Review: The Elf

(imdb.com)

After the beaming success Krampus, it seemed only realistic that viewers would receive plenty of yuletide horror, whether they wanted it or not. After all, while not the first, Krampus encapsulated everything holiday horror could and should be. It featured plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, some good scares and a hilarious cast. The fact is horror films set on Christmas should never be taken as straight up genre fare. Unfortunately for The Elf, the only things not taken seriously are the filmmaking and acting.

Following a young man who discovers a haunted elf toy among items he inherited in an old toyshop, The Elf makes clear attempts at copying the successes of classics like Child's Play with very, very little success. Built around the man's night terrors surrounded by his return to his hometown, this film makes little effort to clarify, establish plot points and create in-depth characters; opting instead for tossed in features from better films.


The Elf stars Gabriel Miller (Manifesto) and Natassia Halabi (Born to Be Blue) as couple, Nick and Victoria. They're flanked by a host of supporting characters playing family members, car accident survivors and an awkwardly portrayed trash friend. Each is pretty much universally bad. Miller and Halabi have the chemistry of a two pieces missing from different puzzles and neither is very good at pretending to be afraid or courageous. Neither seem fully damaged enough to garner sympathy, either. But, while the acting by the two main stars is bad, the supporting cast though? It’s much, much worse. As noted, there's some pretty flat characters meant to add fodder to the kill count, but probably the most worthwhile to rip on is Victoria's trashy urban friend who was clearly an actress's really terrible character choice.


Other flaws in the film include the dialogue, props, score and visual effects. The dialogue is disingenuous and more like a bad Lifetime movie, although that would be an insult to the cheesy entertainment of those flicks. The props seem desperately placed together; mismatched furniture, time pieces and garage sale finds, making for something less eclectic and more blaringly cheap. Then there's the overuse of sound and music to attempt to create atmosphere and visual effect failures that could have easily been avoided using a still doll. All of this creates a truly unpleasant time.


It's not as if this movie shouldn't exist. It should - if only as a reminder that no matter your goal, whether it be financial or emotive, creating a film needs some sort of core heart. The Elf is not joyous or enjoyable. It's a miserable and unfunny feature. It's missing in The Elf. This film is offensive to the eyes of fans, terrible resume builders for the cast and crew and deserves little to no acknowledgement past discussing its eventual tossing in the trash. 0 out 10.