Review of Pottersville (2017) by Stacie M — 26 Dec 2018

With the literally hundreds of terrible "cutesie Christmas" movies flooding Netflix, Hulu, Prime, etc... this time of year, it's almost painful to try to find anything worth watching. I have never - and will never - watch a single "The Prince Who Didn't Know He Was A Price Until Christmas And Then He Found His Soul-Mate Working At The Local Coffee Shop And Made Her A Christmas Princess" flick. However, as I was trying to dig my way past all of those, I noticed the top billed cast for "Pottersville" and decided to take a chance. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many familiar faces! There is a sweet tongue-in-cheekiness, as well as a few well placed winks to the weird (like our favorite lovable red spawn of hell, Ron Perlman, as a "furry" - a wolf, not a squirrel) that kept a smile on my face.

Yes, I know this sappy crap is exactly that - but this one KNOWS it's sappy crap and doesn't try to tug at the easy heart-strings. Also, as a 44 year old woman who grew up in the Midwest (and is raising my family in the same city), I remember the sinking feeling our entire community experienced during the Reagan era mass lay-offs, business closings, and farm bankruptcies. Our city was lucky in that one large manufacturer was able to hang in there and eventually call many workers back. But we were in a bad way - my dad was laid off and taking any work he could get. We actually installed a wood burning stove in the basement, disconnected the furnace, and heated our home with wood that my family went to chop almost every weekend at a friend's large propriety (we got free wood in exchange for my dad doing manual labor for this guy) - we had to do this for two years. So, even though the "dying town" flicks don't usually draw me in, for some reason this one really brought back all those feelings, while keeping me smiling.