The Fireplace (2022)
Directed by Casper Kelly
Written by Casper Kelly
Starring Andrea Laing, Justin Miles
Release Date December 11th, 2022, on Adult Swim, Debut on HBO Max December 12th, 2022
Published December 12th, 2022
Cartoon Network's Adult Swim has become a hub of alternative comedy for more than a decade. The Adult Swim brand has brought such weird and ambitious projects as The Greatest Event in Television History, where big stars re-enacted the opening theme songs of 80s TV series, and most famously the viral sensation, Too Many Cooks. That massive hit arrived on Adult Swim seemingly at random late one weekend and by the following day was an internet sensation.
Now, Adult Swim is set for another viral triumph that seemed to have come out of nowhere. Once again teaming with the man behind Too Many Cooks, writer and director Casper Kelly, Adult Swim debuted their annual Yule Log presentation immediately following the season six finale of the hit cartoon series Rick and Morty. But this was no mere Yule Log. Instead, what starts as a warm and welcoming fire in a lovely fireplace begins to morph into a horror movie.
After just a few minutes of a typical static shot of Yule Log, a voice can be heard. A cleaning lady has entered the room and her cleaning brings her to walk in front of the Yule Log camera, though she remains mostly out of frame. She's carrying on an animated conversation about her night's work as we remain staring at the fire. Suddenly, as she changes to listening loudly to music on headphones, another figure enters the room, a hulking brute of a man followed by the voice of someone who seems to be this man's mother.
The hulking brute brutally murders the cleaning lady. We only know this from her screams and the horrific sound design. The camera remains on the fireplace, and it appears the whole movie might stay in this static shot with the sound design and dialogue acting almost like a terrifying radio play. The scene ends with the arrival of a couple who is renting this cottage where the fireplace is located. The murderers quickly retreat, dragging the body of the cleaning lady into a nearby room, just as the couple enters, far too involved in their conversation to see if anything is out of place. Mother was cleaning as her son was committing his heinous murder.
All of this happens with the camera pointed at the Yule Log. It's accomplished almost completely through sound design and the occasional sight of legs moving past the camera. Director Casper Kelly deftly and ingeniously uses the tools of filmmaking to craft the early horror here and it sets a brilliant tone for the rest of the movie which will capitalize on sound design and camera work throughout to create so much horror fun.
After the opening sequence we meet our main characters, Andrea Lang and Justin Miles portray a married couple who have rented this cabin for the weekend. The reason the camera has been set up and is capturing the Yule Log is because Justin's job is as a Yule Log YouTuber. He does other stuff as well, but it is a fun reason for him to be capturing the action of the movie. He's filming the Yule Log but also wants film his proposal, he's asking Andrea to marry him.
They are interrupted by the local sheriff who says there was a murder nearby. Of greater concern to the sheriff, however, is the Yule Log. It seems that Justin took the log from a sacred tree, a former hanging tree, and the tree may be cursed. Where this plot thread goes, I will leave you to discover. Writer-director Casper Kelly makes sure that the Yule Log has a very literal role to play in the brilliantly absurd and often genuinely scary events of this Yule Log presentation.
Click here for my full length review at Horror.Media
