With only one or two exceptions, Canadian films are, as usual, laying low during the hectic and high-powered holiday season, and the few that are in theaters are struggling.

Guide de la petite vengeance, the latest from director Jean-François Pouliot (La grande séduction), grossed more than $520,000 over its first four weekends, averaging $1,800 per screen and topping the domestic chart for the week starting Dec. 1. But distributor TVA Films was expecting better.

‘It’s doing okay,’ says director of programming Sylvain Brabant. ‘We were expecting more, but it’s still out there and it’s too early to tell how it will do over the next couple of weeks.’

The Max Films production, about an accountant seeking revenge on his boss, was released Nov. 17, and, as of Dec. 11, was playing on 40 Quebec screens.

Brabant says it will remain on around 10 screens over the holidays, though, with the slew of Hollywood films now hitting theaters, he says that may be wishful thinking. Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima opens on Dec. 20, followed by the effects-driven Night at the Museum, starring Ben Stiller, on Dec. 22, playing alongside heavies including Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto and the Will Smith starrer The Pursuit of Happyness.

In English Canada, Larry Kent’s black comedy The Hamster Cage made its way across Canada starting with its Sept. 8 opening on one screen in Vancouver, where it played for two weeks.

Distributed by Capri Releasing and produced by Robert French, the film had its longest run in Montreal, where it opened Oct. 13 for three weeks. After only one week on a single Toronto screen, starting Dec. 1, The Hamster Cage wrapped up its theatrical run with box-office grosses of around $16,000.

‘Ourselves, French and Larry all knew the film was going to be a tough sell,’ says Capri VP Robin Smith. ‘We’re relatively happy, but it’s hard to be encouraged when you can only get one week in Toronto.’

Capri is now focusing on strategies for the DVD release and plans to also release Kent’s previous films, such The Bitter Ash (1963) and High (1967), on DVD simultaneously in the new year.

Meanwhile, Odeon Films released Unnatural & Accidental in early December. The Carl Bessai (Emile, Lola) picture – the violent story of a woman (Carmen Moore) who learns of her mother’s murder through the spirits of other women – opened in Vancouver and Toronto on Dec. 1 and in Winnipeg Dec. 8. It hit one screen in each city and as of Dec. 10 had grossed just $5,420.

Also from Odeon, writer/director Reginald Harkema’s low-budget Monkey Warfare grossed $1,398 as of Dec. 10. The comedy starring Don McKellar (Childstar) and Nadia Litz (The Five Senses) opened on one screen in Vancouver Dec. 8, and was to launch on one each in Ottawa and Toronto on Dec. 15. It tells the story of a pair of guerrilla warriors in hiding in Toronto’s Parkdale neighborhood.

Coming soon from Seville Pictures is Partition, the latest feature from Vancouver director Vic Sarin (Deluxe Combo Platter) and prodco Sepia Films. The romantic drama, starring Neve Campbell and Jimi Mistry, will hit theaters across Canada Feb. 2.