If outback hiking horror didn’t already exist it sure does now with Mathew J. Wilkinson’s film Stuffings. Though its plot is a bit all over the place, each character gave an earnest performance in portraying silly scenes with straight — or screaming — faces.

Led by relatively new actors Daniel Moody and Kathleen Halligan in breakout indie performances, the pair star as boyfriend and girlfriend Andy and Bec, who are two young adults that run a popular YouTube channel giving their followers a peek into their daily lives. The couple embarks on a camping trip to the Adelaide Hills on Christmas Eve to capture some picturesque and entertaining scenes to maintain their popular following, however, the bickering reveals they are not as compatible as they and their followers like to think. Eventually, they stumble upon a young girl who asks for their help in getting away from a mysterious man she claims is after her. As they attempt to leave town, they soon realize that the locals are hiding a sinister secret — a supernatural entity that brings tears instead of holiday cheer.

Stuffings is another one of those movies that are questionably Christmas-themed, with its monster being an evil Old Saint Nick and the film being set during a Christmas holiday getaway. However, the title had me assuming that Stuffings would be some long-overdue Thanksgiving horror fun — it’s not — and the horrific happenings made the film seem more Halloween than Christmas. The desolate background of the Australian wilderness doesn’t exactly lend itself to making the Christmas timing seem more relevant to the storyline, either. The mixture of different themes was in line with the film also mixing different filming styles, music genres, and an eclectic mix of characters in a largely unnecessary cast.

Despite the film seemingly muddying its direction by using the “spaghetti effect” — throw everything at a wall and see what sticks — the film is not without its charming points. Stuffings doesn’t have the tone of a black comedy, but there were somewhat frequent moments of comedic relief that were very much appreciated, delivered primarily by the more caricature-like characters. If snippets of Australian humor — deadpan delivery of over-the-top lines — was the butter of Stuffings, then the horror was the bread, with writer/director Mathew J. Wilkinson giving a story that plays with both camping horror and the kind of folktale horror meant to scare the kiddies to sleep. I felt that the folklore plot element was under-utilized as too much time was spent in a camping setting and on the protagonists’ relationship rather than fleshing out the dark rituals of the locals, or even the supernatural creature that drives them.

Stuffings was certainly an Australian film, but it felt oddly similar to a Canuxploitation film, what with the cast that was mainly meant for fodder, the poor sound mixing, the 80’s inspired music, and the relishing of blood and guts. Stuffings was fun and had likable characters, but its low production value and leaps in logic in its folklore may make it a hard watch. Stuffings might be meant for those who can appreciate the shot on video look, and might have been more memorable had it managed to cultivate a creepy or frightening atmosphere using its already creepy premise — perhaps by hiding the monster’s face until the very end in order to build anticipation, rather than showings its hand of not having the budget to design creepy monsters.

A Generous 6 Out Of 10