The Elf (2016)
Last Watch Date - December 17, 2024
Total Times Watched - One (too many)
Comments
Hey listen, I like stupid movies. Stupid holiday-themed movies are right up my alley. I watched Thankskilling just before Thanksgiving (but for some reason I didn't review that?) and enjoyed how stupid it was. I've seen Krampus and enjoyed it. There are plenty of others. So a movie about a Christmas Elf that punishes people on the naughty list sounds like something I'd enjoy.
Frequently these movies have bad acting, script, plot, etc. This has all of those things. What it DOESN'T have is charm. In any way. The pacing in this is abominable. Literally nothing happens for MOST of the movie. They try to play it straight, like some sort of thriller for a while. Guess how well that works...
You know what, here are some spoilers. This movie is so stupid that it doesn't matter. This girl is with this guy, but only for a few months, but also is his fiancée, but also doesn't know anything about him? And this guy has never mentioned anything about his family being murdered when he was younger. There's a man that shovels non-existent snow with a spade. The elf has a knife that's approximately 1 inch long, yet somehow no one can fight back or avoid him. It's simultaneously bone dry outside and snowing heavily, depending on the scene. Carolers come to sing at their door, I think for the sole reason of being more murders? Don't worry, they're horrific singers. The doll starts offing the girl's family. The guy can save "one name" from the naughty list as long as it can kill everyone else on the list, but it starts killing people before he picks anyone. The town is filled with kids trapped in adult bodies somehow? If only his grandfather finished .. putting boys' souls into dolls? And then it turns out the girl knew the guy's backstory the entire time and wanted the doll to kill him instead? This plot is absolute idiocy.
Re-reading that, you may think "this movie sounds awful in a great way" but I assure you it is NOT. It's SO boring. The kills are barely shown and when they are, there's no gore or anything like that. It's like quick-cut to next scene.
This movie could've done with some NOT taking itself so seriously.
Recommended?
No. This may be the worst movie I've ever seen. By the way, I saw it listed as 2016, 2017, AND 2019 on various different sites. That's how you know it's good.
