Horror Fight!: Between Rounds

Welcome back to Horror Fight!: Between Rounds. The place where the Spooky Bois step out of the ring, wipe the blood off their brows, and power up your horror cravings for the next bout. As always, it’s MeZ in your corner, rewinding the VHS and cueing up the carnage.

Quick note: We’ll use neon borders to help differentiate which spooky boi is talking. Pink = MeZ. Green = Corey. Blue = Pat.

On last week’s episode, The Spooky Bois stepped into a new era of terror as we battled it out over the greatest horror films of the 21st century! From prestige nightmares to found-footage chaos to the indie hits that redefined the genre, we sliced through the last 25 years of scares to crown the ultimate modern masterpiece. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts (or click the link above).

As many of you know, I am a great fan of musicals, so it will come as no surprise that my “normie” Christmas movie recommendation is Michael Curtiz’s whiz-bang boffo 1954 classic, White Christmas. White Christmasis the only Christmas movie I watch every year. We have several in the rotation (Die Hard, Love Actually, Gremlins, VH1’s A Diva’s Christmas Carol), but White Christmas is the only one I pull off the shelf every December 23rd. My wife (who I love more than anything) hates National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (my #1 Christmas movie of any genre), so I do not always get to watch it. Towards the end of Christmas Vacation, when Clark Griswold is at the end of his rope, he yells at his family, “We’re gonna press on, and we’re gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye!!” He’s right. Bing Crosby and Danny fucking Kaye have a happy Christmas, maybe the happiest! I love this sappy, maudlin ass movie so much. I love how no one thinks Bing Crosby is gay. I love the nosy old lady innkeeper who is an old nun in Sister Act and is still somehow an old lady forty years before she was an old lady in Sister Act. I love the great dancer guy who looks EXACTLY like Tony Reali. I love the ditzy ass blonde gal who says, “Mutual, I’m sure.” I hate the military-industrial complex as much as the next guy, but hot damn am I rooting for old grandpa and his piercing blue Technicolor eyes come movie’s end.  Turn your brain off and enjoy White Christmas this Holiday season. 

For a horror pick, I will go with this Canadian piece of shit. It is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It is not a horror movie; it is ostensibly a kids’ movie, and it is barely even a movie with its 65-minute runtime, but it defies all explanation. It is unnerving, unsettling, and nearly impossible to look at or listen to. I hate it. You should watch it.  

Last year, at around this time, my lovely co-hosts and I did an episode of the podcast about Christmas horror films and on that episode my esteemed friends decided, against my pleading, to leave Lewis Jackson’s masterpiece “CHRISTMAS EVIL” AKA (his preferred title) “YOU BETTER WATCH OUT” off the top 5. Now I’m not gonna sit here and claim that this was the worst moment of my life, but I’m not gonna NOT say that either.

I think about it all the time. It’s still the moment on the show that haunts me. To be honest, I can’t even remember what made the list outside of BLACK CHRISTMAS and GREMLINS because just thinking about it at all makes me white hot with fury. I don’t remember the argument. I’ve blocked it out. It’s too traumatic. Maybe it was that it’s not horror enough or that, heaven forbid the most boring movie argument (“NOTHING HAPPENS!”) was deployed when arguing against it, but I don't remember. However, I can’t fathom how this wonderfully weird piece of outsider art sat on the outside looking in.

CHRISTMAS EVIL is my favorite Christmas movie. It is positively dripping with Christmas from frame one all the way through it’s incredible, reality-defying, ending. It boasts one of the truly great, deranged lead performances from Brandon Maggart (Fiona Apple’s IRL father, which always makes me wonder if she watches it every Christmas like I do) who plays Harry a man who, as a child, watched his Dad passionately smell his Mom’s crotch while dressed as Santa and it scarred him for life causing arrested development to settle in along with a belief that he, himself, is Santa Claus. And you know what? I fuckin’ believe him.

Yes, CHRISTMAS EVIL does not move like a rocket, but each little piece is entertaining. From Harry waking up in the morning to do his Santa stretches, through his borderline criminal spying on the neighborhood children, down to whatever the hell he’s doing when he rubs mud on his face and presses it against Moss Garcia’s house. It’s a fascinatingly weird character study that only gets better with each passing viewing and once Christmas Eve hits and Harry is unleashed on the snowy streets of suburban New York, it sticks the landing in every way. 

CHRISTMAS EVIL is a grimy exploitation film made for no money, with no stars and a crotch smelling Santa and if you don’t love it, you just may make the naughty list alongside Moss Garcia and Harry’s shithead brother. 

I could make a case that Todd Haynes’ 2015 Christmastime classic CAROL is the best movie ever made. I know that this newsletter is for a horror podcast and CAROL is, most certainly, not a horror movie. It is a capital D drama that aches with every pulsating cut. It is a love story about two women who fall in love against the backdrop of an unaccepting 1950s New York, but more than anything, CAROL coasts on feeling. There’s not a ton of plot. I’ve basically already laid it out, but the nuances, the nooks, the crannies, the MOMENTS are what keep bringing me back.

Todd Haynes is my favorite living filmmaker and he is an acolyte of another personal favorite, Douglas Sirk, who is best known for melodramas that often veer into camp. Haynes is no stranger to camp either, his last film 2023’s MAY DECEMBER is a modern camp classic, but CAROL is as deadly serious as ordering poached eggs over creamed spinach with a dry martini FOR LUNCH! It’s not without a few laughs (Jake Lacey yelling “I GOT A BETTER JOB FOR YOU!” when the love of his life leaves him for the titular Carol is hilarious), but it takes the relationship between these two women incredibly seriously, because it’s serious business. The world conspires against them at every turn, leaving them desperate, broken and searching all at different times.

So, why am I writing about this movie in a forum mostly devoted to horror? Well, because I love it and more than just horror movies, Horror Fight is about how much we love these damn things. Will you love it? I don’t know. Maybe not, but if filmmaking is of interest to you, then it’s worthy viewing, It’s shot by one of the great modern cinematographers, Ed Lachman, who puts the camera behind snow battered windows or in the middle of a bustling department store where it spies on the protagonists. It captures the melancholy mood with an incredible score by another modern master, Carter Burwell and it is led by a performance by, arguably, our best living actor, Cate Blanchett. Plus, Kyle Chandler’s character - Carol’s beleaguered husband - is inexplicably named “Harge,” which proves. in a way. that CAROL ain’t fuckin’ around. You’re not gonna soon forget it.

Next week on the pod we’re fighting it out to see what was our favorite movie of 2025 is. The homework is very simple this week, watch some 2025 movies. Obviously you know the big ones to check out if you haven’t already, FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES, SINNERS, WEAPONS, 28 YEARS LATER to name a few.

The upcoming schedule has been updated! That blank spot has now been filled in with our version of The Oscars, The Blairs. Named after our double main man, Macon Blair! How do The Blairs work? We take all the movies that finished in the number spot 1 during our 2025 episodes. Then we pick, rank, fight to crown the best movie of the year. We will be doing a best performance of the year category as well, but we need to figure out those details. Female Directed takes the final spot for March with Sequels moving to April.