Adult Swim Yule Log, also known as The Fireplace, was a surprise 2022 film. The film is part absurdist Adult Swim comedy, part horror, and part meta-narrative fire-crackling Yule Log video. The high-concept horror film delivered on all fronts and was truly an ambitious film, unlike anything we’d ever seen from the Adult Swim team. Yule Log 2 Branching Out, the film’s recent sequel, unfortunately, drops everything that made the first special and is simply a serviceable Adult Swim production.

Written and Directed by Casper Kelly, the Adult Swim Yule Log cinematic universe follows a murderous Yule log that whips and scorches its victims to smithereens. It’s goofy, over the top, and creates silly Adult Swim imagery. But where the second film is all goofs, the first is so much more.

Adult Swim Yule Log (Fireplace)

Casper Kelly created a Yule Log horror film idea after putting on one of the hundreds of fireplace videos that litter YouTube. Videos that are just a stagnant image of a crackling image while soft inoffensive music plays in the background. Kelly’s idea was for a video like this, but with some strange dialogue and out-of-focus legs walking in and out of the frame. And for the first act of this movie, that’s essentially what he does.

Adult Swim Yule Log begins with two minutes of a static fireplace before zooming slightly out to reveal a larger story at play. The first thirty minutes of the film are one shot with the fireplace centered in frame, while an interracial couple has their romantic weekend interrupted by local sheriffs and double-booked guests.

The Story in the Story

Centering the story around an interracial couple is paramount to themes and ideas Adult Swim Yule Log will eventually introduce. It’s revealed through sweeping edits and time jumps that this house used to belong to a slave owner. A slave owner who was murdered by a slave he had impregnated before selling off their child to a notoriously violent slave owner. The slave was eventually lynched, and the unsuspecting couple used a branch from her hanging tree for their festive fire. An act that turns the Yule Log into a vengeful, murderous Lincoln Log.

Yes, it’s a bonkers narrative, but it works surprisingly well in the framework of the film. A later section involves Alien invaders, murderous backwood rednecks, and a creepy cult. It’s all absurd and quintessential Adult Swim. But all of it points to the film’s larger themes of racism and colonization.

Invaders

It takes a full twenty minutes of runtime before the camera actually moves and the film changes from a static found footage film to a more traditional one. This gimmick is useful for the first act and while it could have carried throughout, the second and third acts are just as strong, even without the technical camera work.

The time-jumping and slow reveals of the fireplace’s despicable past are some of the most effective beats in the film. Learning the homes backstory is classic haunted house movie fodder and it’s done here in Adult Swims signature style. When the aliens show up it may seem like another absurd Adult Swim stake-raising for comedic effect, but it points back to the film’s bigger theme. The aliens are colonizers without empathy. They see themselves as a superior race, so they have little concern about what happens to the previous inhabitants.

Moral Relativism

Adult Swim Yule Log ends in fantastic fashion. The film begins jumping into meta-narratives, showing characters we’ve seen before now in new settings in an attempt to contextualize the film we’ve just watched. It doesn’t all land but it’s all cohesive. A rarity for Adult Swim programs.

Adult Swim Yule Log is more than just a gimmick. It’s a high-concept idea that ended up being a superb horror comedy. It takes big swings and provides commentary on America’s dark past while also questioning our place in the world. That is why the sequel and its typical Adult Swim execution is so disappointing.

Adult Swim Yule Log 2 Branching Out

The second film takes place a few months after the events of the first and follows the same protagonist. Rather than continue with the high-concept and deeper themes of the first, Yule Log 2 is essentially just an Adult Swim horror holiday comedy.

After the events of the first film, Zoe played by Andrea Laing, ends up in the small town of Mistletoe. When she arrives the aspect ratio morphs into a standard TV ratio, and the color grading goes from horror movie cool tones to bright Hallmark Channel warm ones. She’s immediately stumbled by several clumsy hunks while still trying to survive the murderous log. It’s silly, pokes fun at Hallmark movies, and does little else.

Duality

It’s not that Adult Swim Yule Log 2 is a bad film, just a disappointing one. Fans of the Adult Swim humor will find a lot to enjoy here. The Hallmark movie narrative is funny, the new characters are charming, and the locations feel right out of a cheesy Christmas movie. But the Yule Log 2 fails to stay coherent like its predecessor and instead falls into the same ever-rising stakes trope of so many Adult Swim programs.

There is a deeper meaning to Yule Log 2. Zoe overcomes her personal trauma in several ways and eventually finds love is the cure to her curse. But it’s not nearly as coherent or fleshed out as in the original. Adult Swim Yule Log 2 is a fine Adult Swim production. But Adult Swim Yule Log, is a fantastic film.