58 - Santa's Slay

Connection To CARRIE - Emilie de Ravin.

For me it's impossible for me to hate a film like Santa's Slay - it knows it's premise is ridiculous and it just goes out there and as much fun as it can, on for me it was a very fun film

The opening scene is a case of dead star walking - 4 famous (or famous enough) faces gets slaughtered by Santa Claus (Bill Goldberg) - they are Rebecca Gayheart, Chris Kattan, Fran Drescher and James Caan, all of these are Jewish as is Goldberg - and is an extremely enjoyable opening scene seeing these horrible people die (the characters not the actors, I've not met any of them so can't speak on that).

Watching Santa's Slay just breezes by, well it only really comes in at about 80 minutes - there's a lot of Christmas related deaths - exploding presents, drowning in the eggnog that make the film always entertaining. We even get an animated scene in the vein of Frosty The Snowman which helps tell the back-story of Santa being the son of Satan.

Of the two leads I'd certainly say the very pretty Emilie de Ravin leaves more of an impression on the screen then Douglas Smith, who doesn't really leave that much of an impression. There is other great support from Saul Rubinek and Robert Culp, who overall gave the film a cast better then the type of film seems to attract.

Overall, the movie is just a lot of fun, kind of wish I got the chance to see this for the first time around Christmas time, but that's not really a complaint to do with a film just my timing.

57 - Carrie (2002)

Connection To STUCK IN LOVE - Stephen King, who had a voice cameo in the previous movie.

Carrie, Stephen King's first novel and the first film adapted to the screen in 1976, well that movie to me (including the very 70's parts of it) is a classic to me, so the fact that now 2 remakes (which both I think owe the same debt to the movie as they do to the book) exist from a film that was only made in the mid-70's is odd - I am not one of those I think I might have noted before who gets pissy about remakes or long awaited sequels (which the original Carrie did have as well) etc., it's just I believe there is more that could of got remade even once before even the first Carrie remake.

This is a TV movie version - Stephen King as been a mixed bag on the television, I mean we've had Salem's Lot, The Stand and IT (I liked it) but on the other hand we've had stuff like The Langoliers and The Shining from 1998 did nothing for me, but I thought honestly, curiosity killed the cat and really wanted to see it, just to see what it's like.

I think the first thing they got right was the casting of Carrie White, for me at least - Angela Bettis, it's maybe because the film I instantly think of when I think of her is May, which I guess is a character not a million miles away from Carrie, Patricia Clarkson as Margaret White is also good (she's no Piper Laurie though), the rest of the characters I wish I could say more about but none of them stand out, I remember them because of who plays them to be honest - Emilie de Ravin as Chris, Kandyse McClure as Sue, Katharine Isabelle as Tina - and I'm not it's the performances but rather the characters they've been handed.

The film takes elements from both the book and the first film - the prom scene is obviously in mind when they was making it - but the film is and feels over long coming at 130 minutes, I think 20 minutes, maybe more could have been chopped off easily.

And SPOILER FOR THE ENDING - Carrie actually survives this version, she is resuscitated... it feels quite a cop out, however I'll give them the benefit of the doubt as this was mean't to be a pilot to a television series that was never picked up END OF SPOILER

Overall, it's not bad really, Bettis shone for me but there is no way I would watch this instead of the 76 one in the future, this was a one time watch for me.