PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Atlantic Canadian filmmaker Jason Eisner is probably one of my favorite directors out there. With only one movie under his belt, Hobo With A Shotgun, and this campy Christmas short, Treevenge, he has accomplished two big, bold outings in only a short period of time. Not only is the dude from Halifax in Atlantic Canada, which is close to my neck of the woods, he has been able to bring forth the crazy, bold and over the top filmmaking style I have been craving for years. The only Canadian likeness I can think of would be Ryan Nicholson along the lines of tasteless, extreme violence. Eisner also had a hand in Roadkill Superstar – better known as RKSS – on their cult hit Turbo Kid (read our review here), which is probably one of my other favorite movies of all time.
I haven’t heard much from the director lately. The last thing I did hear he was making an obscure comic adaptation of a limited series of comics called The New York City Outlaws. When I did hear about New York City Outlaws, I immediately went out and purchased all issues – that’s how big of a lame fan boy I am. Besides the fact, the comic is awesome and would make an amazing and campy action film. It has Eisner’s style written all over it.
In 2008, Eisner directed this Christmas treat titled Treevenge. I enjoy it so much. It’s my guilty pleasure to sit down and watch it every Christmas. Jumping on the bandwagon of cliched Christmas horror, I decided Treevenge is a much needed title of some admiration and affection. Treevenge even received a short filmmaking award honorable mention at The Sundance Film Festival. Its so campy and extreme and it’s definitely not meant to be taken seriously, but it’s a lot of fun if you’re into dark and morbid humor.
Treevenge opens with none other than a rendition of Riz Ortolani’s theme for Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust. The camera pans the great northern forest of beautiful spruce firs until the camera zooms in on an ax being held by a crazed man who calls forth his fellow woodsmen to harvest the unsuspecting trees. With a crazed vigor, the men storm the forest like a pack of rabid lunatics, foaming at the mouth and ready to destroy the hapless wilderness. I get a kick out of how Eisner portrays the men like a bunch of sadistic murderers with chainsaws and axes coming to kill the trees. The terrified, shivering trees are portrayed as the victims who are mercilessly uprooted (no pun intended) from the forest. The cracker jack team of sadistic lumberjacks continue to get off on cutting down and throwing around the trees recklessly. It’s so crazy, it’s funny.
The guys burn the undesirable trees but bring the good ones get taken to a facility on trucks for shipping. All of these scenes are done brilliantly. The trees arrive at the lot owned by another crazed individual whose crew regularly beat and chuck the trees around like garbage, frequently referring to them as pieces of shit.
What’s even cooler is we get the point of view from the trees themselves as all this carnage is going on. They have even subtitled the tree’s finicky squabbling language as they try to figure out why these human monsters are doing this to them. Everything about the guys harvesting the trees is crazed; they’re basically screaming, swearing madmen and I’m assuming the actors were told to be larger than life, over the top and to act as insane as possible. Once at the tree lot, a lovely family comes to pick out their Christmas tree, led by none other than Jonovision, Trailer Park Boys and the Streetcents star himself, Jonathan Torrens. Torrens plays Jim MacMichael, whose family takes home that one special tree that sticks out (no pun intended) amongst the crowd. Once home, we see from the point of view of the tree how terrifying and silly us humans can be when it comes to decorating for Christmas and the poor evergreen is littered with various ornaments, beads and tinsel.
Christmas Eve approaches and we get to look in on some other individual’s holiday rituals, some definitely more bizarre than others. When Christmas Day hits, the trees decide it’s their time to fight back against their human oppressors. The bloodthirsty, maniacal trees kill, maim, crush and even rape the humans, turning neighborhoods into blood strewn battlefields. Even innocent babies aren’t safe. Treevenge is a good bit of holiday horror fun and is at the height of satirical, campy horror/gore. Just make sure the kiddies are tucked in bed with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads while watching this one, because the violence and gore, although tongue in cheek, is still severely graphic and disturbing. I personally have no fear, because I put up an artificial tree every year.
