Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The 12 Disasters of Christmas is a Christmas-themed disaster movie from the SyFy Channel that attempts to emulate the same kind of Mayan prophecy disaster nonsense as in the big bucks Hollywood movie 2012. Except, of course, the filmmakers have a budget of about $3.60, so attempting to convey world-scale events on a tiny budget was always going to be a challenge. No surprise that they make a pig's ear of it.This Canadian movie was helmed by Steven R. Monroe, no stranger to the B-movie genre having already made the likes of ICE TWISTERS and the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE remake. Religious nonsense provides a backdrop to the otherwise familiar action, which sees a family trio pursued by twelve different disasters: they are forced to flee from freezing ground, invisible force fields, icicle showers, and other assorted mayhem. None of it makes much sense and it goes without saying that the CGI effects are so utterly poor as to be completely laughable.Another laughable element of the film is to have the annoying female teen protagonist called Jacey and her parents Joseph and Mary. I suppose the scriptwriters thought this amounted to wit but they were mistaken, it's just very silly. The stuff with the magic ring seems to have been borrowed from THE LORD OF THE RINGS but inevitably given the low budget, the climax is based around human drama and betrayal rather than anything requiring money. Yes, it's dreadful.

I watched this movie in Portugal. My friend was sick, so we stayed in and came across this so called movie. It's one of those movies you can't not not watch and laugh through the whole thing. The great thing about seeing it in Europe is that there is limited commercials.Mayan rings? Really? The father, Joseph, and the mom, Mary, have a daughter named Jacey??..JC....seriously??? and a son named Peter? There's even a "Jude" who betrays the holy family! Oh, and Kane...I was waiting for Abel to show up somewhere.I feel bad for Magda Apanowicz...I felt at one point she was thinking, "Why didn't I get that part in the Hunger Games???" If it's on, just leave on the background while your cleaning your litter box.

" On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me ... " You know the song don't you ? And thanks to this movie from the SyFy channel I found out a few other other things . Thinking I was going to be watching a cheap version of something THE CORE or 2012 I found out so many things I didn't before . Watching THE 12 DISASTERS OF Christmas was a highly epistemological experience The original song the 12 Days Of Christmas isn't in fact a traditional European Christmas carol but is a warning from Mayan Prophecy A complete stranger aged in their seventies can turn up at the home of a teenage girl asking to see her and no one is reminded of TO CATCH A PREDATOR Characters who are of of one hundred per cent European descent living in North America and who have never been near South America can still have a Mayan bloodline I could go on but you see the point I'm making . Whenever a character says something or does something you're left scratching your head or rubbing your chin thinking " Hmmmm I don't think any of this is at all likely " When an audience member starts bigging them self up thinking they're more erudite than the screenwriter that's a fault that can't be overcome The main problem of the movie is how inoffensive and family friendly it all is . It's not necessarily a bad thing because I did have the misfortune to watch CABIN FEVER 2 SPRING FEVER the previous night but THE 12 DISASTERS OF Christmas has the opposite effect . It's not much different from watching one of those disease of the week TVMs . It's summed by a scene where two characters find themselves in the middle of a tornado storm and a car falls towards one them . Cut to other character screaming and screen fading to black

I actually aim to be encouraging to be encouraging towards films with my comments, summaries and ratings, but only ones that really deserve it. The 12 Disasters of Christmas doesn't deserve it for me, it is one of those movies where a movie title is spot on in summing up the quality of the film. The 12 Disasters are not of Christmas or the disasters depicted in the movie to me, more like the 12 main disasters that contribute to the overall disaster that is this movie. List of disasters in regard to this regard(in no particular order): Disaster #1- In regard to the special effects I wasn't expecting great ones considering the term low-budget. I did want to see some kind of effort, which is not what I got with The 12 Disasters of Christmas. These ones look really cheap and perhaps even unfinished, again not unexpected, but seriously these are among the worst I've seen in a while.Disaster #2- The editing is very choppy. It does little to make the scenery and such interesting or striking to look at. But it also manages to actually make the effects even cheaper than they already are.Disaster #3- All of the acting is poor. Everybody seems really bland, the very worst could be described as non-existent, and never once is there a sense of genuine peril or terror.Disaster #4- A complete lack of atmosphere. Any scenes that mean to indicate any signs of suspense or a sense of genuine horror at the perilous predicaments fail completely.Disaster #5- Which leads directly onto the story. Pacing-wise you know a film is dull when nothing compelling of the kind happens. To further disadvantage things, there is also nothing that comes across as a surprise, it is riddled with predictability that you know exactly what is going to happen throughout. It also suffers from taking itself far too seriously.Disaster #6- There is some really awful writing in The 12 Disasters of Christmas. The whole dialogue throughout the entire movie is awkward and cheesy, and made even worse by the uninvolved line delivery of the actors. There are also far too many biblical references and names that are both poorly placed and very poorly researched.Disaster #7- If you are looking for any likable characters, don't look for them here. And let's forget for a moment that the characters and many of the situations are clumsy and overused stereotypes. These characters are either obnoxious or non-descript and are nowhere near developed enough. Consequently I didn't care for them or their situation at all.Disaster #8- Coming from somebody who has started a degree in music(vocal studies to be exact), I always do look for good music. And was the music good here? Not to me it wasn't. It wasn't the case for me of it being badly composed, it just came across as generic with a sluggish tempo, making the movie even duller for my tastes.Disaster #9- With low-budget disaster movies and if you have seen enough, you are probably accustomed to some questionable science and geography. But you will be in for a shock at how many of these errors there are in The 12 Disasters of Christmas and how pushed to the limit of stupidity they are brought to.Disaster #10- Likewise with the music, this movie has some lame sound effects as well. More often they are overbearing and bizarre even, but what is even more frustrating is that the suspense is partly ruined by the sound effects literally sounding out whether something bad or out of the ordinary is going to happen.Disaster #11- The directing feels very flat here, breathing no life or energy to the proceedings. There is no sense of individual style or feel of the disaster movie genre as well.Disaster #12- Bad pacing, it's all very leaden and lifeless, so everything underwhelms whereas it should thrill or shock.So in conclusion, disastrous. If you do decide to see this movie, do make sure that you do watch it before Christmas(despite the title), otherwise you'll find yourself a Scrooge overnight. 0/10 Bethany Cox