then shoots himself in the head, leaving Emma handcuffed to his corpse. Besides having to drag around her dead husband’s body, Emma also has to avoid being killed by the men Mark hired to murder her.

When I first heard about Till Death, I wrote it off as one of those terrible movies where the woman gets kidnapped and does stupid things to try to get out of the situation. (I’m looking at you, Secret Obsession.) Boy, was I wrong. Fox’s Emma is smart and powerful. She manages to drag Mark’s stupid body all over the place and, as any good true crime fan will tell you, corpses are heavy. At no point does she give in or just sit and wait for someone to save her. She is always looking for a way to fix her situation.

I honestly don’t want to talk too much about this movie. I really think that everyone should watch it. Especially women. Most of the time women are portrayed as victims or someone who needs to be saved. Emma proves that women are neither. Though maybe we should all learn how to pick a handcuff lock, just in case.