Christy: Santa's First Female Reindeer

I'd like to start off this post by apologizing for having been so absent, but I got very very sick recently, and no, it wasn't because of this VHS cover, although one could claim it makes them ill. I'd like to follow up that apology by apologizing to myself for allowing myself to come back to this blog and doing this post. Because it's the holiday season, I've decided to go ahead and get you all a present, and it's right there, under the tree. Go unwrap it, you little rascal! Do you like what I've gotten you? I know, it's a turd covered in sparkles and glitter, you're welcome! Let's get christmasy, bitch.

Christy, subtitled, Santa's First Female Reindeer, is clearly a groundbreaking achievement for the feminist movement, I think we can all agree. Christy doesn't care about your goddamned glass ceilings and gender roles, she's here to pull that fuckin' sled. This box is just...atrocious. There's no other word for it. It's so ugly it makes me mad that I can see. It's bright red, because of course it's holiday themed, but the image on it is so peculiar in its angling and perspective. First of all, what's that black box in the background that Christy appears to be flying out of? Is she flying through a window? She's a pretty shitty reindeer if she is. But even more disconcerting than the awful title, the putrid onslaught of color and the horrible imagery is simply Christy herself. She looks dead. This looks like a taxidermied reindeer. It looks like someone went to a hunting store, bought a rifle, shot a deer, stuffed it and then used it for the front of this box. That is NOT a live deer, I guarantee you. And even if she was never alive, even if she's just a prop, it's a pretty poor at that. Her entire head and neckline look like a goddamned hobby horse.

And the back of the box isn't doing much better for its reputation. First of all, the description starts with "Yuletide history is being rewritten, now we add Christy, Santa's first female reindeer." This insinuates that she's been long swept under the carpet for some mysterious reason, as if someone big and in charge never wanted us to know about her. When you re-write something historically, it's because everyone else has avoided the subject, and you're bringing light to it. So apparently Christy was abandoned by historians, only to be added to the lexicon of the holidays by these brilliant filmmakers bringing us this masterpiece of wonder. Because the rest of what's written here on this box is so odd, I'm going to go through it line by goddamned line. The box then goes on to read, "Santa's bringing christmas for our forest family." Okay. This gives off the impression that whoever made this movie was making it about themselves since they used "our forest family" in this wording, and context. Am I supposed to buy that this really happened? That this is an autobiographical story? Nonetheless, it keeps reading, "But Santa's got a problem." You're goddamned right he's got a problem, that problem is this box art. The next line reads, "His elf's work is not in her heart." Well, I can't say I blame her, being a cog in the corporate machine that is the mass merchandising monopoly we've come to know and love as Christmas, but certainly, from a CEO perspective, her lack of ambition towards her job is a problem for him, yes. It then wraps up with "Why worry? Tanglefoot is about to help."

This is where things break down.

Who the fuck is Tanglefoot? I thought this movie was about Christy! Where'd this Tanglefoot character come from? And secondly, who names their child that? That's a horrible name for a kid, you're guaranteeing them a lifetime of unhappiness and misery through bullying by giving them that name, I don't care if they're a forest elf or what, don't fucking name your kid Tanglefoot. You might as well have named them "Eyebutt." So, for clarification on all this, I went to the only source I could find on this film, IMDB. As you can tell from the image below, they were not very helpful.

I'm not honestly sure which part of this image is the most worrying to me. The fact that this is considered a "special effects extravaganza", or that it's got a 4.0 rating out of 10. I'd also like to point out that, apparently, the movie has two directors, and they are father and son? Bill Porter Sr and John W. Porter. Maybe this really WAS shot in someones backyard with a dead moose. Maybe my intuition was spot on. It's also a worth noting that this isn't a movie from the 80s or anything. This thing came out in goddamned 1996. This is A FAIRLY RECENT MOVIE. So, since IMDB wasn't able to help much, I went in search of information elsewhere, and found a subreddit thread on r/badmovies. While the thread didn't have much in it, it did contain a link to a website that I am not going to link here, but will tell you the name of nonetheless. That website is titled Wilde Life Video (dotcom). Apparently, these people are amish. They are also selling horse tack and feed through their site, offering their DVD/VHS services and if you wish to contact them via e-mail, phone or, if you're a time traveler, the fax machine, you can apparently procure a ride in a buggy pulled by horse. Or so, that's what I thought, but upon second glance, it appears these are buggies they make and then sell. The most current one is from 2018. They're pretty nice buggies, to be honest. They should stick to the buggy making business, and not the film business.

Though, this information does help make a bit more sense out of this mess of a movie, I have to admit.

They are also apparently selling a corn planter, and up to 2010 were in fact selling deer from a deer farm. So, yes, my theory has come full circle. This was just some people who had access to deer and made a christmas movie. Why the amish have a website, however, still remains a mystery to me, as I were under the impression they were fairly technophobic. Though, I'm sure, as with most religions, there's sects that have broken away from those sorts of traditions. So, because of I've had zero luck in finding much information on this movie thusfar, I then took to my last resort and simply searched for it on Youtube.

Turns out the entire film has been uploaded as recently as 3 weeks ago, just in time for the holiday season! Get the children and prepare some pie, we're going to scar the family! Actually, in a rather ironic twist of fate, the name of the channel that uploaded the movie is "Happiness Machine", which I find just...god that's hilarious.

So, here we are, with a poorly made box and no information on it outside of the fact that Christy may in fact HAVE BEEN a dead stuffed deer, presumably killed by an amish family who, as of 2018, still make and sell buggies. Hell, judging from that first screencap on the back box art, it looks like Santa might've killed Christy himself. I know I should theoretically talk about the design of this box, but it's weird because for as ugly as it is, there's actually not much to say. It's just that, it's ugly. It's poorly designed, clearly by people who don't know what they're doing, and that's about all I got. Same general complaints as with most bad boxes; poor screencaps, poor layout work, poor color scheme (please for the love of god never mix red and yellow in design work), etc. Sorry I couldn't offer you more information on this movie, but really, sometimes, isn't less better?

So that's the holiday post for this month! I'll be back fairly regularly from now on, bringing you even more horrible box art! Everytime you open a window on your advent calendar, you'll be assaulted with horrible box art. It's the giving season, it's what I have to do.

Happy holidays!