Schlock-Mas: Day Ten

Today's Feature: Holiday Joy

A shy high school student makes a Christmas wish for the perfect family.

This morning, I've decided to venture away from the safe harbor of Hallmark Channel and make for the uncharted seas of Deep Cable on an extended voyage to trawl the murky depths for their holiday-themed treasures. When I say "Deep Cable", I'm referring to the multitude of unwanted channels that cable or satellite television providers bundle in with all of the channels people actually watch, channels that most reasonable people, especially in this day and age of over-the-top streaming and on-demand video, have probably never heard of.

These misfit channels lie out in the far reaches of our ever-shrinking television landscape, clinging tenaciously to life despite numerous attempts at their destruction by the FCC, public interest groups, and online piracy. And these channels, these impossible channels, still invest in original programming, especially around the holiday season. I'm not talking about Lifetime, a network that I've visited several times over the past few years to find a reprieve from the self-sustaining TV-G ecosystem that is Hallmark Channel. Lifetime is merely a small island just off-shore of the Hallmark continent. I'm sailing for the legendary Deep Cable archipelago that lies beyond the known horizon, the mythical New World of family-friendly, holiday-oriented entertainment that many people don't even believe truly exists. But like Kevin Costner in Waterworld, I know Deep Cable is not a myth, because I've seen it with my own eyes.

Today, as we begin our journey into the unknown and unfriendly standard-definition waters of Deep Cable, I've chosen to make a quick stop at a smaller, lesser known-yet not entirely uncharted island that exists as a "last chance" pit stop for those foolish souls who make the treacherous voyage I am currently undertaking, a strange place called Freeform. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Freeform began its life in 1977 as something called the CBN Satellite Service, an early cable network founded by noted televangelist and fundamentalist dickhead Pat Roberts. Over the years, this Christian-oriented network slowly evolved into a more generally-family-friendly beast that eventually re-branded itself The Family Channel in 1990. Seven years later, the network was sold to Newscorp, and was re-branded Fox Family Channel.

Then in 2001, the network was sold again and re-branded ABC Family, which lasted until January of this year, when, in an attempt to re-package the network as a hip destination for the fickle young adult audience, ABC Family was re-christened Freeform, and along with the new name came a bunch of new, "cooler" programming to cater to all of those tweens out there who just can't get enough light PG-13 adventure and supernatual romance. And yet, curiously The 700 Club, Pat Robertson's personal soapbox which he uses to share his xenophobic, bigoted funhouse mirror version of Christianity with his loyal followers, still airs every single day on the channel.

This is because of a stipulation in the original contract that was made up when CBN spun-off The Family Channel in order to protect their non-profit status, which states that any corporate entity that buys the network is required to air The 700 Club in perpetuity. So no matter how hip you think you are, the sneering hateful hobgoblin that is Pat Roberts still rears his ugly head at least once every twenty-four hours on your favorite network, which, let's face it, isn't cool at all.

Now that all of that completely unnecessary information is out of the way, I can finally get to today's movie, a Freeform premiere called Holiday Joy, starring Bailee Madison as a beleaguered high school student, in a story that technically takes place during Christmastime, but you wouldn't really notice until the very end unless you were paying very close attention. Joy's life is a mess, being the calm, responsible center of a very chaotic family that kind of went to pot after the children's mother died several years ago-

God damn everything. I can't escape this madness. Mommy's dead, huh? Again? Why is mommy always fucking dead? This is really starting to get old, guys. I'm a broken record now, playing the "Sorry your mom died" song again and again and again, for all eternity. Oh sweet baby Jesus, save me from this everlasting nightmare in which I have found myself.

So Joy's family is a complete fucking train wreck that would immediately revert to some brutal Lord Of The Flies mockery of society if Joy ever left them alone for more than a few hours, because nobody can do anything without her around. The dad can't find his car keys or his shoes, the kids can't feed themselves, and nobody in this house has ever heard of an alarm clock because Joy has to make the rounds every morning like the head screw on C-Block, rousing the inmates for the morning headcount.

This poor child does nearly all of the cooking and cleaning around the house, keeping her entire family from completely disintegrating, and that's a lot of pressure to put on the narrow shoulders of a 15 year-old girl. The only respite she gets from this shit is her school life, where she excels academically with straight A's and plays first-chair clarinet in band. Her best pals are a shy ginger gal named Montana and an elite hacker dood named Sam, and aside from her loyal dog Levi's sloppy dog affection, this is Joy's only escape from her garbage home life, and that's just terrible. Kids who have to deal with crap like this are ticking time bombs, man. It's only a matter of time before they explode.

Joy also dabbles in some made-up family friendly version of the Tarot called "Ah Cards" that supposedly reveal one's deepest desires and whatnot, and this is sad because Joy's dabbling in the black arts means she's doomed to eternal torment in blackest Hell, so despite how the movie ends, we all know the real ending to Joy's tragic story.

Joy spends most of her free time at home staring out her bedroom window, leering at the perfect family next door, a photogenic mother-father duo with an overachieving athlete daughter named Eve who are always hugging each other and smiling in their immaculate home. Joy daydreams about being a part of that harmonious family, and one day on her way to school, she's struck by her perfect next-door neighbor Eve's car in the middle of the road, and the cursed Ah Cards scatter in the clear blue sky, bringing about the great change in fortune she has so long sought.

Suddenly Joy's no longer a member of the dysfunctional Hockstatter clan, but a valued part of the Wellmann family, a popular girl and captain of the women's volleyball team who's dating Todd, the most handsome dude at Eleanor Roosevelt. Not Eleanor Roosevelt High School, but a high school that's named Eleanor Roosevelt. There's a difference. Also, her boobs are bigger, because being born to a different family means her boobs would be bigger. Seriously, this is the first thing Joy excitedly notices about herself when she wakes up in her new life. Now keep in mind her character's only 15 years-old, and she's played by Bailee Madison, who was only 16 when this was movie was filmed, so this whole scene is more than a little creepy, and unnecessary to boot, because it's never mentioned again. So why does it exist? It's weird, man.

This is weird, right?

Real weird, and certainly not the kind of thing that Hallmark Channel would ever allow in one of their movies. There's also a sub-plot involving Joy's new boyfriend Todd trying to pressure into having sex at his family's secluded cabin, which would never fly on that other network, because to even imply that people have sex is some sort of anathema to the executives over on Hallmark. So we're in a brave new world, folks.

Fumbling her way through this bizarre parallel reality, Joy is concerned to realize that her best pals Montana and Sam no longer remember all the good times they shared together, and that her music teacher Mr. Elderberry (played grumpily by Kids In The Hall alum Scott Thompson in a ridiculous grey wig with a giant ponytail for some strange reason I can't even begin to fathom) has never heard of her or her dubious clarinet skills.

Joy's home life is also not what she thought it would be, with her new big sister Eve a neurotic mess who hates everything and feels like she's drowning in her own life thanks to her overachieving little sibling, and her kind-yet-overbearing parents who demand only the best in her every athletic achievement, pushing her to be better and better without thinking of their daughter's own wants or needs. Her "perfect" boyfriend Todd is also a co-dependent nightmare who wants Joy all to himself and lashes out jealously whenever he even sees his girlfriend glance in another boy's direction. And I'm pretty sure Joy's volleyball coach is in love with her, which isn't awkward at all.

And as for the Hockstatter family, now that their Joy never existed, they're basically a trio of feral animals holed up in their dilapidated suburban home. The father (French Stewart, looking so incredibly tired) lost his job at his ad agency and breeds rats for use in scientific laboratories in his bedroom to help pay the bills, his younger son Miles is a delinquent who likes to smash lightbulbs and set things on fire in their backyard for kicks, and his older son Zack is an introverted basket case who listens to death metal all day every day and just seethes with a fiery rage at all times.

The Hockstatters hate their neighbors the Wellmanns just as much as the Wellmanns hate their neighbors the Hockstatters. The Wellmanns are even suing the Hockstatters because they claim their family dog Levi has physically assaulted daughter Eve, who has racked up thousands of dollars in intensive psychiatric treatment to help her get past the likely imagined trauma. So what we've got here is a classic Married... With Children scenario, with the Hockstatters standing in for the crass Bundy family and the Wellmanns acting as the pompous Rhodes (or D'arcy, if you prefer Ted McGinley to David Garrison) surrogates.

That's a weird relationship if you think about it. Steve and Marcy Rhodes always looked down on the lower-class Bundy family, seeing them as almost subhuman at times, but were the Bundys really lower-class? Big-shot bankers Steve and Marcy lived in the same neighborhood as lowly women's shoe salesman Al, after all, so how much better were these pricks? They certainly couldn't afford to live in some upper-crust suburb like their wealthy role models, stuck in the same lower-middle class rut as the reprehensible Bundy family, so as far as I'm concerned these two stuck-up twats never had any room to look down on their next-door neighbors. Fuck those haughty bankers Steve and Marcy Rhodes. At least Jefferson D'Arcy was an honest criminal.

Gradually, Joy's perfect little life unravels as her new fair weather friends abandon her after her terrible grades prevent Joy from playing in the school's big volleyball tournament, her boyfriend Todd degenerates into a twitching, shouting lunatic who clings to her like a leech with perfect hair, and her hateful big sister runs off with next-door neighbor Zack to begin a Natural Born Killers-esque crime spree. Joy once again puts her misguided faith in the malign gods that she summons with her Ah Cards meddling, and they grant her final boon to return to her old, boring life, where at least nobody she loves is planning a multi-state murder party.

Waking up in the hospital after a quick coma, Joy is surrounded by both the Hockstatter family and the Wellmanns, so she's momentarily confused as to whether or not she's truly back home where she belongs. But it's all okay as her patient Dr. Mike explains that both families have been worried sick about Joy since Eve Wellmann almost killed her with her car, after all, and they've all been waiting for their little dimension-hopping pal to wake up from her deep slumber.

No, you racist, that's not Joe Morton, either! That's also Arnold Pinnock, who starred in something called Fir Crazy!

As it turns out, Joy almost dying was the best thing to happen for both families, as spending several days in close quarters at the hospital brought them all closer together. And Eve's real sorry about the attempted vehicular manslaughter, so all's forgiven. They've even planned out a big joint-family Christmas feast, with Joy as the guest of honor. And her best friends Sam and Montana are also invited, and sure, that lovable old mutt Levi can come, too! The more the merrier at the Wellmann/Hockstatter Christmas Feast!

So Holiday Joy is kind of a cheap, tween-oriented, Christmastime remake of Mr. Destiny, with Bailee Madison standing in for Jim Belushi. But it's missing the heart and dramatic depth of Mr. Destiny, and there's next to nothing Christmas-related in the movie, aside from its final minute at the big joint-family dinner, which comes too little, too late. So in that respect, it's a lot like 12 Men Of Christmas, a movie I reviewed back in 2014 that purported to be a Christmas movie (just look at the title!), but never really felt like a Christmas movie, which I consider a big problem. Holiday Joy isn't exactly a bad movie, just an uninteresting and derivative one. None of the actors are terrible, and there's nothing really notably bad about the plot. It's just... it's boring. That's what it is.

Holy shit, this movie is boring. I felt like I spent four hours watching Holiday Joy, like it was just never going to end. The movie was completely unengaging, and that's just a mortal sin. At least The Santa Incident had Greg Germann to hold my interest. This movie had French Stewart, who is fine, I guess, but everybody remembers him as the wacky alien Harry Solomon from Third Rock From The Sun, and he has absolutely none of that energy in this performance. Truth be told, the man just looks like he wants to die in Holiday Joy, looking the way I felt watching the damned movie. And the movie also completely wasted Scott Thompson in an utterly thankless role, so it can go fuck itself.

Tomorrow I leave this final safe harbor called Freeform and venture into the unknown depths of Deep Cable. Join me, won't you?

VERDICT: I SHAT MY PANTS