Santa's Summer House (2012) starring Elijah Adams, Daniel Bernhardt, Gary Daniels, Yung Woo Hwang, Kathy Long, Christopher Mitchum, Jessica Morris, Rachel Rosenstein, Cynthia Rothrock directed by David DeCoteau Movie Review

Santa's Summer House (2012)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Cynthia Rothrock in Santa's Summer House (2012)

Packs No Punch

Picture the scene, a group of b-movie action stars sitting around a table with their friends knocking back the booze and bemoaning the lack of opportunity when one of them pipes up and says we should make our own movie and do something different, something we would never be cast in. That is my explanation to "Santa's Summer House" as here we see the likes of Cynthia Rothrock, Gary Daniels along with Christopher Mitchum in a strange Santa movie; I say Santa because it is set in summer so to call it a Christmas movie feels a little wrong. In fact there is plenty about "Santa's Summer House" which is wrong from characters, to dialogue, to camera work and graphics all of which makes it feel like a cheap movie thrown together by friends.

A group of travellers end up becoming lost when the driver of the mini-bus heads through a strange fog and stumble across this large house in the middle of nowhere. Welcomed by the residents Nanna (Cynthia Rothrock) and Pop (Christopher Mitchum) these travellers spend the weekend where they decide to have a sort of Christmas themed weekend especially when young Andy (Elijah Adams) points out how much Pop looks like Santa Claus.

Christopher Mitchum in Santa's Summer House (2012)

I am sort of at a lost for words when it comes "Santa's Summer House" because whilst not the worst Christmas movie I have ever watched it certainly is bad. It doesn't really have a great deal of storyline other than these strangers spending the weekend with Nanna and Pop, having some Christmas style fun as Pop and Nanna have the name Claus and remind them of Santa and Mrs. Claus whilst individual problems are dealt with. But to illustrate how unimportant the storyline is there is a scene where they all decide to go out and play croquet on the lawn, I didn't time it but I am sure this scene of them just messing around went on for 5 minutes. And that is all there is to this movie as whilst there is the semi depth of these people with issues it ends up more about a group of people pretending to be having a laugh together.

Now this could have been entertaining if those b-movie action stars had some in-jokes but it seems like they were desperately trying to distance themselves from what they have been in before. That leaves these actors with some serious terrible dialogue and undefined characters which make them come across as ropey rather than corny. Throw in some poor camera work and cheap transitions and this movie is bad.

What this all boils down to is that "Santa's Summer House" might have worked on paper, it might have worked when conceived but the end result is a poor movie which never really works.

Tags: Santa Claus, Christmas Movies


LATEST REVIEWS