This Time Each Year | 2024 Christmas Movies

What do you do when you are Hallmark and you want to have a movie about a very serious subject but you can’t really say the name of the serious subject? Call it This Time Each Year and throw it on the Hallmark Mystery channel. It’s a mystery if you don’t actually say the word, right?

Lauren (Alison Sweeney) and Kevin (Niall Matter) are having marriage troubles. They have been separated for a year but Lauren still hasn’t told her mother. When her mother comes to visit, Lauren asks Kevin to pretend nothing has happened. Will this bring them together or break them farther apart?

This is a movie about alcoholism that doesn’t want to actually be about alcoholism. Kevin was successfully working as a bartender and not drinking when his boss randomly fires him because he doesn’t want to tempt Kevin with holiday parties? Kevin walks everywhere (even though we don’t see that) because he lost his license the year prior, though they don’t ever say how or why he lost his license. (If it was drunk driving, you rarely lose your license in the US after only one instance.) This Time doesn’t want to make Kevin out to be a bad guy. He has to get back with Lauren, after all. But it really is disingenuous to only give him vague alcoholic stereotypes that don’t seem to have any actual consequence.

If you overlook this giant shadow hanging over the movie, it’s still pretty boring. Lauren spends the entire movie feeling bad for herself. One of the big problems they have is a house the couple bought before they split. It’s a gorgeous house that they claim is a money pit but, again, they only give vague things that needed to be fixed in the house. When we actually see various parts of the house, there isn’t anything that seems wrong. I know that you can’t always see the bad parts of a house but they literally named things like “the staircase” and “the roof” but neither needed work. Anyway, Lauren blames herself for buying the house and putting their family in financial strain and it is just so lame. Neither of these people are interesting and the movie neuters the parts it wants to make interesting.

Rating: Just sell the house already

Scouting For Christmas | 2024 Christmas Movies

When I saw Scouting For Christmas on Hallmark’s schedule, I wondered if it was a movie about Girl Scouts. A Girl Scout-adjacent youth organization involved but I wouldn’t say the movie is about them. It actually makes me hate the title a bit.

Angela (Tamera Mowry-Housley) is a single mom working as a realtor. Her daughter, Brooklyn (Audrey Wise Alvarez), is in a scout troop that is having a posh holiday ball fundraiser. Brooklyn suggests they get her favorite bakery, owned by William (Carlo Marks), to cater the event…and also get William to escort her mom to the ball. Little do they know that Dakota (James Paladino), Angela’s ex and Brooklyn’s father, will randomly show up to throw a wrench in everything.

Ugh, for a movie that is titled for scouting, it was so boring. There was no actual scouting done in the movie. There wasn’t even any real estate agenting done! Come to think of it, I don’t think we saw any baking either! All of these people have jobs or hobbies that we don’t see them do, we’re just told they do them. And that makes for a very boring movie. No one wants to see people standing or sitting around talking in various locations. We want to see them doing things. Having fun. Being actual human people. The more I think about it, the more I dislike this movie. I’m glad it’s so early in the season.

Rating: Can we have a movie with actual scouting in it?

A Christmas Castle Proposal | 2024 Christmas Movies

Sometimes I think Great American Family gets joy from messing around with their Christmas movies. After they released their movie schedule for the season, they changed it at the last minute. On top of that, we have a Christmas movie that is a sequel to a non-Christmas movie that was released in January 2023. Well, let’s see what we can get out of A Christmas Castle Proposal.

Writer Olivia (Rhiannon Fish) is dating Prince Alexander of Torovia (Mitchell Bourke). Unfortunately, their busy schedules haven’t given them very much time together. Planning to propose to Olivia, Prince Alexander invites her family to Torovia for their holiday banquet. When they arrive, Olivia finds out that she has also been assigned some royal duties, giving the couple even less time alone. Maybe they aren’t meant to be together after all.

As I was watching Proposal, I thought it was refreshing that this was a Christmas movie about an already established couple and not a commoner woman chasing after an ideal royal. Then I found out this is a sequel and the “chase” movie came out last year after the 2022 Christmas movie season. On the plus side, that means I didn’t have to sit through the annoyances of first dates with princes.

To be honest, I found the movie quite charming. Sure, there were still a lot of things that could have been solved with a simple conversation but that is almost always at the core of these types of movies. I’m more thankful that they didn’t ramp up the princeness of Alexander. For the most part, he was a pretty normal guy with a rather demanding job and a giant house. It was a nice change of pace.

Rating: Maybe next time leave the families at home and have Christmas by yourselves.

Holiday Crashers | 2024 Christmas Movies

Once again, I did zero research on Holiday Crashers before I turned it on. I suddenly heard a familiar voice…and that is when I realized that Daniella Monet, who has starred in number of shows and movies on Nickelodeon, is the secondary female lead. I definitely did not expect her to show up in a Hallmark Christmas movie. This better be good!

Toni (Lyndsy Fonseca) and Bri (Monet) are best friends that happen to work together in a card shop. When Bri finds an extra invitation to a client’s fancy Christmas party, she suggests that the duo spend the season crashing the holiday parties of the shop’s customers. They make up fake personas and have an amazing time. Until Toni, who finished law school but never finished the bar exam, gets mistaken for a working lawyer. Afraid to come clean, she drags Bri with her on a corporate retreat to Vermont to help a business with an acquisition. Will it all come apart when the truth comes out?

I have to admit that Holiday Crashers was pretty fun. I loved the parts where Toni and Bri were making up backstories for themselves, no matter how ridiculous they were. Of course, later in the movie they backfire but that is what makes it fun, right? I don’t think this movie would have worked as well if they didn’t have Monet playing Bri. Monet has an ability to give amazing personalities to characters that you probably shouldn’t like. If anyone else had this role, I can almost guarantee that Bri would have been grating and annoying instead of playful.

Another plus in the movie is that we don’t get one romance, we get two. And we actually get a little more story between Bri and Vinny (Jag Bal) than we do with the “main” romance, Toni and Justin (Chris McNally). I’m OK with that since I like Bri as a character better than Toni anyway. But for those of you looking for the romance part of these movies, this one won’t let you down.

Rating: Can I get a sequel with Bri and Vinny next year?

'Twas The Date Before Christmas | 2024 Christmas Movies

Ah, the first Christmas movie of the 2024 season. Hallmark’s ‘Twas The Date Before Christmas. It better be a good one!

Jessie Chamberlain (Amy Groening) has been rather unlucky in love recently. When her mother tells her that they are cancelling the annual Chamberlain Family Christmas Olympics this year, Jessie quickly tells her that she is bringing someone and they will miss out on meeting him. The festivities are reinstated but now Jessie needs to find herself a date at the last minute.

Supposedly this is based on a true story. If that is actually true, this is a crazy story. Jessie meets a man, Bryan (Robert Buckley), on a dating app and their first date is her family’s wacky holiday traditions. And she doesn’t tell her family that this is a first date for quite awhile. That is a perfect story for a movie, not so much for real life.

As for the movie itself, it wasn’t bad. The acting was somewhat decent, except for maybe the kids which I forgive because they are kids. I think the only real problem I had with it is that the story does progress kinda slowly. I wanted Jessie and Bryan to have more fun interactions during the events. Or for the events to be a little longer or something. It was missing that little “oomph” to make it a better movie. Especially for a movie about Christmas competitions. Those are almost always good movies.

Rating: A sad backstory that should make you sad but doesn’t really.

October is almost over...

My favorite time of year is almost over and, of course, I got sick. I managed to get a cold a couple of weeks ago after one of our weekly trips to Hersheypark’s Dark Nights. Since then, I have had this annoying cough that won’t go away. Sadly (and obviously at this point), I won’t be posting any more scary movie reviews.

But November does start at the end of this week. And that means that the Christmas movie reviews will begin. No cold nor cough will get in the way of the Christmas reviews. I hope you are looking forward to them!

Salem's Lot (2024)

As I have said before, I never really watched a lot of horror movies before 2020. My husband, however, is a big fan. Especially of Stephen King books/movies/series. When he heard that a new ‘‘Salem’s Lot movie was coming out, he was very excited.

Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) returns to his childhood hometown, Jerusalem’s Lot, to do some research on both his past and the town itself. Shortly after his arrival, children begin to go missing. With the help of some locals - town heartthrob Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh), teacher Matthew Burke (Bill Camp), Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey, Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard) and 11-year old Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter) - Ben tries to rid ‘Salem’s Lot of the darkness that has arrived.

Since I am very unfamiliar with the book or either of the previous miniseries, I spent a lot of this movie asking my husband questions. While I found this version of ‘Salem’s Lot pretty enjoyable, there were some drawbacks. One character went unnamed until he appeared in a later bar scene. I even asked my husband “Oh, that’s this guy, right?” and he had to correct me. The movie is just under two hours long so some of the characters felt a little flat and some relationships felt rushed.

With that said, Mark Petrie is an absolutely kickass kid and I watched the entire movie just for him. I would watch a sequel that is just him going around fighting vampires. He would have to be a little older or get Ben to tag along but that’s OK. Sometimes kickass kids need dumb adults to help them get places.

‘Salem’s Lot wasn’t a super scary movie. Despite being a vampire movie, there wasn’t a lot of blood or scenes where I had to avert my eyes. If you are looking for something that isn’t going to give you nightmares or something on the tamer side of horror, this might be for you. Die-hard ‘Salem’s Lot fans may not like this movie very much but those of us that want to watch a King movie without losing sleep, this is the one you should go for.

Rating: B

V/H/S Beyond (2024)

For the past few years, I have been watching Shudder’s V/H/S franchise. In 2021, there was V/H/S/94, which was decently good. Then 2022 was V/H/S/99, which I liked better. While I didn’t review V/H/S/85 last year, I did watch it and enjoyed it. This year, it’s V/H/S/Beyond and it’s scifi themed. I can’t wait to talk about it.

The “through-story” framework for Beyond is set up as an alien abduction documentary. In between all of the movie segments, experts tell us about a family that suffered from alien and paranormal experiences. The first movie segment is “Stork,” where a police unit is tasked with breaching a house that may be the center in a string of disappearing babies. Despite the fact that they hunt monsters, the unit comes upon more than they expected to find. “Dream Girl” is the next segment. A couple of paparazzi are told they need to get footage of the latest Bollywood starlet. Unfortunately, she is not treated well by her management and lashes out in revenge. In “Live and Let Dive,” a group of friends is celebrating a 30th birthday by going skydiving. As they are having fun before the dive, a flying saucer appears in the sky next to their plane. Needless to say, their skydive did not happen the way they wanted. “Fur Babies” is probably the most disturbing of the segments. It is also the only one that doesn’t really fit the scifi/alien theme. A group of animal activists go to investigate a doggie daycare center. Little do they know that the owner of the center loves dogs much more than she likes humans. The last segment of Beyond is “Stowaway.” A woman is in the desert investigating possible alien encounters. She sees a light fall from the night sky, which leads her to an alien spaceship. Of course, she sneaks inside. Which is actually a terrible decision.

I know that I normally give you a much deeper description of each segment. However, of all of the movies in the V/H/S franchise that I have watched, Beyond is, by far, my favorite. I love the science fiction and alien themes that run through the segments. Thankfully, all of the V/H/S movies are standalone. You don’t need to have watched previous versions in order to understand newer releases. If you don’t watch any of the other movies in the series, you need to watch this one. You won’t regret it.

Rating: A+

It's What's Inside (2024)

The first Netflix horror movie I watched this season is It’s What’s Inside. To be honest, I forgot that it released on October 4. I just happened to be scrolling through Netflix and thought it looked interesting. But was it?

Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) has been trying to get her boyfriend, Cyrus (James Morosini), interested in her. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working. She wants to skip the party for their friend Reuben (Devon Terrell), who is getting married, but Cyrus insists they go. At the party, they meet up with all their friends - Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood), Maya (Nina Bloomgarden), Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and Brooke (Reina Hardesty). Surprisingly, their estranged friend from college, Forbes (David Thompson), also shows up. Forbes has brought a mysterious suitcase containing a strange machine. He hooks everyone up to the machine and turns it on, immediately making everyone swap bodies with each other. Chaos ensues as the group plays a game where they try to guess who is actually inside everyone’s bodies.

This was such an interesting premise. And I really wish the writers had done more with it. Sure, there were some people who were only interested in hooking up with people while they were in their friends’ bodies but there could have been so much more going on. Even the Big Problem that happens doesn’t really cause much drama on-screen. People should be more scared or angry or something but we only see a fraction of how they should feel.

One of my other problems was keeping track of who everyone was. Granted, this is the plot of the movie. You are supposed to lose track of who is who. It make the twist ending better. But since I barely knew the characters’ names to begin with, it was really hard for me to remember who was who. I would have liked maybe a subtitle instead of showing who was inside with a red filter scene. I can’t know who is who when I didn’t know who they were to begin with!

With all of this is mind, It’s What’s Inside wasn’t a terrible movie. I might actually watch it again to see if I can get more out of it. If you like movies that are a little confusing, this one could be for you.

Rating: B

Hold Your Breath (2024)

Generally, Hulu’s Halloween releases aren’t great. But I decided to take a look at Hold Your Breath anyway.

Oklahoma, 1933 - Margaret (Sarah Paulson) has been left alone with her children, Rose (Amiah Miller) and Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins), as her husband travels east. However, life is not going well. There hasn’t been rain in months, giant dust storms frequent the area, and Maragret’s mental health is deteriorating. When Margaret begins to believe that a malicious presence in the dust storms is threatening her small family, she does what she must to protect them.

Hold Your Breath is a very slow movie. This works well in psychological thrillers where there is an amazing payoff. Unfortunately, we don’t get that payoff here. Instead of getting a big bad, things just kinda fizzle out at the end. I don’t know about anyone else but I was left wanting more. Preferably for Rose to step up to protect her deaf younger sister. We get a little bit of that but not nearly enough. Though the movie does leave a little bit open for a sequel if Hulu decides one should happen. I hope they don’t.

Rating: C-