This time of year eight years ago...
I was sixteen, and I was obsessively perusing these message boards and watching any and all footage I could from this film.
It's a damn shame it's as dismissed as it is. It's a mediocre film, but it's incredibly well shot and it's become a holiday tradition for me (along with the original of course, plus a bunch of other Christmas classics, horror and non).
I will say that the Weinsteins really screwed up with the misleading promo footage in the trailers though. I recall everyone being pissed off that there was all this stuff presented in the trailer that had nothing to do with the actual movie. Seems run of the mill with the Weinsteins though— most of their films under the Dimension branch end up totally hacked to pieces before they get released, and the result is subpar at best. I didn't even realize the film hadn't made it to Blu-ray in the US. I had to order myself a copy of the Blu-ray from Amazon Canada just so I could have it.
Anyway, I guess my point is, despite all the flaws, this movie has a special place in my macabre-loving, sacrilegious heart.