Snowmageddon (2011)

I don't know how I've went two years without coming across this movie. It has all the things that draw me to a SyFy movie. Except sharks. Sharks would have made this movie EPIC.

Allow me to break it down for you...

First, a white station wagon with absolutely no license plate and the brand scraped off (I like to think of it as Santa's Sleigh, that is, if Santa drove a hearse) shows up with an unidentified gentleman driving. He quickly parks, rings the doorbell, and drives off leaving only a felt-covered gift box on the front step. The residents of the house (a teen girl on a cell phone, a mom on a landline, and a boy with a dog and an über-nerdy board game) accept the unaddressed gift, no questions asked. NONE OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE EVER HEARD THE STORY OF THE TROJAN HORSE.

OH, and the mom is the chick from 24 (Day 2) who was super-secret evil.

Meanwhile, down in the center of town (a town named NORMAL, I kid you not), the townies decorate everything that will stand still with Christmas decorations. Apparently, no one in Normal doesn't celebrate Christmas. Even the Native Alaskan residents. Here, we get to meet The Cop Friend From Medium and The Handy Man Shopkeeper who lament over the lack of the Game of Not Thrones Expansion Packs before The Cop Friend returns home to...yes, the house where the unmarked gift arrived.

At home, they ponder the contents of the mystery present but don't open it right away. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? After lame guesses and scripted lines, the son finally opens the lid to discover The Most Overly Complicated Snow Globe Ever. The son winds the gears up (because what snow globe doesn't have gears) setting off a miniquake in the globe AND (spoiler alert!) in the town. Of course, the quake causes some cars to explode and sets the public Christmas tree on fire. Where was Fox with its War on Christmas back in 2011? Not in Normal, Alaska. That's for sure.

Oh, and the Snow Globe o' Hell claims its first victim - some guy named Jacob that we didn't really ever get to know. So it goes.

The next day, the mom and the daughter go out for a helicopter ride with SyFy's best Shaun White ripoff while the dad goes into town to do work type stuff. They still question the origins of the snow globe gift but only with deep indifference and lack of true curiosity. Sort of like how the people who wrote this script must have felt writing this masterpiece. The son and his dog scamper off to get into non-snow globe related mischief.

The helicopter adventure results in the daughter getting a Sharpie autograph written on her arm (because THAT will NEVER wash off) from Fake Shaun White and his BFF. She and the mom drop the boys off on the very tippity top of the mountain just as the son accidentally pushes one of the multitude of gear-like buttons on the snow globe. Of course, it's the dog's fault. Instead of watching to see how the snow globe reacts to the interaction, he runs off as a lightening storm appears in the watery dome and an actual storm materializes over Normal.

Everyone in Normal is immediately aware of the storm system because of the meteor-like hail that pummel the town and flash past the helicopter. The snowboarding boys get pelted with bullet-sized hail that result in flesh wounds and bad CGI snowplosions. The helicopter gets wiped out and crashes violently into the snowy mountainside. The center of town experiences a hailstorm that breaks pretty much every window and knocks active power lines onto the town's Christmas bus (NOT THE BUS!). The son and his babysitter (who is bleeding life points like crazy in this bastardized version of Fireball Island that the kid is forcing her to play) are left miraculously unscathed. In the end, it's not so much of a snowstorm but more of a volcanic explosion with ice meteors instead of molten rock. It's also the most excitement this movie sees. Truly.

Spoiler Alert: this movie has a shocking lack of snow.

From this latest snow globe related disaster, the mom and the daughter invent helicopter luge, the two men trapped in the Christmas bus discuss their elementary knowledge of the relationship between electricity and metal busses, the injured snowboarder is being pushed down the mountain as if the Fake Shaun White were building the bottom level of a snow man, and the dad searches for means of communication with and/or rescue his missing family members. Within a matter of tv minutes, the father finds his wife and daughter.

Talk about suspense here, SyFy.

The bus men continue to be trapped in the bus (also not suspenseful, since we don't care at all about these two) while a third townie tries to take out the power by knocking another transformer off the only building in town. The people of Normal would really benefit from having a fire department, or at least, have a visit from a neighboring fire department to discuss electrical safety.

Back at home, the boy figures out that the snow globe is the mastermind behind all of the trouble. Of course, that doesn't stop him from handing it to his babysitter, who hits all sorts of buttons just by handling it, setting off the next round of traumatic snow-related disasters. This time...AVALANCHE.

I would just like to point out that I'm fairly certain that only Jacob has died so far. Although, Bus Guy #2 is pretty close to being the second victim. Of course, just when you think he's going to die from the wounds he received during the Hailstorm of Doom, his bus explodes when Bus Guy #1 jumps free of the wreck.

So it goes.

Also, we're only halfway through this movie. Just to warn you.

So the dad, the mom and the sis are in the dad's snowcat trapped in avalanchy-goodness. The babysitter has lost the boy and his dog (she probably won't be getting a Christmas bonus this year). The boy has taken the Snow Globe of Evil and run away from home. Fake Shaun White manages to find the snowcat (because he survived the avalanche with zero protection even though his BFF died...A THIRD VICTIM...one per snow globe round). The townspeople try to reach out to the world outside of Normal but fail to make contact.

Welcome to Alaska.

The avalanched group makes it to their car okay. They also run into The Worst Babysitter Ever as she searches desperately for her charge. And they are all starting to see the connection between the snow globe and the snowtastrophes.

There is also very little snow on the ground in this story. But I suppose that's Normal. Alaska, that is.

There is also a bizarre connection between the snow globe clock and the town's broken clock. But the handy man claims not to be involved in the giving of the gift. And so suspense builds. Like a gentle flurry. A very slow and drawn out flurry.

Now that there is little plot movement, Bus Guy #1 starts to stir up anxiety by proclaiming Normal as being doomed. And so we wait for the next plot turn to result in snow globe fun. The characters are literally running back and forth from scene to scene looking for plot devices, too. It's fun.

So the family tries to convince the rest of the town that the snow globe is to blame. This is officially the weirdest town hall meeting ever. It takes about five screen minutes for someone (Bus Guy #1, of course) to try smashing the thing. And of course, smashing it results in zero damage to the device. And so we all continue to wait until the clock counts down to the top of the hour (if you can count down to the top of an hour).

If this movie replaced waiting with snow, it would be more deserving of its title.

Oh. And no one thought to tell the babysitter, the sister, and Fake Shaun White to come back inside. Just in time for ice spikes to come jolting up through the forest floor. Because that's a thing.

And Fake Shaun White becomes Victim #4. The babysitter may have also died. But I blinked. So it goes.

There is very little panic in town after the ice spikes show up. There is very little excitement in watching the movie. There may be a correlation here.

Regardless of the lack of excitement and interest, the boy suggests that the townspeople throw the box with the snow globe into the volcano. The handy man now makes a connection between the lame board game, the volcano suggestion, and Greek mythology surrounding the story of Pandora's Box. The audience does a double take because this is A LOT to accept in 20 seconds after sitting around and waiting for an hour of lackluster weather-related damage.

In a surprise late-ice spike disaster, Larry the Bus Guy becomes Victim #5 or #6 (honestly, I've lost count).

At this point, everyone who is alive is together in town. So this is the perfect time for the dad to leave the group in hopes of destroying the box and snow globe by throwing it into the volcano. I can't believe it took two hours to reach this part. I also can't believe that they made the connection to Greek mythology before Lord of the Rings. Go figure on that.

Fortunately for everyone in the world, the volcano is very much active and ready to help out. Everyone but Fred the Handy Man pack up and leave town. Fred decides to remain behind because he's seen Dante's Peak and knows how well that worked out for the grandmother who wanted to stay at her cabin.

The father has this amazing wipeout on his snowmobile but comes across the buried snowcat that had previously been trapped by the avalanche but somehow becomes unstuck from all the snow now that it only has one occupant. Our Dad The Hero finds himself facing numerous not-so-climactic challenges before ultimately Frodo-ing the ring, I mean, snow globe into some lava. The volcano reacts much like it did in LOTR but which a much smaller budget and far less interest on the part of the audience. The town can see that things are better now, even though I'm not 100% sure on exactly what that was that they saw. And so we wait some more. This time for the dad to return home.

Oh. And the dog. Remember the dog?

And so, that was Snowmageddon. It had its moments. Would have totally been better with some sharks. Especially some ghost sharks. Some snow would have helped, too. Also, some explanation as to where the present came from in the beginning would have been nice, too.

So it goes.