Hard Digest December 20: Early Access Hallmark Movies, Elf on a Shelf, Breaking Benjamin, and More

Punk Hallmark Movie Features Scene Veteran Opening Piercing Shop in Cozy Small Town

By Bob Kerr 

LOS ANGELES — Hallmark revealed that their latest holiday movie titled “The Christmas Stud” will feature a punk scene veteran opening a piercing shop in a small cozy town, confirmed mildly interested sources.

“It’s about a scene vet named Spike Mayhem who returns to their hometown of Chestnut Grove, New York and opens a piercing shop to the shock and horror of the town locals,” said Stephen Parker, the writer and director of the film. “I had the idea for the script when I was working at a piercing shop and I was threading this barbell through this guy’s anus and all I could think was, ‘there’s a Hallmark movie in here somewhere.’ Anyway, the film concludes in typical weepy fashion with the townsfolk accepting Spike into their community as they line up to have their septums pierced. I would have included a romance for our main character, but unfortunately, punks do not experience love.”

This is a first for Hallmark whose movies usually feature young attractive people running bookstores and cafes.

“We’re very proud of ‘The Christmas Stud,’” said Hallmark’s CEO, Mike Perry. “The movie is going to introduce a really fresh feel to our brand and it’s a great opportunity to highlight a group of people who are often understood as the gross genital warts of society. On top of that, we even have a goth holiday movie in the works where the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future visit the singer of Bauhaus, but no lessons are learned because they all just hang out and shoot the shit. We are breaking ground here.”

Punk icon Richard Hell was enthused about the movie, noting that this could mark an interesting shift within the scene itself.

“Finally, a Hallmark movie geared toward me, specifically,” said Hell. “Hallmark is the new punk rock! People keep saying how their movies are super fucking repetitive and cookie cutter. You know what else is super fucking repetitive? Punk music! Three chords, we hate authority, blah blah blah. What we need most right now to change things up is a Hallmark movie. Then a Lifetime feature. And our own section at Michael’s. We must infiltrate the ‘60-year-old mom’ market in every facet.”

At press time, Hallmark announced that there is already plans for a sequel based on the Dead Kennedys song “Too Drunk To Fuck.”

You’ve Heard of Elf on a Shelf but Have You Heard My Band’s Demo I Sent You Six Months Ago?

By Trevor Graham 

Well, it’s that magical time of the year again. It’s the holidays and all that capitalist bullshit that we used to make fun of when we were younger and best friends. You remember those days don’t you? When we supported each other and our dreams? Like when we started bands and were excited for each other? Boy, we had some good times, didn’t we?

It’s also the time when everyone on social media shares that “You’ve heard of elf on a shelf but have you heard of…” meme. And sure, it’s funny and all and I get most of the jokes but I ask you now for real, as my friend, you’ve heard of Elf on a shelf but have you heard my band’s demo I sent you six months ago?

Seriously though, I sent it to you over the summer and you haven’t said a whisper about it. You haven’t reached out yet to tell me how sick it is. And obviously you would have done that immediately after listening to it because it is sick.

It’s the gift-giving season when friends give each other presents that are meaningful and will bring joy to their lives and I gave you the greatest gift of all… the gift of music. My music! But I guess you’re “too busy” with your “job” where you “earn a living” and don’t have to mooch off your “girlfriend” who you “hate” and will “definitely dump once those A&R guys hear your demo and you get signed”, right?

I know for a fact you went with your family to see Christmas carolers which I know you hate. How long did that take, two hours? But you can’t take time to listen to my psych-garge-hypno-core opus? It’s only 72 minutes of your time. I thought we were friends. Maybe I need to have Santa put another copy of my demo in your stocking?

And honestly, I don’t want to hear the excuse that since we released the demo only on cassette and not digitally that it makes it impossible to listen to. How hard is it to go on eBay, find someone selling a cassette player, make sure they aren’t a Russian scammer, enter your credit card number, pay for it, make sure your identity hasn’t been stolen, wait six weeks, and then get the player and hook it up to some old speakers (somehow) and listen to my band’s demo? Is that asking too much for one of your oldest friends?

Breaking Benjamin Song Mistaken for Chevelle Song Actually Turns Out To Be Three Days Grace Song

By Steve Packosky 

ELSMERE, Del. — A Breaking Benjamin song heard on the radio by two friends initially thought to be a Chevelle song actually ended up being a Three Days Grace song, confused sources report.

“The radio station was playing some solid tunes back to back with Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and then this song came on that I kind of recognized,” listener Gretchen Ming said. “It sounded kind of heavy in a nu-metal way, but also in kind of a late nineties way, like an old Bush song but not as good. It had the feel of every song that’s ever been played on an alternative rock station mashed into one. I’m not completely certain, maybe like 60-65%, but I concluded that it had to have been by Chevelle. With that being said, though, I wouldn’t go betting my life on it.”

Ming’s fellow passenger and friend Reggie Arch disagreed with her verdict.

“No, that was definitely Breaking Benjamin,” Arch offered while furrowing his brow at the car’s radio. “It had this gloomy, pseudo-alternative sound with a really boring and uninspired riff played throughout. Granted, those are also the hallmarks of a Chevelle song, but the angsty vocals were a dead giveaway. Also, I don’t think Chevelle tunes down as much as Breaking Benjamin does, and they don’t have those little 10-second guitar solos, so I’m pretty confident this was Breaking Benjamin. Well, let’s say I’m moderately confident. Maybe about 70-75%.”

Three Days Grace frontman Adam Gontier provided his insight.

“Oh, they’re both wrong. That’s definitely one of ours,” Gontier concluded while changing the strings on his PRS McCarty electric guitar. “You can tell because we actually use an acoustic guitar for the arpeggiated riffs in the beginnings of our songs, which makes it sound even heavier when we play the root notes with power chords on our down-tuned electrics in the choruses. That’s what really sets us apart from other alternative bands from the last twenty-five years or so. Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s one of ours. Probably 80-85% certain. Like, I’d bet money on it.”

At press time, it was revealed that the song in question was actually by Staind.

More From The Hard Times:

20 Best Christmas Songs For Your “Eyes Wide Shut” Party

“The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol” Praised by SEO Experts

BY Amity Gilmour 

Despite lukewarm reception toward The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol, there is one group of individuals who have praised the show: SEO experts.

“Bravo to the Walking Dead,” said Liz White, a self-proclaimed SEO Expert, Marketing Influencer, and AI Virtuoso. In a sprawling LinkedIn post, she wrote that “There hasn’t been this big a step forward since we started harvesting and selling user data. AMC has pushed the envelope, and it’s up to us to deliver.”

AMC was quick to capitalize on the attention, heaping praise on what some have called a masterclass in outreach.

“In our post-scarcity society, attention is a premium” explained Chief Content Officer of The Walking Dead, Former Showrunner of Seasons 4 to 8, Executive Producer of Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, and eternally despised figure in the fandom Scott Michael Gimple. “That’s why we built our latest product solely based on its potential to rank first on Google.”

When asked if this was an attempt to artificially direct traffic to their show, Scott disagreed. “We put a lot of genuine love and care into crafting this franchise,” he explained, writing an emotional moment for a character with the express purpose of killing them off a minute later. “We value the support the fans have shown us over the years. We just want to make sure new people can find us.”

There has been a lot of heated debate online surrounding the ethics and effectiveness of building a brand solely around its SEO potential.

“This is another hammer in the coffin of independent media,” claimed indie director Eddie Gilderflower. “Just because I wrote the name of my series in a dead, forgotten language, I’m unfairly penalized in search engine rankings. All so multi-billion dollar companies can make a few extra bucks. It’s outrageous and unfair.”

At press time, Scott Gimple announced a massive crossover event entitled AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead Who Live in the World Beyond, Daryl Dixon Doomsday Endgame.

Half of Marvel Rivals Roster Removed in Thanos Update

BY bee

GUANGZHOU, China — An Avengers-themed game update to ‘Marvel Rivals’ has reduced its selection of available playable characters by half. The changes were introduced in NetEase’s official development blog:

“Today marks the beginning of a new season of Rivals! Thanos has entered the fray to wreak havoc on the Timestream Entanglement in our new Avengers: Metagame storyline. He determined it would be a mercy to eliminate half of all characters after recognizing the unsustainability of our large roster. All of the heroes who died in Avengers: Infinity War have been removed as well as several others chosen at random. Oh, we also dusted Hawkeye’s whole family again. They weren’t characters in the game, we didn’t even bother putting their deaths in a cutscene, we just want you to know he’s really sad about it again.”

The roster change has received widespread negative reactions from fans on social media and video platforms. The popular gaming and comic news channel Supermanchild reviewed the update shortly after its release.

“This is bullshit. ‘Random’ my ass: Hela, Iron Fist, Jeff, Luna, and Venom? They just killed off all the good characters instead of trying to balance them. Who are we supposed to play—fucking Namor? And of course all the Thor skins are on sale now. You know, I’m starting to think this game is just a cash grab… and look at Rivals on SteamDB, this is the lowest the current player count has been since launch. They’ll regret this, we gamers hold grudges. We don’t forget. I’m uninstalling this until I get bored with Warzone again.”

Ding Lei, founder and CEO of NetEase, responded to the backlash in a thread on X – the Everything App.

“Looks like Thanos snapped half our players, too” which was ratioed by several replies featuring the character Luigi from Nintendo’s Mario video game franchise. Lei continued in the next post, “We are honored to uphold the super-powerful legacy created by Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe of creating divisive follow-ups to popular media! I just hope we have some players left to disappoint by the time we get to our Ultimatum storyline.”

At press time, NetEase clarified the characters will return next season except for Iron Man who will only be available as a $26 skin for Doctor Doom when he’s added to the roster.