Good Tidings (2016)

I saw Good Tidings at the Grindhouse Planet Film Festival.

It was pretty standard horror fare. A group gets locked in a court house during the Christmas season and gets tormented by three killer men in Santa suits. A couple of pretty effective grizzly moments aren't enough to balance out the over-long, boring sequences of the Santas staring and cackling as their hostages say things like 'please don't do this' etc.

You could cut out half an hour easily and although that wouldn't leave you with much of a film, that is kind of the problem. There is simply not enough plot and not enough imagination to justify this being feature length. In a year which has seen so many brilliant (admittedly higher budget) single-location horrors come out, (Green Room, Don't Breath, The Invitation) Good Tidings simply can't complete.

Fmovies: This was a film that I had heard about from podcasts I listen to. I couldn't remember a lot about what they had said, but since I was out to watch Christmas themed horror films during December, I thought I'd give this one a chance. The official synopsis is a homeless war-veteran with a checkered past must rely on a side of himself once thought buried when he and his companions are targeted by three vicious psychopaths wearing Santa suits on Christmas Day.

We kick off with a man in a Santa Claus suit leaving a house. The yard surrounding the house looks rough and the man might be coming off of a bender. That's when three men attack him, all wearing what looks to be hospital attire. They are all wearing masks. They end up killing the man. We then see that they are all dressed up as Santa, all wearing masks as well. We never see their faces, but they are given the names of the Three Stooges: Curly (Stu Jopia), Larry (Giovanni Gentile) and Moe (Liam W. Ashcroft). Oddly enough, Curly and Larry are two of the co-writers for the film

The film then shifts to a man ask he is digging through the garbage. He is Frank Roland (Colin Murtagh). We learn that he is the former war veteran who is running away from something in his film. There's another homeless man who is watching, Jon Latham (Jonny Hirst). Jon asks if he can come with him.

Frank takes him to where he has been staying. It is an abandoned courthouse where bunch of other homeless people is staying to get out of the cold. They have procured enough supplies to put on their own Christmas party. It is during this that Frank talks with a younger woman, Roxy Muller (Claire Crossland). She is a former junkie, but with Frank's help she has gotten clean.

Things take quite the turn when the three Santas show up, chain the door shut and then they start to toy with those stuck inside. Some are killed and some are rounded up. Why are they doing this and can they find a way out before it is too late?

I have to lead off stating this film hit a lot of positives for me. I love the concept of these three Santas coming in and wrecking havoc. I'm a big fan of taking something as innocent as this character and perverting it like the film does. It is even scarier knowing that the mental patients and that can explain some of things they are doing. Some of it doesn't make sense, but that is explained that they are crazy. Not everything they do is rational.

This film also has some social commentary I'm a big fan of. If you know me, then you know that I'm not a big fan of Christmas. It should be a time that we are thankful for what we have and for those around us, but it is such a commercial holiday now. This film has a bunch of poor people who are the victims here. It seemed like a good allegory of how the holiday beats down those that don't have much and that's what this film seems to do. Going with this though, I actually thought this film is a solid slasher, because I felt bad for these people. Not everyone is given a story why they are there, but we do get some and it helped me connect with them. My favorite slashers make me feel for the character so I care if they are killed and this film did that for me.

Something I would have like fleshed out a bit is why did the killers choose this place. My initial thought was that they are going back to where they were sentenced. This is the way that I read it and the only thing that makes sense.

Going from there, I will touch on the pacing next. I though

A trio of sociopathic serial killers, wearing santa claus outfits and masks, target a group of squatters who are held up in a vacant courthouse building for the holiday season.

We follow the de-facto leader of the squatters as he; a recovering addict; one of the main organizers of the group; and a guy they just met and took in; try to survive and attempt to exact justice...or vengeance...for their now deceased friends.

Clearly the largest and most intimidating santa is the dominant force of the trio; with the two others coming off as probably inbred- definitely mentally-ill- twins. There's not much context given to the narrative...it's all just a senseless violence splatterfest.

But the characters are developed pretty well.

The acting from the two female leads- particularly the woman who plays the main organizer- is excellent. Her trauma feels truly genuine.

However, what the guy goes through requires some suspension of disbelief...though, by this point you are invested in their survival...so it's not too bad.

There's quite a bit of gore- which is hit or miss. The use of sausages as intestines was pretty cheesy, but the finale was badass. And overall the special effects are pretty good.

In the end, it's entertaining enough, if you are just looking for senseless Christmas violence.

But I felt it could have had more depth with a little more attention to detail. 5.5 out of 10.

Good Tidings fmovies. This was a film that I had heard about from podcasts I listen to. I couldn't remember a lot about what they had said, but since I was out to watch Christmas themed horror films during December, I thought I'd give this one a chance. The official synopsis is a homeless war-veteran with a checkered past must rely on a side of himself once thought buried when he and his companions are targeted by three vicious psychopaths wearing Santa suits on Christmas Day.

We kick off with a man in a Santa Claus suit leaving a house. The yard surrounding the house looks rough and the man might be coming off of a bender. That's when three men attack him, all wearing what looks to be hospital attire. They are all wearing masks. They end up killing the man. We then see that they are all dressed up as Santa, all wearing masks as well. We never see their faces, but they are given the names of the Three Stooges: Curly (Stu Jopia), Larry (Giovanni Gentile) and Moe (Liam W. Ashcroft). Oddly enough, Curly and Larry are two of the co-writers for the film

The film then shifts to a man ask he is digging through the garbage. He is Frank Roland (Colin Murtagh). We learn that he is the former war veteran who is running away from something in his film. There's another homeless man who is watching, Jon Latham (Jonny Hirst). Jon asks if he can come with him.

Frank takes him to where he has been staying. It is an abandoned courthouse where bunch of other homeless people is staying to get out of the cold. They have procured enough supplies to put on their own Christmas party. It is during this that Frank talks with a younger woman, Roxy Muller (Claire Crossland). She is a former junkie, but with Frank's help she has gotten clean.

Things take quite the turn when the three Santas show up, chain the door shut and then they start to toy with those stuck inside. Some are killed and some are rounded up. Why are they doing this and can they find a way out before it is too late?

I have to lead off stating this film hit a lot of positives for me. I love the concept of these three Santas coming in and wrecking havoc. I'm a big fan of taking something as innocent as this character and perverting it like the film does. It is even scarier knowing that the mental patients and that can explain some of things they are doing. Some of it doesn't make sense, but that is explained that they are crazy. Not everything they do is rational.

This film also has some social commentary I'm a big fan of. If you know me, then you know that I'm not a big fan of Christmas. It should be a time that we are thankful for what we have and for those around us, but it is such a commercial holiday now. This film has a bunch of poor people who are the victims here. It seemed like a good allegory of how the holiday beats down those that don't have much and that's what this film seems to do. Going with this though, I actually thought this film is a solid slasher, because I felt bad for these people. Not everyone is given a story why they are there, but we do get some and it helped me connect with them. My favorite slashers make me feel for the character so I care if they are killed and this film did that for me.

Something I would have like fleshed out a bit is why did the killers choose this place. My initial thought was that they are going back to where they were sentenced. This is the way that I read it and the only thing that makes sense.

Going from there, I will touch on the pacing next. I though

Good Tidings (2016) is another holiday movie I recently caught on Tubi. The storyline focuses on a courthouse where three vicious men dressed as Santa holds everyone hostage and begins randomly killing the hostages one by one. A soldier uses his skill sets in hopes of stopping them and save the day. This movie is directed by Stuart W. Bedford in his major motion picture debut and stars Colin Murtagh (The Curse of Hobbes House), Liam W. Ashcroft (Crying Wolf) and Giovanni Gentile. The storyline for this movie is crazy but fun to watch unfold. I did enjoy the intensity of the characters and the kill sequences. The candy cane usage was solid and original and the Santa killers were well presented. There could have been more gore, but I still enjoyed watching this film unfold. Overall this film nailed the intensity, missed out on the opportunity for fantastic gore and had weak acting except for the killers. I'd score this a 5/10 and recommend this if you're looking for a solid holiday horror pic.

Arriving at a homeless shelter, a man joins his fellow homeless members in a closed-down bank for the shelter when they notice a trio of escaped mental patients dressed as Santa Claus is going around killing everyone and forces his friend to rely on his old Army Veteran skills to save them.

This here was a decent enough though flawed genre effort. One of the strongest elements to be had here is the heartwarming nature of the setup at the shelter. The beginning here brings us into their hardship of the season and what they're doing to make the best of it in the grandest Christmas traditions despite being unable to enjoy the finer things in life and to notice that everyone here is getting into the holiday spirit before the rampage starts is rather nice. The scenes of the group coming in and taking over the bank killing them off one-by-one carries a nice sense of shock at the audacity to go through the plan the way they do like the scenes of them chasing through the building generate some pretty tense moments. There's a nice sense of action and brutality between these continuous confrontations taking place throughout the bank as the group tries to outwit and survive the group which leads to some great deaths and some nice gore. These are really all that work here. There are a few flaws to be had here. The main issue with this one is the decidedly underwhelming killers who provide this one with some troublesome moments throughout here. That they're clearly unhinged mental patients that aren't capable of doing anything in a manner that should make people scared of them is a major stumbling block as a gang of them who take a stand against the intruders will overcome them rather easily considering their slow speed and incapacitated mental facilities who can't fight fair. Anyone who would've taken a fight to them would've been able to overcome them easily the way they're addicted to childish toys and games and becomes far more obvious how they're able to stand up to them later on. The other issue with this one is the continual reliance on characters getting tied up and dragged away by the killers instead of outright killing them. While this plays into their simplistic nature and toying with them is what they would be comfortable with, that they're clearly smart enough to come up with the plan and execute it to the point of success as well as they have which shows there's a level of planning and viciousness to their methods. Yet rather than do something chilling with the killers' interactions with the captured victims it favors demented gift-giving rituals or just simply standing there chuckling at them. This isn't scary at all and is repeated far too often to make any kind of impression. Coupled with the off-screen kills whenever something should be happening and this one does come down quite a bit.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.