FILM GUTTER REVIEWS: ​TREEVENGE (2008)

Dir. Jason Eisener, Canada, 16 mins
​

As regular readers will know, I'm partial to a short film, as they offer something distinctly different from the longer form. There have been a lot of standouts over the years from very good directors, and Treevenge comes to us from directos Jason Eisener, most famous for acclaimed grindhouse feature Hobo With A Shotgun as well as segments of V/H/S 2 and The ABCs of Death. That's not a bad pedigree, although of course Treevenge predates those two. I also realised just a few minutes in that this one was a distinctively Christmassy movie, but I figured we get Christmas episodes on TV all throughout the year, so why not just crack on with this one anyway? If it helps maybe you could just read it again in December...


Anyway, inappropriateness of time of year aside, Treevenge begins with a distinctly psychopathic-looking range of loggers off to cut down Christmas trees, which they seem to get a little too much pleasure from. The trees can be heard in their own chattering language asking what is going on, crying out for help or desperately trying to hang on to their tree husbands and wives, but the humans obviously can't hear them. Honestly they sound a little like Ewoks, if my recollections of Return of the Jedi are right.

So from there we follow the journey of one particular Christmas tree, which is taken to a lot and sold, then placed inside of someone'e home and decorated, all the time crying about being lost and feeling mightily confused about it all. A lot of this is shot from the tree's POV, and you can't help but feel a degree of weird sympathy for the tree as it goes through what must be a very strange ordeal for it. We see a few other trees in their homes and the festive decoration that they go through, before we come to the epic finale that the title promised us. Because after all of the sadness and dislocation, these trees have had enough...
 
The closing scenes of the movie show us plenty of creative deaths and fun special effects, and again you can't help but feel to a certain extent that this wave of violent revenge is justified. I wouldn't exactly say that it had put me in the mood for Christmas – after all, it's far too early for all that yet – but I could certainly see this becoming a bit of festive viewing for years to come, alongside the many favourite Christmas horror movies out there already.

Ultimately Treevenge is anything but high art, but is certainly entertaining and achieves the goals it sets out to admirably. It's a fine FX showcase too, and obviously a part of what launched Eisener's career going forward. There's more to come from him according to IMDB – including a mysteriously listed 'Untitled Underwater Jason Eisener film' – which you can certainly count me in for. If you've not yet had a chance to check out his feature Hobo With a Shotgun that's very much worth a look too, especially if you're a fan of grindhouse.


RATING: 7.5/10. It's hard to go really overboard on this one, as there are no real high aims other than just to make something fun and a little ridiculous. However it does those things well, and despite the short runtime there are a few laughs in here as well as some great visuals on the way through. I think it will be revisiting this one in December, as it's sure to give me a chuckle the second time around too. A good, solid, funny piece of work as a short film, and worth a strong 7.5/10.