Hellmark Channel: Season Two

Last holiday season I introduced family and friends to Hellmark, an alternative channel with movie plots decidedly different from the schmaltzy Christmas fare airing non-stop on Hallmark. 

The launch of Hellmark was met with such a tepid response that I had no choice but to offend sensibilities again by creating Season Two, with ten new releases. 

As with Season One, your full participation is appreciated. There is a poll at the end of the movie capsules; please vote for your three favorites.

And by all means, share the Hellmark link; everyone has enemies.

Enjoy!

LOVE AT FIRST CIDER

Restaurateur Beth is running late and has only fifteen minutes to get her famous hand-pressed apple cider to the hunting lodge before the start of their holiday party. Beth’s hurried arrival coincides with another rush delivery being made by Steve – a pee collector at his dad’s deer urine farm. Romantic sparks fly, containers get mixed up, and everyone at the party agrees that this year’s cider was more foamy than hot.

 

GET THE ELF OUT OF HERE!

Interior decorator Mandy loves fiancé Robert but has grown increasingly weary of his excess baggage: a conjoined twin who always dresses in elf costumes. As her Christmas-Day wedding draws near, Mandy delivers a surgical ultimatum that forces Robert to choose between his future better half and his sutured other half.

 

LAST CHRISTMAS I GAVE YOU MY KIDNEY

Personal shopper Lizzie loves running mindless errands for her dreamy boss Adam, but she won’t be running them much longer. Adam’s private investment firm is failing spectacularly and so are both of his kidneys. Tender-hearted Lizzie makes the ultimate sacrifice. The emergency transplant works, but two months later, a sullen and inebriated Adam leaps to his death at the company Christmas party. The business was failing, remember?

 

I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY

When choir soloist Karen is positioned too close to an overly-enthusiastic bell ringer during the Christmas Eve service, she develops an unmerciful case of tinnitus. Former boyfriend Eric is a campanologist with a plan:  expose Karen to twice the volume of bell ringing that created her malady. Not only does his scheme work, it dislodges enough ear wax from Karen for the couple to build a prize-winning gingerbread house.

 

WHITE CHRISTMAS, BUT FOR HOW MUCH LONGER?

It’s been ten years since alt-right Maggie has been home for Christmas in her childhood hometown of Eagleville, and the pace of progress is a bit unsettling. The bakery that made her favorite apple pies is now a CBD shop, the sawmill once owned by her uncle is now a wellness retreat, and the town’s African American population has swelled to two; yes, both are employed as super-helpful executive assistants, but still.

 

JUST MY TYPE 2

Always-on-the-run reporter Maddie admitted to swilling as many as 12 in one day. Foot-model Jack pounded 30 just last weekend at three different holiday parties. When their unchecked addictions to hot chocolate land the pair in the emergency room on Christmas Eve – with matching diagnoses of adult onset diabetes – their blurry vision does not keep them from developing eyes for each other. The couple wed but soon learn that neuropathy does not play favorites: Jack loses his modeling career when both big toes go for a walk on their own.

 

PRESSING PROBLEMS

About to close the doors on the offset print supply business she inherited from her grandfather, Tess gets a December reprieve: a six-figure purchase order for hundreds of canisters of black and green ink. When she learns the customer’s identity — a counterfeiter making anonymous cash donations to the local Make A Wish Foundation – Tess faces an impossible decision: extort the counterfeiter or lean on the children’s charity for a 20% vig.

 

CHRISTMAS ON ICE

Former high-school football star and convicted chainsaw murderer Buzz Taylor returns to his hometown of Rockport after spending 20 years in prison and runs into old sweetheart Sharon at the annual Christmas festival. When Sharon’s partner in the ice-sculpting contest comes down with the flu at the last moment, Buzz graciously offers to step in. Sharon is late to work for the next thirty years.

 

CHRISTMAS SPARKS

Eight-year-old Caleb thinks that his mom’s new beau Mitchell – who lost his left arm in a tractor accident – is really great at everything: sledding on the iciest hills, replicating WWII airplanes, building the biggest snowmen. It seems like there is nothing Mitchell can’t do with his carbon fiber replacement limb — except maybe stand on a metal ladder and hang shoddy light strings on an aluminum tree. That was a big ask.

 

LIGHTS OUT

For spunky Melissa, there’s only one way to rekindle Snow Valley’s dwindling holiday spirit and raise money for the senior care medical center where her nana’s acute COPD is managed: stage the biggest, brightest, most breathtaking tree-lighting ceremony ever! When the switch is thrown, she accomplishes all three: a power surge creates a blackout that disables ventilator pumps for several hours. She returns nana’s gift.