The SAG-AFTRA strike significantly impacted content development for all streaming services during 2023; the creatives at Hellmark Studios were not immune. To soften the blow for our loyal fans — all 37 of you — we asked our showrunner to scour the vaults and compile the The Best Of Hellmark — ten classics originally aired during Seasons 1 through 4.
Additionally, two new movies wrapped just in time to have been included this year: Whiz Or Without You and Tail As Old As Time.
For first-time visitors to this site, a caution: Hellmark movies contain no mind-numbing tropes or derivative plots borne of uninspired romcom writing. Our characters are flawed. Their behaviors are largely irredeemable. Their circumstances are hopefully unrelatable.
Enjoy.
BLUE, BLUE CHRISTMAS
The spirit of Christmas and inclusiveness is put to a blushing test when lovable Mr. Cantwell — the long-time leader of the popular singalong that precedes the town’s annual tree-lighting ceremony — is permitted to continue in his role despite a recent diagnosis of severe Tourette Syndrome. F**K The Herald Angels, indeed.
MAKE IT MAKE SCENTS
The Fertz family has operated Eagleville’s Christmas candle factory for generations, but financial strains have made it necessary for daughter Sierra, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, to find a well-healed business partner. She identifies one viable candidate – a large housewares company owned by the Smeller family — but creating an acceptable hybrid name proves vexing.
JINGLE BALLS
Visiting family for the holidays, a star dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet enjoys spirited, post-dinner street hockey with his nephews until fate intervenes: a 90-mph slapshot to his unprotected crotch. The only surgical option is to replace his shattered testicles with an experimental alloy that reverberates like wind chimes whenever he leaps.
LIGHTS OUT
Spunky Melissa knows there’s one surefire way to rekindle Snow Valley’s holiday spirit and raise money for the assisted living center where her beloved nana’s acute COPD is being managed: stage the most breathtaking tree-lighting ceremony the town has ever seen! When the switch is thrown to illuminate a majestic 80-foot Spruce, her goal is realized: a power blackout disables every ventilator pump at the center for two days; Melissa returns nana’s Christmas gifts.
WHIZ OR WITHOUT YOU
Eric wanted his first date with Michele – the art instructor he has been exchanging emails with for six months – to be a grand, romantic gesture: a meeting at the top of the Empire State Building on New Year’s Eve! But his train into the city ran one hour late, and he squandered another 90 minutes in the men’s room at Penn Station, crippled by an attack of shy bladder syndrome. Michele was on time; she bumped into her old college crush, now one of New York’s top urologists. A June wedding is planned.
VETTING HER FRUSTRATION
Brad is a single dad, raising 5-year-old Cloe while working as the town’s only veterinarian. Tiffany runs a bake shop and just rescued the cutest Golden Retriever, Champ. When an unguarded Champ eats a big batch of Tiffany’s famous chocolate Christmas cookies, she rushes him to Brad’s practice — but he is binge-drinking in faraway woods. Champ dies a miserable death. DYFS claims Cloe. Tiffany moves to a town with two vets.
THRONE FOR A LOOP
Prince Leopold of Latkovia is absolutely smitten with the new American nanny. She is great with the children, down-to-earth, and can definitely hold her own in an impromptu snowball fight. But his ardent feelings are put to the test when he accidentally discovers that she can also hold her own while urinating: the nanny is a tranny!
TAIL AS OLD AS TIME
Steve has been infatuated with co-worker Beth for months and knows he will score points by participating in her winter festival fundraiser: a polar bear plunge. But he has quite the costuming decision to make: wear a T-Shirt that conceals his chiseled chest, or take the plunge topless and see if she is the kind of girl intrigued by superfluous nipples and a vestigial tail.
THE HAND THAT ROOKS THE DREIDEL
Irish-Catholic Emily enjoys the cross-cultural experiences that come with dating college classmate Isaac, especially during the holidays. But she has grown increasingly suspicious that whenever the center pot balloons during a family game of dreidel, bubbe Esther somehow always spins a gimel. Accuse a beloved matriarch of playing with a loaded dreidel? The shiksa is going to hit the fan.
SING LIKE NO ONE IS READING
She’s twelve, passionate about singing, but struggles with dyslexia. Transfer-student Becky has a decision to make: deny her dream of performing a hymn at the middle school Christmas program, or hope her new classmates accept her earnest rendition of The First Leon.
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.
LOVER AT FIRST CIDER
Restaurant owner Beth is hellbent on getting her famous hand-pressed apple cider to the kitchen of the hunting lodge before the start of their holiday party. She crashes into Steve – a pee collector making a delivery from his dad’s deer urine farm. The pair tumble to the ground, romantic sparks fly, and their containers get switched. Everyone at the party agrees that this year’s cider was more foamy than usual.
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