Christmas Wish

Twins Patrick and Alex receive a mysterious gift on Christmas Eve. Be careful what you wish for.

Twins Patrick and Alex get a mysterious gift on Christmas Eve. They should have been more careful about what they wished for.

It is Christmas Eve, and twins Patrick and Alex are waiting on tonight's lottery drawing. Patrick is gripping his ticket so hard that Alex says his knuckles are turning white. The drawing is still 20 minutes away. Patrick says he feels like tonight is the night. Alex points out he says that every week. Patrick says this week is special because it is Christmas Eve, and he bought the ticket himself, so Santa had nothing to do with it.

Alex says he hopes Patrick wins, mostly because he knows Patrick will cut him in. Patrick offers him $10,000. The jackpot is around $800 million, and Alex thinks his twin should be worth at least a million. Patrick says Alex will be around him all the time anyway, so he will end up spending plenty on him.

There is a knock at the door, but nobody is there. They find a gift with no tag and decide it must be for both of them. Inside is a small bottle. It is a little dirty, and it is hot to the touch. A genie appears, speaking a language they do not understand. When one twin wishes he would say something in English, the genie does. That counts as the first wish. The genie tells them to call him whatever they want, says they have two wishes left, and suggests each twin make one.

Patrick goes first and wishes for his ticket to be tonight's winner. Granted. Then it is Alex's turn. Alex wishes for Patrick to be turned into a living ornament so he can hang him on the tree and make him watch Alex win the lottery with Patrick's ticket. Granted.

Patrick cannot believe his twin brother and best friend would do this. Alex explains that he knew what Patrick would wish for, so he let him go first and outwished him. He calls the $10,000 offer pathetic, since Patrick already owes him more than that. He tells Patrick to enjoy life as an ornament and hangs him on the tree. The drawing comes on right on time. The numbers come up 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, and Alex celebrates his win.

Release & Reception

StabMovies.com released Christmas Wish on November 23, 2019. The post said that because of scheduling conflicts with the other actors, Dudley played all the parts.

Cast

Crew

Production

Joshua Patrick Dudley wrote Christmas Wish for the 12 Months of Terror, the 2015 plan for one horror short a month. It would have been the December short. That series stopped in May, so it was never made. The StabMovies.com fan wiki says the film was announced in 2014. The script was published in the StabMovies.com Short Film Collection, which first came out in December 2018.

Dudley said they kept talking about filming it in the years after, because it would be fun to make something for a holiday that was not a scary one. They set up to shoot it several times, and every time something went wrong. It was going to star Dudley and Rachel Alexandria Arnold. The fan wiki says Alex was first written as Alexandria for Arnold. Several people were lined up for the genie over the years. The genie was first written as a woman to be played by Nicole Linton, then another actress who had never been in a Stab movie. On the third try, Mark Haggett was cast as the genie, and Brandon Vesci was going to give him big red genie makeup. In the commentary Dudley said he also cast Sheri Lee at one point when Arnold was busy. Each time, the shoot fell apart.

On November 13, 2019 StabMovies.com posted that it planned to finally film and release Christmas Wish that year. Dudley said the idea to do it alone came one night around November 20, sitting in his house already decorated for Christmas. He was tired of waiting on people. He had shut down three movies because people did not show up, and he knew nobody would have time over the holidays. He has a twin sister and younger twin sisters, and he had always wanted to play his own twin with split screen, like in The Parent Trap.

Before filming, Dudley recorded the other twin's lines along with the TV news audio that turns into the lottery drawing. That kept his timing the same in every take and kept the TV light hitting him the same way at the same moments. He planned out all the lighting, every mark he had to hit and every place he had to look. Once the prep was done, filming took about an hour and a half with him alone moving the camera and calling action on himself. He said it was the fastest shoot on any of his short films, not counting prep. In the commentary he said the last take from each side of the split screen is what made it into the film.

The making of the film is covered in Part 18 of the Behind the Mask documentary series, posted June 24, 2020. Fans asked for a commentary, and a version of the film with commentary from Dudley went up on March 29, 2020.

Music

The film, official page and making-of video do not name a composer or a standalone soundtrack.

Filming locations

• Joshua Patrick Dudley's house, decorated for Christmas: The twins' living room and Christmas tree

Effects and makeup

The twins were done with split screen. Dudley pre-recorded each twin's audio and the TV broadcast so his timing and lighting matched between takes. He called it an old school Hollywood effect.

The genie is a digital demon that was first made for one of the children's books Dudley writes. In the commentary he said a buddy made it, and the demon's mouth was not moving to the script's lines, so he picked the spots that matched best. He voiced it with his Ghost Face voice plus an accent. The fan wiki says the genie was first meant to be live action.

Dudley said he is not very good at digital effects. Watch the genie's left elbow in one shot and you can see it get cut off square by a mask he used.

The ornament's moving eyes were added digitally after the shoot.

Listen close when the genie appears and you can hear the smoke monster sound from Lost.

Props and costumes

Patrick wears glasses and a yellow shirt. Alex wears a red and green shirt. Dudley said the costume change was most of what told them apart, and he wishes he had changed their voices more.

The genie bottle was ordered off Amazon years before. They expected a full size bottle, and a tiny one showed up.

The ornament Patrick becomes is a custom Funko Pop! of Joshua Patrick Dudley made by his friend, artist Jocelyn Pike.

• The script is in the StabMovies.com Short Film Collection paperback, sold through Lulu. It first came out December 13, 2018. The re-release on November 2, 2019 lists 12 scripts, including Christmas Wish, along with an eBook version.

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