Happy (almost) Halloween!
Since it’s the spookiest month of the year, I thought this movie was appropriate. It’s a ghost story, you see. But it’s also a romantic movie because it’s a made-for-tv Christmas movie. Most of them are romances, let’s be real.
(Speaking of which, Hallmark has already started to air their movies. How many have you seen already?)
Anyway, let’s check out this ghostly yet romantic Christmas movie!
They’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glory of SPOILERS long ago!
We open in the 1920s. A lone man (Thomas Beaudoin) treks through snowy woods at night. He reaches an opening and looks at a brightly lit house with joy and relief. But when he sees a woman and a man embracing outside the house, his joy turns to dismay. He starts to walk away when someone hits him in the head. The man collapses and lays in the snow as blood seeps out from his head.
Everything then fades to black.
That was an unexpected beginning.
But we are soon back on familiar ground as we meet our heroine, Kate (Jen Lilley), where she is on a date. However she and her latest boyfriend both agree to end the relationship, that it’s not going well. Apparently, Kate has never been in love and has a very high bar for love, which is hard for her previous boyfriends to meet. But she’s not too upset and she moves on.
We learn that Kate is a lawyer and her boss Oliver (Christopher Tarjan) informs her that a client has passed away – but that’s good news. She has left behind a bed and breakfast in a historic mansion located near the Canadian border. However, they are having problems getting it inspected and so Oliver sends Kate to get it done so they can put the house on the market by Christmas.
Kate arrives and meets the current caretaker, Rafferty (Robert Walsh). The rest of the staff has left and he is on his way out himself, saying that the house always sits empty from December 12th to December 24th. Rafferty advises Kate to stay elsewhere but she insists on staying in the bed and breakfast while she gets it inspected. Rafferty gives her some instructions for staying in the house and then heads out.
So Kate spends the night in the house. While she’s asleep, someone enters the house and turns off the security system. When Kate wakes up, she finds the man from the opening scene standing over her. He demands that she leaves and when she refuses, he picks her up and carries her out himself. Kate stands there, wrapped in a blanket, and waits for the sheriff to come. Sheriff Bell (Bates Wilder) searches the property but finds nobody there and tells Kate she needs to set the alarm. Kate is pretty sure she did it but figures maybe she forgot.
Except she runs into the man again and after a few more calls to the sheriff that end with nothing, Kate starts to question her sanity as the sheriff starts to lose his patience with her. Rafferty then returns, deciding that if Kate is determined to stay there, she was going to need some help making peace with Daniel.
Who is Daniel, you ask? Why he’s the ghost haunting the bed and breakfast!
Except it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Rafferty explains that the reason the bed and breakfast is closed from December 12th to December 24th is that for those 12 days, Daniel comes back to life. But he’s trapped on the property, which he eventually proves to Kate. So the staff usually just leaves him to brood and come back when he’s a ghost again. Kate, though, is determined to get the inspection completed so she makes a deal with Daniel. They agree to figure out why he keeps coming back for these 12 days and how to free him from the curse.
So Kate starts to learn more about Daniel as she also brings some Christmas cheer to the house. He tells her that he and his brother Charles (Steven A. Miller) inherited the house. Charles wanted to sell it but Daniel decided to turn it into an inn. He struggled financially but managed to keep it afloat.
Enter Lilly (Kati Salowsky). She and her father move to town and both brothers fall in love with her. Lilly ends up falling for Daniel rather than Charles. They start to plan a life together as the inn falls on hard times. With Prohibition going strong in the United States, Daniel’s cousin Harry (Brett Leigh) convinces Daniel to start rumrunning given how close they are to Canada. There’s a lot of money but he has to deal with shady characters. Daniel decides to do it and it helps him keep the inn running.
Charles, though, tells Lilly about Daniel’s illegal activities and she’s naturally concerned. She asks him to stop immediately but he says he needs to do one last job, that it will allow them to get married and have a comfortable life. He promises to be back by the Christmas Eve party but Lilly is still upset with him.
Of course, as we know, he dies before he can keep his promise to Lilly. And he saw her hugging Charles, even knowing that she married his brother after his death thanks to him haunting the inn. Harry ran the inn for him and it was his daughter who passed away, leaving the inn to be sold. Kate believes they need to figure out who killed him in order to solve the curse and she sets out to get some answers.
Oliver is getting antsy but Kate promises him that she will get it ready in time. She continues to do some research and gets at least one answer for Daniel. Kate reveals that Lilly had been pregnant when Daniel died. It seems Charles married her to protect her reputation but Daniel was listed as the father on the baby’s birth certificate. Unfortunately, Lilly and the baby ultimately died. However Daniel realizes that Lilly was true to him and that his brother had at least some good intentions toward marrying her.
Though Charles could still have killed him and moved in on Lilly. No one knows.
Meanwhile, things get creepier at the house as our heroes realize there are more ghosts in the house than just Daniel. He starts seeing Lilly walking around the house while Kate is attacked a few times by a dark presence. Daniel starts to protect her as they realize the dark presence is likely the spirit that keeps chasing off the inspectors, not Daniel. They think everything is tied together and they really need to solve the mystery.
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| (We pause for some eye candy) |
A friend of Rafferty’s, Molly (Joanna Herrington), is embarking on a new venture now that she’s out of a relationship. She wants to open a restaurant and hosts a party at the inn to impress some investors. They decide to bring back the annual Christmas Eve party and start decorating for the holiday. It’s clear that there’s something between Rafferty and Molly, though her brother the sheriff is a bit concerned given how many times his sister has had her heart broken.
As Christmas Eve draws closer, it’s also clear that Kate and Daniel have a connection as well. But they know it can’t work since he’s, you know, dead. But Kate still promises to visit him every year until they can figure out how to break the curse.
Kate gets called back to the city again but she manages to return in time for the Christmas Eve party. She and Daniel share a dance before he spots Lilly again, following her as she finally leads him to the answers he has been seeking. Daniel gets to relieve the night from her perspective and sees that she and Charles were worried about him. What he saw was his brother comforting her as she wishes that Daniel was with her, that they had spent the last twelve days together. It is then that he realizes why he keeps coming back for those twelve days – it is a chance to get the time back he lost due to his trip.
So that answer one question. And it rules out Lilly and Charles as the dark mass. So who is it and did they kill Daniel?
With Kate’s help, Daniel realizes there was only one person who knew his route and schedule. The dark force materializes and becomes his cousin Harry, who killed Daniel on the orders of the mob boss they were working for. The boss didn’t trust Daniel not to blab about their operation and threatened Harry’s family. Harry felt guilty for what he did, which is why he took care of Daniel all those years. Daniel forgives Harry and everyone can move on to the afterlife.
Daniel meets with Lilly at the edge of the property. She gives him a choice – he can follow her to the afterlife or get a chance to live again.
Kate wakes up on Christmas morning and Rafferty reveals that he has bought the inn. He promises to keep it just the way it is and Molly says she will help him as they continue with their relationship. Kate is happy for them but sad that Daniel is gone. She leaves the house and spots someone walking toward her. It is Daniel – he’s chosen to come back to life and spend the rest of it with Kate. They hug and share a kiss as the movie ends.
See? Both spooky yet sweet!
I really enjoyed this movie. I thought the mystery was very compelling and kept me guessing for the most part. The twist that it was the cousin did really surprise me but it all made sense once it was revealed. So kudos to the writers – you sometimes don’t expect that level from one of these holiday movies.
Lilley and Beaudoin have great chemistry together. And Beaudoin really makes a great leading man. We need him in more movies! He really made Daniel feel real and yet also like a real-life romantic novel hero. So bravo to him.
Definitely give this movie a watch – you’ll be enchanted by the romance as well as captivated by the mystery.
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