Treevenge (

2008

) ½

Christmas horror movies are often lacking when it comes to creativity. Seriously, how many movies about killers in Santa Claus outfits does the world need? Because between Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), its numerous sequels, To All a Goodnight (1980), Christmas Evil (1980), Cannibal Claus (2016), Santa Claws (1996), Satan Claus (1996), and Silent Night (2012), I think we have enough. That's to say nothing of the films like Santa's Slay (2005) where the murderous Santa is no deranged mall Santa, but the jolly old elf himself. Seriously, whatever shock value could be derived from seeing a wholesome figure like Santa Claus engaging in acts of wanton cruelty dried up in the mid-1980s. Fortunately, there are still some more original ideas to be had, like today which takes what is perhaps the least threatening icon of Christmas and turns it into a murderous avenger: The Christmas Tree.

You've all heard the jokes about how Thanksgiving is an annual holocaust from the perspective of the turkeys, and evidently so has filmmaker Jason Eisener. Only, rather than go the completely obvious route and make a standard PETA (that's the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, not the much cooler People Eating Tasty Animals) propaganda, he ratchets up the level of nonsense and makes a movie about the wrongs suffered by Christmas Trees. The premise works because it only requires the audience to believe in one impossible thing, namely that evergreen trees possess sentience and language abilities that rival human beings. From there the horror of their yearly plight follows naturally, as it really would be grotesque if intelligent beings were subjected to the treatment of your average Christmas tree. Imagine how ghoulish it would be if every year millions of people were torn from their homes, mutilated, sold, and then propped up as a decoration. Indeed, once the central absurdity has been established the shots of trucks carrying thousands of trees, and trees being lined up in huge storage facilities become genuinely unnerving. It's an effect that's eerily close to seeing the discarded boots and glasses at Auschwitz in that you imagine a person in the place of an inanimate object and are horrified at the sheer scale of the murder.

This effect is spoiled somewhat by the fact that all the lumberjacks, wreath-makers, and tree salesmen are doing their best Viking impersonation at all times. They are constantly screaming, cursing, and abusing the trees as if they understand that the trees are capable of feeling pain. It just doesn't make sense to have a wreath-maker taking sadistic pleasure in dismembering a tree. It compromises the realism of the film, as we all know that in real-life lumberjacks aren't getting orgasmic pleasure from chopping down trees, and we all know that Christmas tree salesmen don't regularly demean their merchandise. Don't even get me started with the one weirdo who looks like he's going to rape his Christmas tree. It gives the audience an additional impossible thing to contend with while we're still accepting the fact that trees have rich inner lives. The fact that none of these actors has a lick of talent also makes it difficult to accept their actions as the work of real human beings. Given the circumstances the filmmakers would have been better suited by playing the people entirely straight and letting the horror of the opening scenes come naturally from the perspective of the trees.

Still, for those willing to look past this not inconsiderable flaw, there is a solid tale of wronging and revenge on display here. When the tree rise up and turn on the humans who have tormented them the movie quickly becomes a brilliant cascade of practical gore effects. Heads are crushed, limbs chopped off, and blood flows everywhere. It's like the ending of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) as seen from the perspective of the orcs if Peter Jackson was still in his Braindead (1992) phase of his career. Sure, it's little more than a demo tape for the special effect maestro, but its a well-executed and original demo tape. I especially like the way the cruelty of the trees mirrors the cruelty that the humans inflicted on them earlier, it makes all the killing more palatable as its always easier to get behind savage justice than empty sadism.

The biggest selling point of a movie like Treevenge is its sense of humor. I particularly like the scene at the beginning where lumberjacks pull apart two trees whose branches have become entangled as the tree cry out to each other “Don't let me go!” As an amateur who has spent time cutting down trees will tell you, this is a very real annoyance, and it really does seem like the trees are trying to desperately cling to one another. It's also the only time where the over-the-top acting on the part of the lumberjacks makes sense because few things are more frustrating in that context. The other obvious advantage to this film is that it is short, only 16 minutes long, and consequently makes a great opener for a night of yule-tide horror films, or a good midway palate cleanser for a double feature. Hell, any film with enough sense to steal its main theme from Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is doing alright in my mind.