Adult Swim Yule Log

Adult Swim Yule Log (also titled The Fireplace) is a surreal black comedy horror film that originally aired as a special on Adult Swim on December 11, 2022. It was created, written, and directed by Casper Kelly, and produced by Williams Street. Created in secret by Kelly, the film initially presents itself as a holiday footage video of a fireplace located inside a vacation cabin, before eventually giving way to a surprise meta-horror plot occurring within the cabin, and involving the fireplace itself. Adult Swim's first feature film and first horror film, it was met with generally favorable reviews.

Plot
The film begins as a static shot of a cabin fireplace with burning yule logs, accompanied by holiday music. The cabin has a dark history across the ages, including with its original occupant: an American slave owner named Isaac, who is confronted by his slave, Rosa, when he ashamedly admits that he did not sell Rosa's son William to a kind slave owner as he promised her, but to the cruel and sadistic Mr. Armfield because of pressure from Isaac's father. Devastated, Rosa screams that William was their son and stabs him repeatedly with a knife. She hides the knife in the fireplace, but is later lynched at a local hanging tree.

In the present, the owner of the cabin arrives to clean it before the weekend renters arrive, but a deranged masked killer "Pleatherface" and his mother break in and murder her. They hide her body and hide inside the cabin before renters Alex and Zoe arrive. By the fireplace, Alex proposes to Zoe, but they are interrupted by the arrival of the local sheriff and his deputy, who inform the couple of a killer on the loose. The sheriff recognizes that the log burning in the fireplace was taken from the nearby hanging tree, a taboo. Before departing, he extinguishes the log and advises them to take care and not to light it again.

Zoe and Alex argue about her apprehensions about marriage and her mental health struggles. They are interrupted again by the arrival of four renters—Ben, Beth, Holly, and Henry—who accidentally also booked the cabin and plan to investigate lynchings and alien abductions linked to the cabin for their paranormal podcast. They wait inside as Alex and Ben try to contact the owner to sort out the issue. Zoe finds the owner's phone ringing under the couch and, unnerved, she and Alex go pack, while Ben showers, and the others go use the hot tub.

Unnoticed, the fireplace reignites on its own. The cursed yule log, now aflame, floats to the bathroom where Ben is showering and bludgeons him to death. Henry sees a small man talking to him from within the fireplace. The "Little Man in the Fire" beckons Henry to crawl into the fireplace and into a strange burning room. The man has him enter his elevator, which can travel through time and space to any fireplace in existence. He shows Henry the fireplace looking out onto his family's living room where his mother is sleeping, pregnant with him. The man tricks Henry into gruesomely killing her, thereby erasing himself from existence.

Back in the cabin, the renters (now with their friend Hunter, instead of Henry) discover Ben's corpse. Beth calls the police and is killed by the sentient log. The log cries out in Rosa's voice, as well as other anguished voices of past residents, and kills Hunter. The others hide, but are ambushed by Pleatherface and his mother. Unaware of the log, Pleatherface ties up and sexually assaults Holly and Zoe, while his mother assaults Alex in another room. She is interrupted by the arrival of an alien in a UFO, who kills her by sucking out her internal organs. It does the same to Alex, leaving him near death, and threatens Zoe before being decapitated by Pleatherface. As Pleatherface moves to assault Zoe again, the hidden knife drops out of the fireplace, and Zoe uses it to free herself and kill him.

As they escape, Zoe is also entreated by the little man in the fireplace, who offers her the chance to free herself of her anxiety-ridden life by altering history so she would never be born. She resists him, stating that she wants to live, while he admonishes her for living in a privileged era. Alex helps her break free of his influence, while Holly flees into the forest. Alex and Zoe trap the log in the cabin and flee in the car. Their escape brings them by the hanging tree, where cultists have gathered for a ritual to a dark goddess. Zoe recognizes two of the cultists as the sheriff and deputy, and runs them over, driving on until sunrise. When they finally stop, Zoe lovingly accepts Alex's proposal, but they are surprised by the appearance of the log outside their window.

The film freezes, revealed to be playing on a monitor at an Atlanta advertising agency. Isaac is a graphic designer working on a proposal for the new Armfield Cotton Mill Lofts, and his boss and partner Rosa lovingly suggests they leave work early to take their son William to a baseball game. As they talk, the office begins to burn and they begin shifting into their previous identities. Isaac begs Rosa for forgiveness for what he did to their son. Rosa attacks him. As she does, the log, now ridden by the little man, smashes through Zoe and Alex's car window, killing them.

Cast

 * Andrea Laing as Zoe
 * Justin Miles as Alex
 * Jessica Fontaine as Rosa
 * Michael Reagan as Isaac
 * Charles Green as the Little Man in the Fire
 * Sean Hankinson as Ben
 * Hannah Alline as Beth
 * Danielia Maximillian-Almeda as Holly
 * Skye Passmore as Henry
 * Brendan Patrick Connor as Pleatherface/Arvid
 * Tordy Clark as Pleatherface's mother

Development and production
Kelly conceived of the idea in 2021 while watching a yule log video and wondering what would occur if someone's legs appeared out of focus walking across the screen accompanied by dialogue in the background, and whether that would generate curiosity in the viewer. According to Kelly, he was able to pitch the initial concept to Adult Swim directly, given their working history together and was familiar with the system to get it greenlit. Adult Swim also had a slush fund, which allowed Adult Swim executives to approve the project without requiring higher corporate approval. The film was Adult Swim's first feature length project, and simultaneously, its first horror film. It was also Kelly's first feature-length endeavor. Kelly shot the film in secret over the course of 15 days in order to ensure its delivery by the holiday season. Filming took place in Atlanta and with local Atlanta actors and film crews. Keeping the project budget relatively low also helped the project avoid scrutiny from higher ups, according to Kelly. Following the merger of Warner Bros. Animation and Adult Swim's parent company, Cartoon Network, Kelly had to deal with post-production delays and the involvement of six additional editors, following the departure of executive Walter Newman, who originally greenlit the project. The entire process was compressed, taking 6 months, with each editor being given a month to work on their section.

Initially, the film was to open with two hours of the fireplace yule log sequence, but a higher profile time slot caused Kelly to cut the segment down to just two minutes before the subsequent home invasion and murder sequence. Post-production special effects work on the flying log were done by Brazilian company NoxusFX, which specializes in digital fire effects. Filming the opening sequence, an single, unbroken 20 minute scene, was challenging. Leads Laing and Miles were only aware of the set up for the scene days before filming and rehearsed repeatedly to get it right. The film's short production time also meant that Kelly was unable to experiment with the scene's set up, and would not be able to rely on cuts or close ups later in post-production.

Kelly described the decision to add thematic concepts exploring American chattel slavery as a risk he wanted to take. After uncovering familial history of slave ownership, he felt he had a personal perspective to explore on the issue, including the dilemma of moral relativism. Speaking on his interest in exploring questions in the sub-plot, Kelly noted his family's generational history in the South, stating, "[T]he million-dollar question is always: Well, here I am, Mister Progressive Guy in this purple state, but what if I was alive 200 years ago? What would my beliefs be? I like to think I would be a good person, but would I be? It's a scary thought. But it's an interesting, important conversation, and I took a real chance."

Release
The film was produced in secret and released without advertisement on December 11 of 2022, following the season six finale of popular Adult Swim show Rick and Morty.

Reception
Adult Swim Yule Log has an approval rating of 80% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 5 reviews, and an average rating of 6.5/10. On another aggregator, Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on reviews from 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Writing for Cinema Blend, Jason Wiese described the film as "innovative", saying that it could potentially be received as "one of best Christmas horror movies". Eric Kohn of Indie Wire stated that the film took "ambitious swings", praising the slavery sub-plot and gore in particular. Daniel Trainor of The Messenger included the film in his list of top "Yule Log" videos.

Noel Murray writing for The Los Angeles Times stated, "Kelly tries a bit too much, favoring shock and absurdity over consistency and coherence. But the attempt alone is exciting; and it offers a refreshing alternative for those who prefer their holiday entertainment to be spooky, not sentimental." Similar moderately positive reviews came from IGN and Entertainment Weekly. Matt Donato of IGN wrote, "Casper Kelly psychotically spoofs the strangest of strange horror titles that turn anything into a murderous entity while unraveling deadly severe social commentaries. It's abstract art, theater camp, found footage foolishness, hunt-and-stalk depravity — Adult Swim Yule Log is a whole lot of things but, even with a full 90 minutes, few angles feel fully fleshed out." Entertainment Weekly's Darren Franich gave the film a B+, stating, "In these days of TV uncertainty...there's something oddly comforting about the mindbreaking pranks perpetrated by Adult Swim...Fireplace works just as hard to upend your expectations, even if it doesn't hit Kelly's highest heights."