25 Days of Christmas

I feel honored that SnoBorderZero thought of me while making Candy Cane Lane and snuck in a Family Guy reference that only I would notice.





Yeah, motherfucker, I watched Candy Cane Lane. If you were testing me, I passed. I’m curious to see which clues you left for me in Beverly Hills Cop 4. Are there any in You People? Or is this how you gonna trick me into watching You People?


CANDY CANE LANE (2023)



I was prepared to shit on the cinematography. I even wrote a list! Then I saw Newton Thomas Sigel in the credits. Really? Bryan Singer’s cinematographer? And the movie looks this terrible? When Bryan Singer and Kevin Spacey return from the depths of hell to make a movie for a money laundering Eastern European company, you can all thank SnoBorderZero. Candy Cane Lane has reminded us all that Bryan Singer is truly a visionary filmmaker.

All I’ll say in regards to the cinematography, the bare minimum is this:




Here’s the premise for Candy Cane Lane that the marketing didn’t reveal at all. Eddie Murphy is laid off from his job right before Christmas. His neighborhood participates in a televised house decorating competition. The prize is $100,000. Desperate to win the money so he can keep his family afloat while he searches for a new job, he ends up buying decorations from an evil elf, a decision he’ll live to regret. Tell me. If you heard this pitch, what do you picture? A goofy Tim Allen style comedy or something darker in tone. Actually, let’s not belittle Tim Allen. Go back and watch the original Santa Clause. It had an edge to it. The script for Candy Cane Lane is at odds with the finished product. The look. The tone. The characters. The humor. All of it is wrong for this premise.

But I’ll say one positive thing. I did enjoy the cast of ornaments. They were genuinely funny and it was well-animated. Maybe the whole movie should have been, “Eddie Murphy gets turned into an ornament and learns a Christmas lesson.” It would have made more sense than the Candy Cane Lane pitch and children would have actually watched it.

On another positive note, since SnoBorderZero worked with Newton Thomas Sigel, I guess we’re one step closer to Usual Suspects II. Doomsday, you on board? Don’t be scared of Bryan Singer and Kevin Spacey. You’re too old for them. Shit, wasn’t Apt Pupil based on your life? I think you already got molested by Bryan Singer. Did you die? No! C’mon, bro. Usual Suspects II. We’ll have it out by Christmas 2024.

SnoBorderZero had to bride people with free popcorn to go watch Candy Cane Lane. What you giving out for Beverly Hills Cop 4? A free combo?

Here’s what I feel would have made Candy Cane Lane better. You’re free to share this with Eddie Murphy and MGM-Amazon.


1. A more appropriate director — Nothing against the dude that made House Party. This just wasn’t in his wheelhouse. The perfect director (that would have fit within your budget) is Barry Sonnenfeld. I knew this movie was in trouble the moment I saw the runtime. I literally said out loud, “no way this movie is this long.” Sure enough, the pace is awful. This is a comedy. It needs to move. Sonnenfeld is the master of that. Sonnenfeld would have taken this script (with no changes whatsoever) and given you an 80 minute runtime (minus credits). Secondly, your whole premise centers around an evil elf. The movie needed to be darker and zanier. Sonnenfeld worked with the Coen Bros. He did Addams Family and Men in Black. This is the tone you want.

2. Give the story real stakes — As I said earlier, turning Eddie Murphy into an ornament felt like it should have been its own movie. He’s a Scrooge-like figure that gets turned into an ornament and has to learn a lesson to revert back to human. The Candy Cane Lane premise needed Eddie Murphy to be in a real predicament. He’s working class. He loses his job. He can’t pay his bills. His family is starving. They might get evicted. He finally gets a job at this mysterious Christmas store run by an evil elf. She coerces him into committing atrocities (you can still keep it PG) and he seeks out Santa Claus (it can still be David Alan Grier) to put a stop to it. The funny thing is, the script you had already set this up and gave it a payoff. In the beginning of the movie, we see that Eddie Murphy likes to make handcrafted decorations. At the end, after defeating the evil elf, he takes over her store. That’s your movie! It’s right there. Your story could have been that the evil elf hires Eddie Murphy to make and sell handcrafted decorations. Then those decorations come to life on Christmas Eve and attack everyone. You can make it PG. You can make it funny and whimsical. But it needed a dark undercurrent. I shared a clip of Scrooged with you because I believe that’s the tone this movie should have had. It’s Bill Murray in the lead, not too dissimilar from Eddie Murphy, in a dark-comedy-holiday film. That’s the barometer y’all should have aimed for.

Now I have a six-shooter.
Ho-Ho-Ho

Please cast SnoBorderZero as Garbage Day.

deadline.com/2024/11/terrifier-cineverse-launches-silent-night-deadly-night-reboot-afm-1236171018/