Expected more

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Right, well this is a movie from my home country, Denmark, and I must say that I was cringing throughout most of the movie because of the awful thick Danish accents everyone had as they tried passing off as being Americans. It was just embarrassing.The quality of the movie was altogether fairly bad. The picture quality looked like something that was filmed with a remnant camera from the 1980s. And the dialogue was just horrible and mostly delivered in an atrociously bad way."One Hell of a Christmas" (aka "The Claw") is one of the most boring and awful movies that I ever had the misfortune to suffer through. It was so bad that I had to give up an hour into the movie. Everything about this movie was just awful, from the script to the acting.This movie is a wide swing and miss from director Shaky Gonzalez. And it is most definitely a movie to give a wide berth if you are looking for a properly entertaining movie. As I mentioned above, I gave up an hour into it, and now the DVD will just sit on the shelf and collect dust. I am not even going to bother coming back for the last half hour.

ONE HELL OF A Christmas (1 outta 5 stars) And 1 out of 5 stars is being GENEROUS! Dismal low budget hodge-podge of a zillion horror movie clichés... and even some Latino gang movie clichés added in for good measure. Our "hero" Carlitos (Tolo Montana... trust me, you are never gonna have a reason to remember this guy's name) is a just-released convict doing a bad imitation of Al Pacino from "Carlito's Way". (Maybe his name is some sort of "homage"? Oh, who cares already!) Anyway, he meets up with his pal Mike (Thure Lindhardt... a bargain basement version of Jason Mewes), who has just gotten hold of some kind of stolen talisman that gives the owner incredible power (except, I guess, the power to not have his talisman stolen... which seems to happen with great frequency). Carlito says he wants to go straight and lead a clean life and win back his estranged wife and child... but insofar as Mike and Carlitos are back into the drugs and whores on his first day out of prison... I don't think that's gonna happen. So, there is also some kind of mysterious body-switching guardian who goes after whoever has the talisman to kill, maim, hurt, whatever. Terrible acting, terrible special effects, terrible story, terrible plot. This one dead prostitute who comes back to life to fight Carlitos is almost scary-looking... but the effect is outdone by this terrible cartoony voice they dubbed in for her. Another winner from the people at Fangoria Magazine (whose mag is almost as bad as the movies they endorse... almost). Avoid this trash (located in a Wal-Mart bargain bin near you).

~Spoiler~One Hell of a Christmas is a Fango release and a very drug-related horror story. The story begins with the Spanish Tom Sizemore being released from prison. We spend and invest time with this character and his back story. It doesn't get into the horror right away. The first half of the film is spent getting to know the characters and the set-up, which is a good thing. It does however get a tad bit boring when it takes too long to get to the action. We also get a glimpse of the item that will set off the horror aspects of the movie. It's a claw that has magic cocaine in it basically. You snort it and you become a superhero. When our main character gets his hands on the claw is when the action starts. It will remind any horror fan of The Evil Dead right away. The re-animated hooker scene is just too dead on. It absolutely screams Evil Dead. I was let down by the ending too. Looking back at the film, I wish it would have stayed a straight drama because that part was just better. That's very sad to say coming from me. One Hell of a Christmas is certainly nothing great, but it's not Fangoria's worst release either. For a better say-no-to-drugs horror flick, watch Brain Damage.

Stinky Gonzalez's work cannot and will not go unappreciated. In a room full of cynical young men and women this film triumphed, leaving us awestruck in its wake. As it flawlessly wove from scene to scene with the grace and raw passion lacking in most of its B-movie contemporaries we were all struck silent..looking forward to Angels of the night, hoping that it can hold a mere candle to this Monolith of B-Cinema.