Candy Cane Lane is a 2023 holiday fantasy comedy film directed by Reginald Hudlin, written by Kelly Younger (Muppets Haunted Mansion), and starring Eddie Murphy, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jillian Bell, Thaddeus J. Mixson, Ken Marino, and Nick Offerman.
Murphy plays Chris, a dad with an overzealous drive to win his neighborhood Christmas decoration contest. When he makes a deal with a mischievous elf named Pepper (Bell) to win, he unwittingly unleashes Yuletide-themed magical mayhem upon his town and must work with his family to undo his mistake. The film released on Prime Video December 1, 2023.
Candy Cane Lane includes examples of the following tropes:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In the trailer, Chris' kids tell him their ideas for better things he could have wished for: world peace, an end to world hunger, an end to homelessness, an end to climate change, a new Drake album...
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In the trailer, Chris confides in Pepper that he just wants the best Christmas ever. As a result, he gets a whole mess of magical holiday havoc.
- Chekhov's Skill: The older Carver kids being into track and music respectively, proves useful in recovering rings by either chasing after whoever has them or getting into a battle of the bands with twelve drummers drumming.
- Cocky Rooster: During the climax, Chris, now in glass figure form, has to get a ring from one of the Three French Hens, which actively attacks him and the other figures all the while.
- Creative Closing Credits: The zoetrope-like decoration showing scenes from the film. The credit for each of the main cast is shown with a scene of their character.
- Curse Cut Short:
- When Chris sees the moving glass statues, his reaction is interrupted by carolers
Chris: What the f-
Carolers: Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!- Pepper goes through the same thing when the statues are turned back to normal
Pepper: What in the absolute f-
Carolers: Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la! - Exact Words:
- Pepper's task stipulates that Chris has to find the gold rings, as in the five gold rings from "The Twelve Days of Christmas". However, Chris is warned that Pepper tends to cheat by putting a spin on her tasks at the last second. The twist is that the carol, being a cumulative song, repeats "five gold rings" eight times throughout the song, so the task is actually forty gold rings, at which point Pepper unleashes a horde of the gifts from the song carrying the rings for a to-the-last-minute scramble.
- Chris will turn into a figurine when the clock tower rings eight times on Christmas eve. Pepper cheats by moving up the clock five minutes so he'll transform early, though he still has time to complete the task.
- This is turned on Pepper in the end. It seems like Chris has lost because his family is two rings short, but Santa points out that they have extra gold rings: Chris and Carol's wedding rings. Pepper never specified which gold rings were needed.
- Foreshadowing: When the decorating contest's cash prize is presented on the news, the amount of $100,000 is accompanied by an asterisk. Turns out the prize is just $100,000 worth of free tacos, not actual money.
- Foul Waterfowl: In the trailer, there is a shot of an angry goose honking at the camera before an entire flock breaks into a room.
- Genre Savvy: When Nick suggests splitting up, Carol immediately asks him if he's ever seen a horror movie. Gary then adds that Black Dude Dies First, and points out that the entire family qualifies.
- The Ghost:
- Out of all of the gifts described in "Twelve Days of Christmas", the only ones to never appear onscreen as adversaries are the Nine Ladies Dancing.
- The Four Calling Birds never appear onscreen either, only calling the protagonists on their phones twice during the movie. All we know of their appearance is that they're implied to be parrots.
- Harmless Electrocution: As the figures get settled into the Carvers' house. Gary, upon seeing it, boasts about having been a master at Operation and how he never touched the edges once. As he does, his lamplighting stick ends up touching one, sending him into a fit as electricity courses through his body and making him briefly see-through in the process.
- Hypocrite: Pepper curses people to become living Christmas ornaments because she believes they don't understand the true meaning of Christmas. Meanwhile, throughout the movie, she is shown to be quite petty, conniving, and vindictive...all of which would land anybody else on Santa's naughty list.
- Hypocritical Humor: In The Stinger, Pepper, who is now an ornament, bemoans to Santa "You can't just turn everyone you want into an ornament" despite the fact that that's what she has been doing.
- Pun:
- Usually, the "three French hens" described in "Twelve Days of Christmas" refer to a specific breed of chicken called a Faverolles chicken. Here, the Three French Hens are just three hens of various breeds wearing Frenchman costumes.
- The Four Calling Birds. As in, they call you. On your cell phone.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Pepper gets turned into an ornament at the end by Santa as punishment for the trouble she caused, but he implies that he'll turn her back one day.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: After he has been going around looking in vain for more decorations to buy, Chris stumbles upon Pepper's odd shop under the bridge. It seems perfectly suited to his needs, and is stated to not have been there beforehand. Lampshaded by Pepper, who claims her shop is a pop-up.Pepper: Here today, gone tomorrow.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Pepper curses people because she believes Santa gives too many passes for what she believes to be naughty behavior, but her actions throughout the film, needlessly tormenting Chris's family even though he was the one who made the deal, plus cheating at the end by moving the clock to eight when Chris still had 5 minutes left, shows that she's not really acting in the spirit of Christmas and is just being petty and rotten.
- Over The Top Christmas Decorations: The first shots of the trailer show a neighborhood filled with elaborate Christmas and Hanukkah displays, including an lot of inflatable Santas.
- Read the Fine Print: Pepper discourages Chris from reading the fine print on the receipt he is to sign. The glass figurines later call Chris out for not reading the fine print.
- Reality Warper: Pepper, to an extent. She frequently pulls a Stealth Hi/Bye, can turn people into glass ornaments, and changes a projection on a house to a peppermint theme.
- Rousing Speech: Pepper sends the Three French Hens and Ten Lords-a-Leaping to menace the Carvers, and by extension everyone outside their house watching the parade, with bold, stirring, and somewhat nonsensical pep talks.
- Shout-Out: One house has decorations inspired by The Matrix, complete with a couple wearing suits and sunglasses.
- Team Power Walk: The Carvers do this in the climax
- The Stinger: Set one week later, showing that Pepper is now an ornament and Chris now owns the shop
- Stop Faux-tion: The animation for the glass figurines resembles this.
- Surprisingly Functional Toys: Once transported to the Carver household, Pip finds a fully-working Corvette perfectly scaled for the glass figures that's capable of driving like the real thing. It proves useful during the finale when the race for the rings intensifies.
- Theme Naming: The Carver family has Christmas-themed names, though most of them are more subtle: Chris, Holly, Nick, Carol and Joy. Lampshaded by the family themselves and the Carolers.
- Toy Transmutation: The punishment for failing to fulfill the contract is being turned into a living glass figurine.
- Under New Management: The Stinger shows that a week after the events of the film, Chris owns Pepper's shop and has renamed it Chris Kringle's
- Was Once a Man: The main trailer reveals that as a result of signing the receipt without reading the fine print, Chris will be turned into a living figurine, as he learns from Pepper’s other victims. In the end, thanks to Holly's wish, every one of Pepper's victims are turned back to normal.
