davidh777

Yeah, fortunately it was a mail rental from Netflix because I'd never watch it again. But I don't think I've seen even rental discs THAT disabled.

jholmes

Last night I watched Inside (2007), a French horror film all set on Christmas Eve. It's been on various "best horror" lists, so I thought I should see it.

Gods, it was nothing but gore, gore, gore and unrelenting trauma. There was not a spark of relief through the entire thing, and the ending was the worst possible place it could go. I'm a writer, and I'm very familiar with beats in story. I get that horror doesn't have the same type or number of positive beats as a drama or romance, but usually there's *something*, some moment of humor or bonding or the victim gets some small break of luck. This was just bleak, bleak, and more bleak. It also had gaping plot holes where all the characters do stupid things in order to allow the villain to keep going, including 3 cops and the protagonist multiple times. I was counting the minutes until it was over. In sum, not recommended unless you love torture porn.

It will take me a week of Hallmarks to get THAT taste out of my mouth. lol

On a positive note, I watched "My Christmas Love" (Hallmark) and "Ice Quake" (Syfy-ish disaster movie), which were both better than expected and fun to watch. "My Christmas Love" goes up to the top of my Hallmark list.

jholmes

There are 110 titles on this "Christmas Horror" list, including some cool-looking stuff I haven't seen. Like... Willard? I may watch it today. Not sure how much Christmas is in it, but I've been wanting to watch it anyway.

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls071022812...=detail&page=1

LJG765

I've been slowing down a lot the last several days as the holiday took up a lot of my time-3 Christmas celebrations in 3 days will do that to a schedule!

I managed to get a first time watch in last night, Nothing like the Holidays. I blind bought it several years ago and finally got to it. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would at first glance. Definitely more of a drama then a holiday movie, though the whole film is framed around a Puerto Rican family that is coming together for Christmas. It's not depressing though, and has a fairly positive ending. I would definitely recommend it.

At the beginning of the challenge, my goal was to go through as many as my holiday movies as I could, and while I didn't get through all of them, I'd say I managed about half. I also cleared all but a few holiday movies off my DVR and I had quite a few of them, so am pleased with that progress.

I didn't really have too many first time watches but I did watch several that I haven't watched in over 5 years, so I'm pretty happy. Still trucking along challenge wise and will through the first before switching over to the TV on DVD challenge. Still have a couple New Year's check marks to go but those will be easy enough tonight or tomorrow once our company leaves to finish. As of last night, I hit 77 watches, mainly movies, but a fair amount of holiday cooking challenges thrown in there. Won't hit 100, but I'm happy with how many I watched...

jholmes

I just watched Home for the Holidays (1972) on Youtube. I loved it! It was a TV movie, about 1:14. It has Sally Field, Walter Brennan, Julie Harris, and other recognizable faces. The story is an old man calls his 4 daughters home for Christmas claiming that his new wife is poisoning him, and he wants them to kill her. There's a rain storm and people start dying. Great spooky vintage whodunnit. Recommended.

TheBigDave

I forgot that Sleepless In Seattle is a Christmas movie. It ends on Valentine's Day, but the first 30 minutes are on Christmas Eve.

LJG765

Watched Snowglobe for the first time since 2008, when I bought it. Pretty sure it was either my first or second Halmark-y type Christmas movie I bought. I know it's the movie that introduced me to cheesy Christmas movies. It held up fairly well, I still enjoyed it!

I also popped in Love Actually one of my favorites. Has anyone else noticed that the sister's ring tone on her phone is the same one as Jurassic Park III? lol!

Bluelitespecial

Snowglobe, Holiday in Handcuffs, and Snow were the ABC Family movies that got me hooked on watching tv christmas movies. I got them on dvd when they came out in 2008 also. I would say Holiday Handcuffs is still my favorite for its the most absurdly entertaining plot I've seen for these movies.

LJG765

I have those two as well as Snow 2: Brain Freeze. One more day of the challenge...I may get to at least Holiday in Handcuffs. Want to finish strong!

shadokitty

I've slowed down the past few days, including not getting anything in on New Year's Eve. However, being the last day of the Challenge, I wanted to get some holiday programming in today. I started out with a very good show on holiday electric train layouts, called Christmas Train Spectacular, on Amazon Prime.

BobO'Link

I had another "bad" year watching fewer holiday films than I'd wanted. This in spite of upgrading many to BR with intentions of watching them all before Christmas. I have that stack still awaiting my attention with only a couple watched. I partly blame my grandkids as they wanted to play games or watch other movies - but I didn't make time after they'd gone home for the day either. I might have gotten a few in last week but the annual TVonDVD challenge starts on the 26th and it's one of my favorite challenges so it received my full attention. Oh well... I'll be sneaking in a few holiday films during the year - again.

Trevor

I have “holiday” on my monthly checklist to guarantee a regular dose of my second favorite genre.

A mild viewing month for me too. Rushed to finish my checklist by mid-month, and watched almost nothing since. Tried to focus on family time, but the teenager wasn’t having it this year.

On to TV now, with maybe a New Year’s episode or two today.

Thanks for fun thread everyone, hope you all had a blessed Christmas and a great 2018.

jholmes

Thanks for the rec. I just ordered a set of ABC Christmas movies on ebay. They look right up my alley. :-)

jholmes

I'm at 145 today. I'd like to make it to 150 just to get to a nice, round number, so I may add in some shorts today. I didn't think I'd get over 100, so that's nice. I really enjoyed watching a ton of movies this month, but I still have a lot on my "wanna watch" list. I hope to keep watching more Christmas movies through the year. Horror is my first love, but this definitely comes in a close second. I found that I really love the vintage stuff from the 70's, probably because I was born in '63.

Thanks to the other participants for the recs and enthusiasm. You definitely made it more fun. Happy New Year all!

Bluelitespecial

^^^I really like the banners you did of the movies you watched on your list, very Cool!

I'm doing one more movie today to top out at #205, I'm excited as it looks like I got the win this year. David Hasselhoff as "The Christmas Consultant". I've had it in my collection, but never watched it until now. My thought from my challenge this year. Both ThanksKilling movies are amazing in terms of over the top kills, bad acting, and cheesy one liners. My favorite first time horror movie I watched for the challenge. The best first time Hallmark movie I watched would be "On the Twelfth Day of Christmas". Good story, great chemistry in the leads, and was different from the Hallmark Formula. I hope it gets a dvd or streaming release next year. Also Family Guy "Don't be A Dickens at Christmas" was its own version of a Christmas Carol with Patrick Swayze as the ghost of Christmas Past. It was a fun challenge, I hope everyone had fun too.

jholmes

Thanks! It gives me something to do on my laptop while the movies are playing. It's been fun.

I bought the Christmas Consultant because it was 99c on Amazon but haven't watched it yet. Thanks for the recs.

Bluelitespecial

Hasselhoff over acted during some it, I thought he might have been drunk, but best of all he gets to sing in it too.

jholmes

It's 10:17 pm here on Jan 1 and I just hit 150. I'm calling it a done deal. I finished with two amazing shorts to get to a round number -- Argentine Tangos and The Bloody Olive. They were both fantastic.

https://www.filmsshort.com/short-fil...l#.Wkr3Y99KuM8

I also watched 4 regular length films today. I'm happy to reach 150, but I'll be glad to get back to work. I think my fav accomplishment this challenge was watching The Poseidon Adventure on New Year's Eve. It's NY Eve in the movie when a tsunami wave overturns the ship. I hope our New Year is better than that!

jholmes

Ha. Now that's a reason to watch it. I just watched John Denver in The Christmas Gift (1986) and he sings in that. But it's not a good movie.

LJG765

I wouldn't call spending time with the grandkids as a "bad" year, though I get that you mean you didn't watch as many films. I'm glad you chose the kids over films (and even get them to watch with you!). While my grandparents never were huge movie lovers, I did get my love of M*A*S*H from my grandfather and whenever I watch them, I remember all the time I spent with him and my grandma.

jholmes, I checked out your list and I have to add my wows! That looks really nice! At one point, I wanted to try something like that, but then I remembered-I'm not that creative! lol!

Finished off the challenge at 83, though it does bug me a bit that it's not a nice "round" number...so may hunt down a couple shorts to watch. Watched Holiday in Handcuffs. Didn't like it as much as I remembered. Not a huge fan of the kidnapping part-originally it seemed cute, but now it just seems cringy. I do like the message of standing up for yourself so you can be yourself they had in it.

LJG765

Just finished watching these and they are worth the watch! The Bloody Olive made me laugh as did the Argentine Tango/Tanghi Argentini. "Slink like panther!" and the ending was very sweet. It's about a 25 minute investment to watch them both, go do it!

jholmes

Thanks! I got the idea from Surfinhank on the Horror challenge. You can see his awesome horror layouts here (https://forum.dvdtalk.com/13150734-post55.html). His pages look like a real TV movie guide, which is a bit beyond me. But I regularly do digital scrapbooking so I just did it in that style. I doubt I'll get them printed, but it's nice to have the visual reminder of what I watched.

I'm glad you enjoyed The Bloody Olive and Argentine Tangos. Argentine Tangos was nominated for Best Short Film at the 2008 Oscars. Super cute. I just wish they'd shown us more of the final couple dancing together.

BobO'Link

All we managed to watch off that list was Miracle on 34th Street. I'm happy to say both the girls loved it! The youngest said "Even though it was BW I liked it and it was funny!" I kept holding out on the others thinking they'd get to watch with me but it just wasn't to be. Oh well... maybe during the year.

There just seems to be so much more for them to be doing than when I was a kid. I'd spend hours watching movies on TV and still had time to play outside, read books, play games with my sister, and more. Many days, it feels like they just walked in the door, we play a short game, and their mom shows up to take them home, leaving me with that "What happened to movie time?" feeling.

davidh777

I had a good month for watching Hallmark movies but missed a lot of my traditionals like Die Hard and It's a Wonderful Life. Will probably watch Charlie Brown Christmas for TV credit, though.