The sole survivor of a murderous burning log tries to leave the country, but gets stuck in a Hallmark town where the log finds her.
Bigger budget, bigger disappointment. Casper Kelly’s Adult Swim Yule Log (2022): https://kaygazpro.com/adult-swim-yule-log-2022/ worked because it broke the rules – and he did most of it by himself. It arrived disguised as background noise and slowly revealed itself as a sharp, self-aware satire of horror conventions – absurd, unexpected, and genuinely inventive. His sequel, Branchin’ Out, by contrast, arrives louder, bigger, and far more confident… and that confidence proves to be its undoing.
The more Christmas-y sequel initially points its knives in an interesting direction, shifting its satirical focus toward Hallmark-style holiday films. On paper, this feels like a natural evolution. In practice, the joke overstays its welcome. What begins as parody quickly hardens into repetition, stretched so thin that by the final act, interest has all but evaporated.
Where the first film thrived on surprise and escalation, this one feels oddly static. The satire is not sharpened or subverted – it is simply prolonged. The result is a film that is neither particularly funny nor meaningfully unsettling. Even its attempts at horror feel obligatory, lacking the anarchic bite and playful malice that made the original feel so fresh.
Most disappointingly, Branchin’ Out adds little to the mythology or originality established by its predecessor. It mistakes excess for evolution and scale for creativity. Bigger budget, bigger canvas – yet nothing new painted on it.
I guess, once you explain the joke for too long, it stops being funny. And once you repeat a subversion without reinventing it, it stops being subversive.
Shame, really!
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