HBO Max’s Scariest Horror Movie Is Hiding In Plain Sight
Settle in by the fire.
Everyone has a favorite Christmas movie, but there’s a special group of people who have to get a little weird with it and say their favorite is something like Batman Returns or Gremlins or Tangerine. For the longest time, I resisted the temptation to be niche when people asked my favorite Christmas movie. But in 2022 that changed with, of all things, a Yule Log video.
What starts as a cozy piece of TV ambience slowly morphs into something completely different: the launch of a dadaist, absurd franchise of holiday horror that works as a parody and prime example of the thing its parodying. Here’s why you should watch it now it’s streaming on HBO Max.
Adult Swim Yule Log slowly morphs into a trippy slasher.
Casper Kelly’s Adult Swim Yule Log begins exactly how you’d expect: close-up footage of a roaring fire with quiet Christmas movies playing in the background. But that only lasts about two minutes before the frame is filled by a landlady cleaning a rental unit before the home is invaded by two strangers who murder her. That’s when it becomes clear that this isn’t a Yule Log video, it’s the cold open of a slasher movie.
It isn’t long before we’re introduced to the real stars of the movie, the people renting out the cabin for a holiday vacation. Slowly, the camera zooms out to reveal the entire living room, where much of the movie plays out like a stage play. Much like the opening of Barbarian, the double-booking of the rental has deadly consequences, especially when its revealed the central log of the fire was taken from a tree with a grisly past.
It all leads to a twisting final act involving the log hunting down all the characters, a tiny man who lives in the fire, messing with the space-time continuum, and a final meta-twist that turns the entire story into a meditation on generational trauma.
Adult Swim Yule Log 2: Branchin’ Out takes on the Christmas Hallmark movie.
But wait, there’s more! Adult Swim Yule Log 2: Branchin’ Out takes the slasher parody and swaps it for a bright, ultra-saturated Hallmark movie parody with a creature feature twist. It follows the final girl from the first movie as she tries to recover from all that carnage, only to fall for an ornament salesman widower and save the coral reefs using shrimp fudge (it’s a whole thing.) Hallmark movies are easy parody fodder, but Branchin’ Out goes one step further by actually including a touching holiday-based love story, something your mom would love if you got rid of all the gory practical effects.
The Adult Swim Yule Log duology is the ultimate strange Christmas movie pairing: they may be irreverent, but they still hold the tropes of Christmas media sacred. After all, that’s the true reason for the season: being surprised by seemingly predictable Christmas movies you watch with your family.
