Chris Carver (Eddie Murphy) is laid off 3 days before Christmas and the street decoration competition he and his family take part in each year introduces a $100,000 prize. So what better way to feel the spirit of Christmas than to find a peculiar shop with a completely trustworthy elf (Jillian Bell) and buy the decorations that will win you that prize? 

Candy Cane Lane is for me a nightmarish journey through saccharine made for TV shovelware Christmas movies. For those of you with more Christmas spirit than I (most of you) there maybe something in here for you. But honestly I doubt it. 

The opening segment sets up Chris as someone who hand carves his Christmas decorations. This does not come up again. It sets up a rivalry with a neighbour who wins each year. Does not matter. For some unknown reason his streets competition is televised and has now attracted a sponsor who offers a prize. Why? This film is 2 hours long and nothing matters.

Very rarely there is a genuinely funny joke. They mostly come from Timothy Simons TV anchor who looks genuinely dejected that his career in journalism has taken him here. Actually I am being generous. His character is the only funny one in the film and he barely appears in it. 

It is just exasperating. It turns into a “monkey’s paw” story where his need to win the competition involves him entering into a pact where he must obtain gold rings from the animals/people in the 12 days of Christmas song. This of course means terrible CGI birds and absolutely insane sequences involving “lords a leaping” and “maids a milking”. 

Whilst this is happening him and his family get to bond and learn how much they love each other. Just to be clear though, this is a film where the family names are Chris, Carol, Joy, Nick and Holly. Yes. That is correct. 

There are countless better Christmas movies than this. I really hope you have exhausted them all before turning to this. There is a poster that regularly pops up in this film that says, “Comparison is the thief of joy”. Unfortunately whilst I agree with the sentiment this does not apply to this film as it is objectively awful before you even dare to compare it with anything else.