LOS ANGELES — The Hallmark Channel announced that their slate of upcoming holiday movies will be their most enticing yet with ten times more storylines featuring dead wives and mothers, confirmed excited shut-ins with no family.
“We’ve coasted successfully on twenty years of holiday-centric meet-ugly romances and secret princes, but viewer interest has waned since most of them can guess the ending 30 seconds into each movie. So this year we’re going to give the people what they really want: nonstop death of any and all maternal figures,” said Executive Producer Roger Wallace. “Nothing tugs at heartstrings like seeing two dozen conventionally handsome inn owners, handymen, and cold-hearted business executives jumping into second marriages after being haunted by unspeakable tragedy. Throw in a wish-granting Salvation Army Santa, and we can easily tap this oilfield for another decade.”
Veteran Hallmark movie actors went along the new direction but expressed concern with its macabre tone.
“I’ve played a wide variety of characters through the years from bachelor tree farm owner to bachelor cookie factory owner. Usually, the scripts would just lightly touch upon my singlehood, either by choice or tragedy and quickly back to baking gingerbread men with a blonde woman. But this feels like more of a bloodbath than usual,” said Hallmark stable actor Brennan Elliot. “I mean this year alone I’m in four movies where my character’s wife dies in a plane crash on the way to their dream job in Paris. Usually, the producers are a little more subtle telling women to not pursue their dreams and to stay home and raise kids, but a paycheck is a paycheck.”
Insiders in the entertainment industry have interpreted Hallmark’s strategy as a warning shot to other networks and streaming entities.
“Now that Netflix, Hulu, and even fucking QVC are jumping on the cheesy holiday movie bandwagon, it’s no surprise that Hallmark is stepping up their game to attract more viewers. Killing off moms and wives is just another ploy to sympathize with the chemistry-deficient male leads, and it’ll probably work,” said TV Guide columnist Morgan Williams. “Rumor has it that there are at least several other networks trying to keep up by producing competing films about orphanages in Christmas-obsessed mountain towns.”
Hallmark also announced that every movie this year will feature creepier, super clingy children hellbent on Christmas wishes delivering them a new stepmom.