15 Minute Short
Before
I review this film I have an admission to make. I am one of those grumpy old
men; I don’t like Xmas and never have. I cannot stand all those Xmas Carols, family
get togethers and above all, I hate Xmas trees. I love films like Black
Christmas, Silent Night, Deadly Night and Bad Santa and adore the scene in
Female Trouble when Divine destroys the Christmas Tree, stomps on her Xmas
presents and screams “F**k you and F**k Xmas”.
I hate Xmas so much I write it with an X !
Treevenge
is the ultimate anti Xmas, Xmas Tree revenge film. It opens with redneck hicks
of clearly inbred stock ravaging a plantation for Xmas Tree stock. As they do
the trees cry and scream, they sound like sad little chipmunks ! It is superbly
outrageous to see these trees fighting to survive and going into shock as they
are placed in the van to go to the retail store, we have poor seedlings crying
for their parents to protect them !
Insult
is added to injury when a majestic tree is bought by a horrid middle class
family for their “too good to be true” Xmas celebration. The family is so
sickly sweet, so sentimental, so revolting you just can’t wait for the carnage
to start. You see the whole film through
the eyes of the tree, you feel its pain, its insult as being reduced to a
bourgeois ornament, covered in tinsel and topped with a star.
As
Xmas day arrives, the father tells the kids “don’t worry tear the paper off”
(an environmental message here) and the boy receives a little chainsaw. That’s
about enough for the tree and it goes wild and the family is torn apart.
From
here on in bedlam reigns, one family after another is slaughtered and that
triggers a revolt from all the trees. Eyes are torn out, trees attack with
axes, branches go down mouths and a big tree stamps on a baby’s head ! It is
war between tree and man !!
I
will never look at Xmas again the same way. This is a superbly done short,
beautifully shot, filled with irony, sarcasm and wit as well as packed with a
wicked sense of humour and some great gore !!
Web: http://www.myspace.com/jasoneisener