#dial code santa claus

[kaen-ace-of-diamonds]

Christmas Horror Kids Tournament

Because this isn't the Hunger Games, the kids are in competition but not in direct opposition to each other. Basically: there's some big monster/villain threatening their holiday, which of these main characters is not just surviving but is coming out on top the fastest?

Propaganda for each contender (and spoilers for all movies mentioned) under the cut:

Pietari: fears neither God nor death nor army of feral elves. good at keeping calm under pressure and making plans on the fly. carries a gun around the whole movie but never actually uses it, so not sure how well he could shoot. his actor was 11 when the movie came out but I think he's supposed to be a few years younger?

Luke: horrific demon child, zero moral limits so long as he gets what he wants, -5000/10 would not recommend babysitting. extremely good planner, but vulnerable to overlooking small details that ruin him. about 12: very smart but fairly immature for his age. has to be reminded not to kill his competition this time.

Thomas: literally just wanted to stay home and play trains with his grandpa, but now he's got to defend them both from a killer Santa. models himself after action movie heroes and is so good at Home Alone-ing his house that his director tried to sue for plagiarism. about 10-11 years old?

Anna: would be better with her friends to help her, but is pretty damn capable of making it in the zombie apocalypse on her own. not sure exactly how old she's supposed to be, since I'm not clear on how the New Zealand school system works, but she's an older teenager.

Billy: definitely has his wits closer about him than his dad does, that's for fucking sure. does get tricked into creating gremlins, but you know what, who would have expected them to have fucked with his clock? successfully takes on and kills an army of gremlins, albeit with help. probably the oldest competitor here since he's out of high school (?)

Max: definitely willing to go to bat for the Christmas spirit, and to put his own life on the line to protect his family, but is pretty severely lacking in strength or savvy. is good at dodging an army of killer toys, but might not do so well without a bunch of relatives around to also be targets. like Pietari, his actor was 12 but I think he's supposed to be a bit younger.

Trudy: ngl, might be a little weak in solo competition, since she's maybe 7-8 years old and so relies a lot on Santa the one-man army. but she's clever, has exactly zero fear of hardened criminals with machine guns, and is very good at turning Home Alone traps exactly as deadly as they should be.

Winnie: the most Final Girl (TM) out of all the competitors imho. learns very quickly how to improvise and use whatever's handy as a weapon, and while she's also best with a partner to distract an opponent, can handle herself very competently in a physical fight. about 17?

Samantha and Clara: actually, fuck Billy, does Clara even count as a kid at all, being an ancient demon in the form of a child? has telekinetic powers and is good at Breaking Speeches, but is bound by being sealed in the school and unable to kill her enemies herself. Samantha is a pretty normal middle schooler (?), but also has the guts to go face a cult of killers with an axe when she could have run away and saved herself, so don't count her out.

Kevin: is Home Alone a horror movie? no. could I possibly exclude the king, the champion, the future Jigsaw apprentice? also no. smart and absolutely cold-blooded when he needs to be, he's excellent at fending enemies off from a distance, but it's game over for him if he's actually caught.

[foodbucketjesus]

.: happy christmas to all 🎅🏻 music: Nat King Cole | Jingle Bells (Ken Andrews remix)

[fuzzyghost]

Deadly Games / Dial Code Santa Claus (1989)

[achildlikeprincess]

[itslayspodcast]

Oh, the ho-ho-horror!

The squad SLEIGHS with their Holiday pick, DEADLY GAMES (1989)! Does Thomas put Kevin McCallister to shame? Is Grandpa the true hero of this story? And, does this underseen holiday horror deserve a spot on your annual "nice" list?

Tune in to find out if we gave this film a NAY, OKAY, YAY, or SLEIGH!

Happy Holidays from the It Slays Crew! 🔪⛄

[michaelcoffeysthoughts]

Watched Today: Dial Code Santa Claus (a.k.a. Deadly Games) (1989)

[thecraggus]

3615 Code Père Noël (1989) Review Sacrebleu! Père Noël est très méchant! A year before Home Alone became a holiday staple, 3615 Code Père Noël (also known as Dial Code Santa Claus, Deadly Games or Game Over) delivered a darker, edgier take on the idea of a child defending their home against an intruder.... click link to read more Read the full article

[musicalhell]

Along with "you have a new area code" came "you actually have to USE the area code now." A lot of people were used to just using the seven-digit number for any call in their city/region/state. (There are STILL business signs in my area that only have the seven-digit number.)

1-900 numbers. These were pay-per-minute lines, and commercials for them were EVERYWHERE in the 80s and 90s. There were three main varieties: 1) phone sex services, 2) psychic networks, and 3) child/teen entertainment (Santa Claus, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, New Kids on the Block, etc.). The last category caused issues, because although the commercials cheerfully reminded you to "ask a parent before you dial!" a lot of kids obviously didn't, to the point that "we have a $500 phone bill because little Timmy was calling his favorite wrestler!" was a not-uncommon sitcom plot.

90% of front office work involved knowing the phone system. You were presented with a phone that featured, in addition to the usual buttons, an array of other buttons and lights and things, and you had to know which ones to press and it what order to a) answer a call, b) put a call on hold, c) transfer a call to another person in the office, d) call someone in the office, or e) make calls to anyone outside of the office (usually you had to dial "9" to reach an outside line). It was stupidly easy to hang up on people unintentionally.

Have been thinking a lot lately about how, when a new technology emerges, people who were born after the shift have trouble picturing exactly what The Before was like (example, the fanfic writer who described the looping menu on a VHS tape), and even people who were there have a tendency to look back and go "Wow, that was... wild."

Today's topic: The landline. A lot of people still have them, but as it's not the only game in town, it's an entirely different thing now.

(Credit to @punk-de-l-escalier who I was talking to about this and made some contributions)

for most of the heyday of the landline, there was no caller ID of any kind. Then it was a premium service, and unless you had a phone with Caller ID capability-- and you didn't-- you had to buy a special box for it. (It was slightly smaller than a pack of cigarettes.)

Starting in the early nineties, there WAS a way to get the last number dialed, and if desired, call it back. It cost 50 cents. I shit you not, the way you did it was dialing "*69". There's no way that was an accident.

If you moved, unless it was in the same city-- and in larger cities, the same PART of the city-- you had to change phone numbers.

As populations grew, it was often necessary to take a whole bunch of people and say "Guess what? You have a new area code now."

The older the house, the fewer phone jacks it had. When I was a kid, the average middle-class house had a phone jack in the kitchen, and one in the master bedroom. Putting in a new phone jack was expensive... but setting up a splitter and running a long phone cord under the carpet, through the basement or attic, or just along the wall and into the next room was actually pretty cheap.

Even so, long phone cords were pretty much a thing on every phone that could be conveniently picked up and carried.

The first cordless phones were incredibly stupid. Ask the cop from my hometown who was talking to his girlfriend on a cordless phone about the illegal shit he was doing, and his wife could hear the whole thing through her radio.

For most of the heyday of the landline, there was no contact list. Every number was dialed manually. Starting in the mid-eighties, you could get a phone with speed dial buttons, but I cannot stress how much they sucked, because you had to label them with a goddamn pencil, you only had ten or twenty numbers, reprogramming them was a bitch, and every once in a while would lose all of the number in its memory.

All of the phone numbers in your city or metro area were delivered to you once a year in The Phone Book, which was divided between the White Pages (Alphabetic), the Yellow Pages (Businesses, by type, then alphabetic), and the Blue Pages (any government offices in your calling area (which we will get to in a moment)).

Listing in the white pages was automatic; to get an unlisted number cost extra.

Since people would grab the yellow pages, find the service they need, and start calling down the list, a lot of local business names where chosen because they started with "A", and "Aardvark" was a popular name.

Yes, a fair chunk of the numbers in it were disconnected or changed between the time it was printed and it got to your door, much less when you actually looked it up.

One phone line per family was the norm.

Lots and lots and LOTS of kids got in trouble because their parents eavesdropped on the conversation by picking up another phone connected to the same line.

A fair number of boys with similar voices to their father got in trouble because one of their friends didn't realize who they were talking to.

And of course, there were the times where you couldn't leave the house, because you were expecting an important phone call.

Or when you were in a hotel and had to pay a dollar per call. (I imagine those charges haven't gone away, but who pays them?)

Since you can't do secondary bullet points, I'll break a couple of these items out to their own lists, starting with Answering Machines.

these precursors to voicemail were a fucking nightmare.

The first generation of consumer answering machines didn't reach the market until the mid-eighties. They recorded both the outgoing message and the incoming calls onto audio cassettes.

due to linear nature of the audio cassette, the only way to save an incoming call was to physically remove the cassette and replace it with a new one.

they were prone to spectacular malfunction; if the power went out, rather than simply fail to turn back on, they would often rewind the cassette for the incoming messages to the beginning, because it no longer knew where the messages were, or how many there were.

Another way they could go wrong was to start playing the last incoming call as the outgoing message.

Most people, rather than trying to remember to turn it on each time they went out and turn it off when they got back, would just leave it on, particularly when they discovered that you could screen incoming calls with it.

Rather a lot of people got themselves in trouble because they either didn't get to the phone before the answering machine, or picked up when they heard who was calling, and forgot that the answering machine was going-- thus recording some or all of the phone call.

Eventually the implemented a feature where you could call your answering machine, enter a code, and retrieve your messages. The problem was that most people couldn't figure out how to change their default code, and those that did didn't know it reset anytime the power went out. A guy I went to college with would call his ex-girlfriend's machine-- and her current boyfriend's-- and erase all the messages. He finally got busted when she skipped class and heard the call come in.

And, of course, there's the nightmare that was long-distance.

Calls within your local calling area were free. (Well, part of the monthly charge.) This usually meant the city you lived in and its suburbs. Anything outside this calling area was an extra per-minute charge.

This charge varied by time of day and day of the week, which made things extra fun when your friend on the west coast waited until 9pm for the lower charges, but you were on the east coast and it was midnight.

Depending on your phone company, and your long distance plan, the way your long distance work varied wildly. Usually in-state was cheaper-- with zones within the state that varied by price, and out of state had its own zones.

Your long distance plan came in lots and lots of distracting packages, and was billed to your phone bill.

At one point, when I was living in North Carolina, a scammer set themselves up as a long distance company and notified the phone company that a shitload of people had switched to their service. They got caught fairly quickly, but I was annoyed because they were actually charging less than AT&T.

"Would you like to change your long distance plan" was the 80's and 90's equivalent of "We have important news about your car insurance."

Had a friend who lived at the edge of a suburb in Birmingham, and for her to call her friend two miles down the street was long-distance, because the boundary of the calling area was right between them.

[cinenthusiast]

films watched in december 2023

322. May December (2023, Haynes) (1st viewing) (Netflix) 323. How to Marry a Millionaire (1953, Negulesco) (2nd viewing) (Blu-ray) 324. Messiah of Evil (1973, Huyck / Katz) (3rd viewing) (35mm restoration, Brattle Theatre) 325. Victims of Sin (1951, Fernandez) (1st viewing) (DCP restoration, Brattle Theatre) 326. Patrick Still Lives (1980, Landi) (1st viewing) (Severin Blu-ray) 327. The Big Heat (1988, To) (1st viewing) (download) 328. While You Were Sleeping (1995, Turteltaub) (2nd viewing) (Amazon rental) 329. Repeat Performance (1947, Werker) (1st viewing) (Criterion Channel) 330. Late Autumn (1960, Ozu) (1st viewing) (Criterion Channel) 331. The Family Stone (2005, Bezucha) (2nd viewing) (Amazon rental) 332. Violent Night (2022, Wirkola) (1st viewing) (Amazon) 333. Bad Santa (2003, Zwigoff) (not sure what viewing) (Amazon rental) 334. The Jerk (1979, Reiner) (2nd viewing) (Blu-ray) 335. Jingle All the Way (1996, Levant) (not sure what viewing) (Blu-ray) 336. Deadly Games (Dial Code Santa Claus) (1989, Manzor) (3rd viewing) (Vinegar Syndrome 4K) 337. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Alpha’s Magical Christmas (1994) (4th viewing?) (VHS) 338. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) (not sure what viewing) (DVD) 339. The Year without a Santa Claus (1974) (not sure what viewing) (Amazon rental) 340. The Santa Clause (1994, Pasquin) (not sure what viewing) (Blu-ray) 341. The Santa Clause 2 (2002, Lembeck) (4th viewing) (Blu-ray) 342. Holiday Inn (1942, Sandrich) (4th viewing) (4K) 343. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Capra) (not sure what viewing) (35mm, Brattle Theatre) 344. The Holiday (2006, Meyers) (5th viewing) (Blu-ray) 345. Home Alone (1990, Columbus) (not sure what viewing) (Blu-ray) 346. Black Christmas (1974, Clark) (8th viewing) (Scream Factory 4K) 347. Black Xmas (2006, Morgan) (6th viewing) (DVD) 348. Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (1977, Henson) (not sure what viewing) (TV rip of full version) 349. Die Hard (1988, McTiernan) (4th? Viewing) (Amazon rental) 350. The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996, Harlin) (1st viewing) (Amazon rental) 351. Touch of Evil: Reconstructed Cut (1958, Welles) (5th viewing) (35mm, Brattle Theatre) 352. Batman Returns (1992, Burton) (not sure what viewing) (Blu-ray) 353. The Store (1983, Wiseman) (1st viewing) (Le Cinema Club) 354. Holiday Affair (1949, Hartman) (2nd viewing) (Max) 355. Blackberry (2023, Johnson) (1st viewing) (Amazon rental) 356. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) (1st viewing) (Netflix) 357. Private Benjamin (1980, Zieff) (2nd viewing) (35mm, Brattle Theatre) 358. Crossing Delancey (1988, Silver) (1st viewing) (35mm, Brattle Theatre) 359. Smile (1975, Ritchie) (2nd viewing) (Fun City Editions Blu-ray) 360. eXistenZ (1999, Cronenberg) (2nd viewing) (Vinegar Syndrome 4K) 361. The Iron Claw (2023, Durkin) (1st viewing) (theaters) 362. Ferrari (2023, Mann) (1st viewing) (theaters)

[horrorfixxx]

Deadly Games (1989)

[videomessiah]

Deadly Games (1989)

[foodbucketjesus]

.: . on the fourth day of christmas

[2ndaryprotocol]

#NowWatching Deadly Games (aka ‘3615 code Père Noël’ / ‘Hide And Freak’ / ‘Game Over’) (1989) 🎅🏼🔪💀

“𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎… 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞’𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚌𝚊𝚖𝚎.”

[brokehorrorfan]

Dial Code Santa Claus will be released on 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray combo pack on October 27 via Vinegar Syndrome. It's available with an embossed slipcover designed by The Dude Designs, limited to 4,000, for $34.99.

Also known as Deadly Games, the 1989 French horror-thriller is noted for its similarities to Home Alone. It’s written and directed by René Manzor and stars Alain Lalanne, Patrick Floersheim, Louis Ducreux, and Brigitte Fossey.

Dial Code Santa Claus has been newly restored in 4K from its 35mm original negative. It's presented in its native French with newly-translated English subtitles. Reversible artwork is included.

Special features are listed below, where you’ll also find the trailer and synopsis.

Special features:

Interview with writer/director René Manzor

Interview with actor Alain Musy

Still gallery with commentary by writer/director René Manzor

Behind-the-scenes featurette

Multiple storyboards & scene comparisons

Synapse - 1981 short film directed by René Manzor

Pre-trailer model shots

“Merry Christmas” Bonnie Tyler music video

French, English, and Italian trailers

French teaser trailer

French TV spots

Young Thomas is obsessed with action movies and video games. So much so that, when his mother is out, he delights in turning the sprawling mansion where he and his invalid grandfather live into a makeshift battleground; concocting and setting elaborate traps. Home alone, grandfather aside, on Christmas Eve, Thomas is soon faced with an unexpected - and very unwelcome - guest, a department store Santa Claus who is, in fact, a deranged escapee from a nearby asylum! Putting his skills into action, Thomas begins an all out assault against the murderous Saint Nick, rather than risking his Christmas turning into something closer to Halloween...

[betamaxvcr]

[cvasquez]

Deadly Games (1989) Directed by René Manzor