Elves Chokes You With Coal

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Another offering from Uncork’d Entertainment just in time for the holiday season, director Jamaal Buden brings you Elves, a creepy horror tale that will make you think twice about the creepy Elf on a Shelf. Not that you need any further help considering Elf on the Shelf as creeptown, this just further solidifies no one should willingly torture their children with that creepy stringbean spying on their house.

The film stars quite a large cast, but a few of the biggest characters are played by Lisa May, Deanna Grace Congo, Stephanie Marie Baggett and Amy Jo Guthrie. The film follows a girl named Clover (Congo,) who after a horrible accident and an awkward reunion is plagued by a small army of elf dolls that terrorize and slaughter her friends. The elves insist on watching the kills, and seem to be fixated on the seven deadly sins, or the “naughtiest of the naughty,” so to speak. So you better be good, for goodness sake.

This is a relatively short film, running a little under 90 minutes, and is something to throw on at the end of your ugly sweater party when people are too drunk and tired to do much of anything. You don’t have to focus on it too hard, because you never learn enough about the plot or the characters to care if they’re alive or dead. The elves are creepy and fun to look at, especially when they infest the people who refuse to do their bidding. The special effects regarding the elf possessions are very well done, giving their victims a bug-eyed, stretched smile like something out of Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun.


You just don’t care about anybody. And whenever the elves demand something, people seem to happily comply – for instance, the beginning of the movie features two brothers, going through Christmas decorations and looking for stashed gifts. But then the older of the two kids becomes possessed by an elf and tells his little brother to crawl into the oven. What does the kid do? Happily complies. He crawls in without a single hesitation, and then the older brother turns the oven on. Plenty of time to push the door open and crawl out, and go tell on your older brother to mom and dad about how you were an idiot and almost let your brother roast you up like a Christmas ham. But what does he do? He smacks feebly at the window, begging to be let out. There’s nothing barring the oven door. The possessed brother is standing away from the oven itself. You’re a big boy, 6-year-old kid I don’t know, save yourself. IT’S NOT EVEN WARM IN THE OVEN YET.

The movie suffers from too many characters to track with only the faintest air of a plot, and with its short runtime would have done with a little trimming back on body count and fattening up at least the backstory of why the elves are even doing this. But the performances are dedicated and the effects are fine, which boosts this from being unwatchable to merely “alright.” Definitely a watch for a cold, winter night when you feel like watching something to go to sleep to.

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