The Eurovision also rans team with boy band has-beens for the theme tune to a Christmas horror film.
I’ve been getting press releases and screening invites for There’s Something in the Barn – the new Christmas-themed Norwegian horror film about evil elf monsters – for what feels like most of the year, without any of them summoning any level of enthusiasm from me. Not because it seems especially awful in the grand scheme of modern horror, but because I can’t honestly see myself writing about it for any reason and don’t really want the obligation that saying ‘yes’ to a PR invite places on you. Perhaps my interest would be heightened by the soundtrack single by Subwoolfer? As probabilities go, this one was decidedly in the ‘slim’ category, but let’s take a listen anyway, shall we?
Those of you with long memories for gimmicky crap will recall that Subwoolfer were the Norwegian entry in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, where they performed Give That Wolf a Banana while wearing wolf-head masks like a poor man’s Daft Punk. Even by Eurovision standards, this was a novelty affair and they didn’t win. For I Think I Killed Rudolph, they are joined by ageing British-Norwegian boyband A1, who were briefly big at the start of the 2000s.
Is this bad? Oh God, yes. How bad? Words fail me. While I guess it is supposed to be satirical, it’s only the lyrics (driving home in the show, hits a reindeer, you get the picture) that are remotely amusing – and not very amusing at that. But the performance is such note-strangling autotuned-to-fuck warbling over a turgid R&B ballad tune that only the most desperate listener will ever listen long enough to get to the point of the joke. Their Eurovision entry started in a similar fashion but at least evolved into a bouncy Euro-dance tune, while this stays a one-note atrocity throughout. Sitting through this is like having your kidneys removed through your nose.
As a taster for the film, I’m afraid it’s not selling it to me. And as a Christmas record – an ironic Christmas record, a sincere one, whatever – it fails miserably as well. I mean, if you are going to do a comedic Christmas-themed song for a comedic Christmas-themed horror film, you really should be coming up with something more worthwhile than this. Just who is this aimed at? Not horror fans, surely? And not lovers of Christmas kitsch either. Perhaps the target audience is the ageing boy band fan demographic, which certainly exists but will probably not respond favourably to songs about killing Rudolph – or to horror movies. The mere fact that this track appears in the film is actually putting me off watching it and its existence as a stand-alone download seems more desperation than a commercially savvy move.
DAVID FLINT
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