Elves is a 2018 Holiday horror film about a group of friends who unknowingly unleash evil elves into their town, which turns into the fight to survive against everyone.
Christmas horror films are little gems that we often don’t get to rejoice in enough as the seasonality aspect stops us from watching them all year round. That said, it also seems more common than not that horror films focusing on a particular calendar date don’t quite fit the tone, and really don’t encapsulate the feeling of the season. Elves is one of these films, and certainly doesn’t bring any Christmas cheer along with it.
After the capture of a prolific killer, The Holiday Reaper, who had been terrorising a small Texas town, a group of friends meet to celebrate. One friend reveals she has bought an elf doll to play a magical game where each person has to write their name on a naughty list along with a secret. The group soon learn that the game is more deadly than it seems when one friend is killed in a strange accident, and that there are evil elves all over their town representing the seven deadly sins. The friends must find a way to survive against the elves and save their souls.
As a sequel to The Elf, which featured the popular elf on the shelf turning murderous, Elves from director Jamaal Burden is another film of the same feat but nowhere near as good. It also shouldn’t be confused with the 1989 film of the same name which is presumably just as bad as this one from the reviews that can be found online. Terrible films often lead with a group of friends doing something stupid, which is exactly what happens in Elves as one friend forces the others to write their names on a naughty list, which essentially leads them down a path of evil and destruction influenced by the creepy elf doll. The acting is completely off from the beginning and doesn’t have an inch of realism attached to it – everything seems forced and uncomfortable.
We soon discover that there are evil elves scattered throughout the town, who are encouraging people to commit murderous acts or those which are considered sinful including snorting 2kg of cocaine and drinking alcohol even though they’ve been sober for some time. The elves represent the seven deadly sins, however convincing others to commit suicide or murder strangers and their friends seems to be their favourite sin of choice. Elves comes across as many scenes stitched together without too much coherence, and this is even more noticeable once we move into the third act where the surviving friends try to establish how to survive the naughty list.
In every bad horror film there has to be a scene that you feel partially attached to and Elves has that scene; one of the girls visits a nursing home or a similar establishment (it’s hard to distinguish) and slaughters everyone in their therapy come knitting group. It sounds like a horrific scene to see on screen, but it’s not only some of the worst acting known to man but the murders are completely unbelievable. If you’re looking for one of those scenes that you can laugh uncontrollably about and even turn into memes, then this might just be it.
Elves isn’t a film that anyone ever asked for, and certainly shouldn’t have been a film that anyone decided to create. If you’re looking to have a bad horror movie marathon for the festive period then I would urge that you put this one on your naughty list and have some fun over it. Elves delivers the gift of awful acting, hilarious murders and about nothing else.