While double features are examined in our ‘Movie Duel!’ series, this selection took a turn once a far more strange phenomenon reared its festive head. “Hometown Holiday” and “Christmas in the City” are both Hallmark Christmas movies available on Netflix, and their similarities become more and more stark until you realize something even stranger is happening.

Christmas of 2021 saw the release of two hallmark movies, released a week apart, with identical casts including the two main characters who are real life twin sisters. A closer look reveals Ashley Williams and Kimberly Williams-Paisley are each credited as the lead in their own respective version.

A swath of fans and artists alike streaming the movies noticed that, though each one was released exactly one week apart, they are practically the same movie. Some questioned if this was a meta commentary by Hallmark on the repetitiveness of their film catalogue, or sheer laziness, perhaps more telling of the lackadaisical nature today’s audiences will consume Christmas-related content. 

After all, look at two side by side frames of each movie:

The most in depth fascination came from “Community” and “Rick and Morty” creator Dan Harmon, who brought the eerie double feature to everyone’s attention on his Instagram in December of 2022. 

“So we thought ‘oh cool it’s a franchise and there’s a sequel, so which Sister Swap is first?’” Harmon asked. “They are not sequels. Both Sister Swaps are the same story, about sisters – played by real life sisters, who have to swap…cities,” Harmon elaborates that the movies are essentially slightly different cuts of each other, sharing identical dialogue.

Move over MCU, the real crossover of universes has taken place. The fun on Instagram continued as the cast and crew of the Hallmark films commented, confirming Harmon’s fascinated pleas and making sense of the duplicated movies.

Essentially, the same movie was created, and then edited into two separate stories from each sister’s perspective. “They share nine scenes, with different edits to those scenes that favor whichever sister’s movie it is,” explained Executive Producer Neal Dodson.

Along with the identical twin sisters playing real life twins, the movies also kept the theme, starring near-identical casts and sporting the same editor. A cynical movie buff could easily take this phenomenon as another example that studios see films more as ‘content’, and think audiences would take in the same drivel twice, without even noticing.

Perhaps we as an audience can, just this once, appreciate the nonsense this Christmas, and delight in the bizarre choice Hallmark made when they allowed this 2-for-1 stocking stuffer onto our Netflix accounts. Let’s make it a point this holiday season to enjoy the little things, and lean towards positivity whenever we get the chance.