A LIGHT IN THE FOREST (2003)

Britta is living with her grandmother in Hollywood after the death of her acrobat parents in a tragic accident. Between her grandma's house and the high school she attends is a lovely park called Holly Woods, in the middle of which is a statue of a mythical figure called Holly Boy. In the distant past, Holly Boy, a Spirit of Christmas, saved the Pine Tree Queen, another Spirit of Christmas, from destruction by the evil King Otto. In the present, the reincarnated Otto possesses the real estate developer Ridgewell and engineers a plan to buy the Holly Woods and destroy them. The plan: rig the high school holiday talent show so Ridgewell's son Blair, a talented gymnast, wins the huge cash prize (in theory, a full college scholarship), then use that money to buy the woods. Britta and her teacher, Ms. Audrey, are trying to save the woods from development and soon, Holly Boy comes alive to help them, as other spirit possessions occur: Ms. Audrey by the Pine Tree Queen and Principal Kimmel (who had been neutral on the issue of the woods) by one of Otto's underlings. But with the talent show fix seemingly on, can anything, magical or otherwise, stop the bad guys? Did I mention that Britta, who enters the talent show with her maybe-boyfriend Gabriel, is a pretty good acrobat but won’t indulge anymore since her parents' death?

I watched this because a description I read sounded interesting, but this is scraping the bottom of the barrel of Christmas films, even considering it's aimed at kids. The director, John Carl Buechler, was apparently a talented special effects man but his efforts here come off as strictly amateurish. It was made-for-video with cheap-looking magical effects and washed out visuals throughout. A handful of B-level actors star but mostly seem to be just going through the motions. Carol Lynley (Return to Peyton Place, Bunny Lake is Missing, The Poseidon Adventure) is OK as the grandma but she winds up with little to do. Lindsay Wagner (pictured)  seems to be truly sleepwalking through her roles as teacher and pine tree spirit. Edward Albert is good as Otto (he gets to spout the deathless call, "Decline of joy, rise of commercialism!"), not so good as Ridgewell. The best performance comes from Frank Bonner (Herb on WKRP in Cincinnati) as the principal; he finds the right tone for this bland fantasy and runs with it. Among the kids, Danielle Nicolet saves the day as Britta; she was almost 30 when she filmed this but she makes for a very credible teenager. Christian Oliver (Gabriel) and Oliver Macready (Blair) are passable, but Christopher Khayman Lee is uninspiring as Holly Boy. The mythic Holly Boy plot had some promise in a Robin Hood/Peter Pan way, but there is zilch development beyond a brief sequence at the beginning. The scenes in the woods were all shot in bright daylight, robbing them of any magical atmosphere they might have had, and the Christmas atmosphere is equally disappointing—it might as well have been set in July. Why did I bother to stick this one out to the end? Well, I thought it might be a nice alternative to Hallmark Christmas movies. Though I'm not an expert on what kids like, I suspect that, though it seems pitched at teenagers, only elementary grade students will enjoy this. [DVD]