Written by Jason Filiatrault And James Kee And Sarah Larsen And Doug Taylor And Pascal Trotter
Directed by Grant Harvey And Steven Hoban And Brett Sullivan
Caprice: "Merry Christmas, motherfucker."
I'm going to try and watch more horror themed Christmas movies as we head into December and some less traditional ones too. Mainly horror themed movies during the festive period. Like this one for example.
The title promised A Christmas Horror Story and it does make an effort to try and deliver on that premise. William Shatner's a radio DJ named Dangerous Dan and throughout the movie, it's Dan who tells us four seemingly unconnected stories. I'll go from most to least interesting.
Most interesting was the story of Santa Claus. Only Saint Nick wasn't preparing for the biggest night of the year. He was too busy fending off and killing his zombie possessed wife and elves. Then came a battle with Krampus, only for the story to have the twist of a delusional mall Santa. Easily the best of the bunch.
Coming in second was a family visiting their grandmother who earns them of Krampus as well. This story had a creepy caretaker, a spiteful boy and for some reason, a daughter whose anger also turned her into Krampus. I have to say that Krampus looked suitably creepy in both of the segments.
The third story in my ranking then centred on a police officer, his wife and their son. An encounter in the woods saw the son swapped out for a changeling and a lot of other creepy shit before ending on a more bittersweet note.
The least interesting story but by no means bad focused on a group of kids who broke into their school, which was also an old convert. This one was something of a ghost story with a pregnancy twist and while decent, I found it lagged compared to the other stories.
- The End Credits has Dangerous Dan doing a phone in.
- The movie takes place in Bailey Downs, the same fictional town used in the Ginger Snaps movies and Orphan Black series.
- Standout music: It's Christmas Eve at the start of the movie.
- Chronology: All the stories take pace during Christmas Eve.
A Christmas Horror Story makes a good effort in doing the anthology storytelling and for the most part, it works. The stories are all decent and Shatner's DJ does a good job in relaying them.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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