If you’re like me, you don’t need to be told that there is a deluge of disaster movies up on Amazon Prime Video, often looking so easy to review that makes you feel bad, so low hanging and free (as in, included with Prime, i’m not paying extra subscription) the fruits of this “tree” are.
So i often end up browsing, looking at the description, just adding to the watchlist and moving on, forgot i’ve even added them, etc.
This one does break the mold and managed to make me kinda intrigued, as the premise made Snowmageddon (E- for the title, btw, it could have been way more stupidier and tortured) sounded very fuckin stupid, cheesy but slightly different.
And it’s still fairly cold here, so before springtime hits proper let’s indulge in more icy TV trash, the review for the Uncharted movie it’s coming later, so please, join me in this mystical garbage dive.
While the title makes it sound like an Asylum joint… close, it’s not them, it’s Cinetel again, i didn’t plan this beforehand, guess i should have known, but i didn’t, and it’s not why i choose this one, but the premise, which involves a mystical snow globe that appears on the doorstep of an Alaskan family, left as an average present.
Problem is that the Alaskan town is hit by natural disasters that also happen and are displayed inside the snow globe. What will the people do with this insane revelation? Will finding the true meaning of Christmas (or something) please the globe? Is it a device left by an alien race to test us?
It is also by pure accident a Christmas movie as well? Yes. MERRY CHRISTMAS?
It’s preposterous for me to even assume there’s ever gonna be an explanation for “mystical snow globe- theather of doom”? Of course it is, as we never find out who or why, we’re initially lead to believe it somehow the globe it’s connected to the town old timey’s antiques repairman… but he’s befuddled as everyone else when the clock in old plaza moves like the one in the globe, completely in sync, despite not having any gears in it anymore.
There’s a very last attempt at a cliffhanger, kinda, maybe, but still, no idea of who and why did the thing, not sure it was for the Christmas spirit since some of the residents of the city of Normal (not an hyperbole, actual name they went with) won’t be celebrating anymore Christmas days ever, but at least the drama and deaths aren’t purely performative, there’s no easy resolution that fixes everything and resurrects the dead to have a perfectly jolly ending.
Still, the “mystical globe” it’s a good enough idea to justify a lot of various disasters happening at the same time over town and nearby areas, from hailstorms, avalanches, quakes creating cracks opening up to the Earth’s very fiery core, the earth creating spikes/pillar, and that alone makes it more enjoyable than the usual TV disaster movie flick, as it compensates the shitty FXs with plenty of disasters and stuff happening, bypassing any need to scientifically explain shit because magic.
We do have a half-assed assumption and likening of the snow glob to the myth of Pandora’s box… and a LOTR style solution, suggested because the young kid’s favourite tabletop RPG involves a cursed object as well that needs to be destroyed to win the game, meaning it must be cast into a volcano… and what luck, a dormant one is there nearby the city. Kinda.
The acting from the cast of TV actors is better than expected, arguably a tad better than needed (aside from the little kid, he’s not good), it moves along at a decent pace, so yeah, i….kinda recommend this one if you wanna see one of these that stands out a bit and it’s more entertaining than most disaster movies for TV, thanks to its magical/mystical elements that are really tacked on for kicks, making for a crappy but at least vaguely interesting piece of disaster shlock with some whiffs of “so bad it’s good”.
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