HBO Max Has a Hidden ‘Yule Log’ Horror Movie

How to unwrap a terrifying early Christmas present from Adult Swim and the creator of Too Many Cooks.

You know those yule log videos that are popular around the holidays? There’s a new one available for streaming on HBO Max, but rather than a static shot of some logs burning against an aural backdrop of cheesy Christmas music, this yule log holds a deliciously evil secret: a feature length horror/comedy flick that will bend your mind.

The movie originally aired on Adult Swim this week without fanfare, but if you missed it, you can check it out on HBO Max. Just type “Adult Swim yule log” into the search bar and sit back and enjoy an absolutely bat-crap wild movie.

Where did this movie come from anyway?

I’m not going to spoil anything about the plot of Adult Swim Yule Log, aka The Fireplace—best to see it cold (no pun intended). But I will tell you it starts with a static shot of a burning yule log and eventually goes so far off the rails you’ll forget the rails ever existed.

It makes sense when once you realize the movie is the work of Casper Kelly, the director behind Too Many Cooks, the infamous short film that that Adult Swim “hid” amid a block of late night infomercials. Like that deliriously unhinged piece, The Fireplace takes a television trope that is thoroughly embedded in our consciousness and completely upends it.

Share The Yule Log with a friend

The best way to catch a movie like this (or oddities like Too Many Cooks or the Will Ferrell/Kristen Wiig deadpan Lifetime thriller A Deadly Adoption) is by stumbling across it by accident. But you already know the secret, so do the next best thing: engineer someone else’s discovery. Wait until you have an unsuspecting victim (or victims) in your home, and tell them you want to chill out and wrap presents while the yule log plays in the background. Then put this on. Everyone will forget about the presents about five minutes into the video, I promise.