Saturday is Horror Day #152 - The Keeping Hours, Silent Night Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker

 The Keeping Hours

Mark (Lee Pace) and Elizabeth (Carrie Coon) are a loving, laid-back with a son named Jacob (Sander Thomas) whom they both adore. But tragedy strikes and Jacob is taken from them. The couple fall apart and divorce. Years later, Elizabeth has remarried and is a stepmother to two daughters who she loves, while Mark is single and a successful lawyer. He still owns the house where they once lived, and rents it out. After a pair of tenants trash the place, he goes there to clean it up, and encounters something he totally didn't expect to see - his dead son. Except he doesn't look dead. And he hasn't aged a day since he died. A startled Mark runs to tell Elizabeth about this, although they have nor relationship any more. At first, she is furious and refuses to listen, but gradually, she comes around. How is this happening...and why?

While the Keeping Hours is a ghost story, it isn't necessarily one in the traditional sense in that it isn't 

spooky or horrifying. Rather it's evocative and emotional. It's a story of loss and love, but also of forgiveness. I was really moved by this film. I have to say I am a huge Lee Pace fan, and he is terrific in this. So is everyone else, including the young boy playing Jacob. I am including it here both because it is a ghost story but also because I don't feel enough people know about it, which is a shame.

I will give this film 4 Stars

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker

Derek (William Thorne) is a little boy whose world goes silent when he witnesses his father being killed by a toy that mysteriously arrived at the house on Christmas Eve. His mother Sarah (Jane Higginson) is trying to help her son while dealing with the loss of his father. She takes him to a local toy store owned by a toymaker named Joe Petto (Mickey Rooney), but there is something odd about Petto and his strange son Pino (Brian Bremer). And then there is a mysterious guy who hangs around both the toy store and the Quinn home. What does he want?

I'll start by saying that the fifth installment in the Silent Night Deadly Night series is better than the one before, but honestly, that's not hard to be. Again, it doesn't have the Santa Killer theme, but t does have a sort of horror take on Pinocchio and Gepetto.. Clint Howard returns as Ricky, and his only scene involves him and the mysterious lurker, who are both seasonal Santas. If you didn't look at the credits, you'd have no idea he was playing Ricky, and one wonders why bother. I guess to preserve the somewhat shaky continuity. Also, how did they talk Mickey Rooney into doing this film? One has to wonder.

 

The acting is still pretty lousy and so is the writing and plot. Wait until you find out who the mysterious stranger is and how quickly he is accepted into their lives. Seriously? The good news is that this is the last in the series, as the next one is actually a reboot of the first film. I have requested that. Also, I hear that another film is going to be made. I assume that it's part of the reboot, not the original franchise.

I'll give this film 1.5 Stars.