I have been looking forward to this one. Unlike the other two years, I have been doing Christmas films I made a list of what films I would be reviewing and what days I would be reviewing them on. That list has seen a lot of changes throughout the month as when it came time to review some of the films on there I either wasn’t feeling it or didn’t have much time so swapped films out for shorter films. Stuffings (2021) has been on the list as my Christmas Eve review from day dot. Nothing has usurped this film. Of all of them, why this one? Let’s just call it intuition. The film follows two YouTube stars, Bec (Kathleen Halligan) and Andy (Daniel Moody), who go on a camping trip for Christmas near a small town near Adelaide. However, they soon find out that this town has a ‘killer’ Christmas tradition.
As I fully expected this film is not good, but it did throw up an interesting conundrum and made me ask several questions about what makes a good film. We will explore that later, but for now, I think we need to discuss what about the film makes it bad. Firstly, it is super low budget. This isn’t a negative in itself, but it does give context to the issues the film has. There is a lot of pretty terrible acting throughout. There are some performances that are so wooden, or the delivery is so off that it is hilarious. This isn’t helped by the script. For the most part, it is fine, but there are some pretty terrible dialogue moments that even the most seasoned of actors would struggle to make not funny. A smaller issue I have is with the YouTuber premise it has for the man characters. As somewhat of a YouTuber connoisseur, trying to believe that these two characters have millions of subscribers is a hard pill to swallow seeing as they look like shit. It is a small issue that may go over people’s heads, but it bugged me. The biggest issue the film has is the sound. Throughout the whole film, the sound is a mess. It goes from sounding decent in some scenes to sounding absolutely horrendous in those same scenes. Microphone clipping, unintelligible dialogue, terrible dubbing, awful musical cues, it has it all. The film even uses a sound effect used by so many YouTubers for comedic effect, but this film uses it in moments that are meant to be scary. Is this actually genius satire from the filmmakers? The film is classed as a horror-comedy so maybe it is, and if that is the case bravo.
As I said earlier, this film did throw up a conundrum for me. That being, what actually makes a good film? I watched this film only hours after I watched The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star (2021) which is objectively a better film on all technical levels of filmmaking. It isn’t even close. But whereas I hated my viewing experience watching that film, I had an absolute blast watching Stuffings. Despite the fact that it is objectively bad, it is subjectively levels above many films I have seen this month. In fact, I am not sure I have had as much fun watching any film this month. There are films that I have preferred and will definitely watch again. I can’t see myself watching this again, but while it was on, with a few beers in me, it was a riot. And I actually think there are some good aspects to the film. It is mostly shot pretty well. There is a lot of handheld stuff that you can put down to the budget, but they tried to do some interesting things with their shot choices, and I was never unaware of what was going on due to the cinematography that can often happen in low budget films like this. I also think the two main actors are pretty decent. They are at the very least entertaining and had a good screen presence, but I especially thought that Kathleen Halligan put in a strong performance. Is it Oscar-worthy? No. But you have to take it within the context of the film and within that context, I enjoyed her performance. There are some moments where it feels a little off but I feel that she did a good job with the material at hand.
So, does a film’s quality come the technical prowess of the film or how much you enjoy it? I would argue it is a mix of both, and with that in mind, this film is one that I can only recommend if you enjoy bad films. On many levels, it is pretty terrible, but on the entertainment side of things, it is top tier. And I don’t see myself as someone who watches so bad, they’re good films often if ever so I would say that is quite a good advertisement. If you like competently made films, stay away, but I’d be lying I I said I didn’t really enjoy myself.
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