"I'm going to commit murder at midnight."

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and all your petty, materialistic dreams were realized. 

Ha! I know better. 

That's the thing about petty, materialistic dreams, they're never satisfied. There's always something Kris P. Kringle forgot to bring you. All the stuff is never enough. Keep it up, mortals. I love it.

A new year is right around the corner, and in the spirit of letting auld acquaintance be forgot, I hope you'll forget about my track record of recommending holiday films. Thankskilling was painfully not even funny, and Santa Sangre didn't even have Santa in it. This week is different, though,  because I have a New Year's movie for you -- 1980's New Year's Evil,  by director Emmett Alston.

With all the parties happening, you may think your dance card is too full for a Thursday Thriller this week. The good news is you don't even have to pay New Year's Evil that much attention. It's a real party movie. The plot's fairly straightforward. 

A TV personality called Blaze (Roz Kelly) hosts a big new wave party called New Year's Evil in L.A. and the biggest names in punk rock are there. You've got Shadow, and Made in Japan, and Shadow, and Made in Japan, and Shadow... you get the idea. They're not bad for a couple of punk bands you've never heard of prominently featured in a movie you've never heard of.

The show is so big it's being simulcast in New York, Chicago and Aspen, so every time it turns midnight in North America, they've got live coverage of it. It's like having four big parties in one. Between songs Blaze takes calls to hear viewer's pics for song of the year. She receives a call from a guy who calls himself Evil (Kip Niven). Evil resolves to kill someone at midnight, and thanks to the coverage of eastern, central, mountain and Pacific time zones, that means he's going to kill four people. 

Simple, right? I think you can handle this one, no matter how much fun you've already had straight out of the bottle, you pathetic lush. 

One last thing: I'm not entirely sure the significance, but Evil also looks a little like Bruce Jenner. It seems like it's just a coincidence, but it's hard to overlook in the film's final scenes, in which he wears a red, white and blue track suit. I'm obviously talking about Wheaties box Bruce Jenner, not Vanity Fair Bruce Jenner. If you're looking for that kind of movie, you should watch Sleepaway Camp. 

Caitlyn might have tried on a whole other persona before realizing she was trapped in the wrong body.

New Year's Evil streams on Amazon Prime for zero extra dollars and zero extra cents. Throw it on in the background at your New Year's party for an atmosphere of punk rock and murder.

"I was having an hallucination..."

I was looking for a good Santa movie to tell you guys about, and I thought I found the perfect gift. I had picked out Christmas Evil because IMDb told me it streamed on Amazon Prime for zero extra dollars and zero extra cents, but when I logged into Amazon Prime, it wanted to charge me an extra $2.99 to watch the movie.

So very typical. I love using IMDb as a research tool, but it will only tell you if a movie is available on Amazon. The words Netflix and Hulu do not exist on that site. Something shady is afoot, like an exclusive sponsorship.

It's not like I can't afford the $2.99, but I'm not here to recommend movies that cost more. I'm here to help you get the most for your streaming video dollar.

So I had to do some last minute shopping to deliver you a good Santa movie, and I wound up watching Santa Sangre on Hulu Plus. It stars Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra and Guy Stockwell. None of these people play Santa Claus.

This 1989 effort by Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky is a weird one,  and not just because good ole Father Christmas appears nowhere in it.

It's a surreal nightmare about the inevitability of damnation... I think.

What it's literally about is a guy named Fenix (Axel J.) who lives in a mental institution. After all, you're bound to be a little screwed up when you're raised in the circus. When your mom is the head of a religious cult whose baptismal rites involve dunking young acolytes in a pool of blood, that doesn't help, either.

It's a textbook case of watching your favorite elephant die, blood pouring all out the poor thing's trunk, and after the funeral, where a lot of clowns were sad, your dad gives you your first tattoo with a throwing dagger, and outside the smiles and gestures of a deaf-mute clown, that's the most genuine show of affection you're going to get for the rest of your life.

What I'm trying to say is,Santa Sangre could be a statement on the conflict of man's dual natures, and the struggle to balance the need to be a devout son and Christian, and the compulsion to whoremonger. 

It might instead be about one man's difficulty finding and maintaining a healthy relationship with a woman, because his dad cheated on his mom, then cut off her arms, then slit his own throat; made all the more difficult because mom is jealous and domineering, psychically takes control of the man's arms, and forces him to kill everyone he tries to hook up with.

There's a lot of opportunity for interpretation, so if you're writing an undergraduate thesis, I'm pretty sure any old bullshit you wanna throw at the wall will stick. To be honest I was confused about the absence of Kris Kringle the whole time.

So no Santa, but it does have a lot of things you may never have known you needed to see in a movie. 

For example: 

1.) Some clowns and a heavily-tattooed woman with a big booty

2.) Some coked-up special people, prostitutes, and a pimp with a boombox

3.) A bunch of naked, undead women in bridal veils

4.) Strange, religious imagery

5.) More strange, religious imagery

I recommend checking this movie out at least once, with the lights out, with the phone off, with a strict rule that everyone in the house remain quiet. Make sure you've had plenty of rest. Pop your popcorn and go to the bathroom in advance. Take your shoes off. Get comfy. If your home theater has a door, hang a sign on it that says, "Watching a disturbing, Chilean art film. Please do not disturb further." Then close the door.

Or you could just have it on in the background a whole bunch of times and see something new every time you play it. Personally, I like maintaining a little mystery about what the hell is going on on my TV. That's why I still haven't watched the companion documentary, Forget Everything You Have Ever Seen: The Making Of Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre, also available on Hulu Plus.

That's because I don't always have to understand things to enjoy them, and neither should you. I mean, obviously, I got it, but I don't want to spoil the journey for you by explaining everything. At the very least, Santa Sangre is a puzzle for your mind that's a lot of fun to look at. So look at it. It's also worth talking about, so leave your thoughts in the comments section. Maybe you can tell me where Santa is. 

"This world dries up your soul."

It seems everybody is losing their minds because the new Star Wars opens tomorrow, and wouldn't you know it, Episodes I-VI aren't available on any legitimate streaming source.

I suppose you could pay an extra $19.99 and watch A New Hope on Amazon Prime, but my view is, if you have to pay extra on top of your regular subscription fee, that movie really isn't included in the service.

I don't care for your little shell game, Amazon. It's true, I'm a man of wealth, but I'm also a man of taste.

So I scoured the sci-fi galleries and found a space western for your nerdly consideration during your Force Awakens pregame.

It's called Oblivion,  and you can find it on Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime (for an additional cost of zero dollars and zero cents).

I'm not talking about Universal Pictures's 2013 Oblivion, directed by Joseph Kosinski and starring Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman. I'm talking about Full Moon Entertainment's 1994 Oblivion, directed by Sam Irvin and starring Richard Joseph Paul, Jackie Swanson and Andrew Divoff.

You might not have heard of those people, but the supporting cast was a who's who of who's not any more for the mid-1990s.

You've got Meg Foster from They Live as Stell Bar, the cyborg deputy; pre-South Park Isaac Hayes, the Black Moses of Soul, as Buster, who runs a frontier trading post; Catwoman Julie Newmar as Miss Kitty, the madame of an insinuated brothel, who purrs and hisses and fills out a catsuit quite well for a woman her age; Carel Struycken, the giant from Twin Peaks, as Gaunt,  the undertaker who never knows who, but always when and where someone is going to die; Irwin Keyes, Hugo from The Jeffersons, as Bork, a dim-witted thug; and a pre-Facebook George Takei as Doc Valentine,  the drunk doctor and robotics handyman.

Whenever I see a lineup like this, I can't help but imagine clusters of character actors hanging around outside fan conventions, like a bunch of migrant day laborers, waiting for a pickup truck to come haul them to a set.

The standout star, though,  in my opinion, is Musetta Vander, who plays Lash, a leather-clad villainess who wields and electrified whip.

The story centers around Zack Stone (Paul),  a pacifist empath who returns to his hometown of Oblivion to pay his respects to his father, the sheriff (Mike Genovese), who was gunned down in the street by a reptilian gangster named Redeye (Divoff). With the help of Stell Bar,  the wisdom of his native sidekick Buteo (Jimmie F. Skaggs), and the incessant bitching of sweet widow Mattie Chase (Swanson), Stone must overcome his hatred of violence and restore law and order to Oblivion.

The jokes are corny, the makeup and effects are cool, and the whole movie feels stamped with that mid-90s sci-fi vibe -- if it were a TV show, it would have nicely filled the gap between Hercules and Babylon 5.

Is it any good? It's at least as good as The Phantom Menace, and without the burden of iconic branding, you have no reason to get your hopes up. Give it a look, you might be pleasantly surprised. 

May the Force be with you.

"Well, it ain't fuckin' Frosty."

The temperature is finally starting to dip. Solstice is almost here and boy, am I in the holiday spirit.  So what's your problem?  Are you worried about money? Are you missing dead relatives? Are you realizing another year has almost passed and you're no closer to realizing your hopes and dreams than you were when it started? 

Maybe a dose of nonsensical, fantasy violence will snap you out of it, and I have just the movie. This week's Thursday Thriller is the 1997 horror/comedy Jack Frost, by director Michael Cooney. The title character is a serial killer who, through freak accident on his way to prison, mutates into a snowman,  escapes and comes back to seek revenge on the sheriff who caught him. 

Put more simply, this is a movie about a killer snowman. 

You're probably thinking, what is this trickery, Satan? That sounds even dumber than Thankskilling. 

Take a breath, there is no movie dumber than Thankskilling. Just check your suspension of disbelief at the opening titles and you'll have a good time. 

It seems turning into a snowman is the best thing that could happen to a serial killer like Mr. Frost, because he's disguised, virtually unnoticeable in the winter landscape, he can turn parts of himself into deadly sharp icicles, he can separate himself into flurries and blow into drafty rooms or melt into water and leak under doorways. He's almost unstoppable. 

It works within its own twisted, logical framework. Thankskilling has no such framework.

IMDB lists Scott MacDonald, Christopher Allport and Stephen Mendel as the stars of the movie,  but the most memorable moment features a pre-American Pie Shannon Elizabeth in a bathtub. I hate to date myself, especially because I'm immortal, but I watched this movie on a VCR when it first came out, and the bathtub scene has haunted me ever since.

Jack Frost streams on Hulu Plus. Look at it. Maybe it'll make you feel better. 

"Why did you stop?"

I hope everyone had a bountiful Thanksgiving and an even more bountiful Black Friday. From my perspective, there's nothing better than a day of gluttony and sloth, followed immediately by a day of greed and covetousness. Did you see all the stampedes and brawls on the news? Warms my heart. It truly is the most wonderful time of year, and it really gets me pumped about that other holiday nightmare -- travelling with family.  That's why this week's Thursday Thriller is the 2003 film Dead End, starring Ray Wise, and helmed by writer/director team Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa. 

Wise plays Frank Harrington,  a dad who grows bored with his usual route to the in-laws for Christmas and decides to take a back road and cut across the butt end of nowhere. Like a lot of dads, he may be a little square and out of touch with his son's musical tastes, but you can tell he's a good man, because he stops the car to help a mysterious Lady In White (Amber Smith) who's wandering around in the woods with her baby.

Next thing you know, daughter's boyfriend Brad (William Rosenfeld) is being hauled away in the back of a hearse, only to be found later as a big pile of glop in the middle of the highway.

As the Harrington's continue their journey, things keep getting weirder, and tensions run higher. Frank admits he's always hated wife Laura's mother, daughter Marion (Alexandra Holden) announces she's pregnant, son Richard (Mick Cain) confesses his marijuana use, and Laura (Lin Shaye) goes generally bananas and shoots Frank with a shotgun. 

There are some good performances and lots of darkly funny moments, but Dead End isn't a great movie so much as it is a great opportunity to watch a family turn on each other under strange and bloody circumstances. Isn't that what the holidays are really all about? 

Be warned: there's a lame cliché of a twist ending, so you might like the movie a little better if you turn it off five minutes before it's over. Like the death of Spinal Tap's drummer, some mysteries are best left unsolved.

Dead End streams on Amazon Prime, which you might already have if you didn't want to pay shipping on Cyber Monday.