Deck The Halls
Gabrielle Carteris, Steven Culp, Steven Bacic
Directed by George Mendeluk
Made for TV 2005
VVS Films 2006
93 minutes
Deck The Halls is a made for TV movie and even a grinch such as myself can rather enjoy it. If you can’t figure out Deck The Halls within the first ten minutes you simply haven’t seen a Christmas movie. If you can’t figure out the movie within the first ten minutes, it’s not a Xmas movie. Even if the main characters’ names, Holly (Gabrielle Carteris of Beverly Hills 90210 -anyone remember that?) and Nick (Steven Bacic), are way too obvious, there is a freshness to this Christmas DVD that allows it to rise above the usual sugary sweet junk that marks the season.
In terms of ingredients for a mushy Christmas movie DVD Deck The Halls has it all. A widowed mother who is disillusioned with the holiday and a bit of a stickler, a young boy, Ben, who still sort of believes in Santa Claus, misses his dad, and wants his dad back, and a guy, Nick, who may be Santa, ives with short guys who may be elves, and has reindeer Throw in the fact both Holly, an accountant, and Nick, a marketing genius, work for a toy company owned by Holly’s dad.
As a secondary plot Ben also schemes via email to match up Nick and his mother. Steven Culp plays a vet Holly may or may not be interested in. This doesn’t go anywhere until the very end of the movie. There is also a bit of religion thrown in as the family often says grace and Ben says his prayer every night. There are a few heavily formulaic melodramatic scenes in here that are basically there to push your buttons and the plotting here is messy, very messy at times.
Still, Deck The Halls is a charming, lightweight Christmas movie DVD. It’s not a classic but good, fun family fare. It does not always make sense but it is watchable.