If you stop and think about it, many of Christmas’s natural elements border on the side of scary. The traditions of the Yuletide include songs of total depression, creepy elves, a hero that watches your every move and makes a unilateral decision (devoid of due process) on whether or not you are naughty, and a violent snow monster so heinous in his doings he is referred to by all as abominable .Even the most popular Christmas tale of all time depicts the central figure being haunted by ghosts. Many Halloween oriented movies have infused a Christmas element (“Silent Night Deadly Night,” “Krampus“). But what about a Christmas movie that infuses elements of October?
Enter the 2015 independent effort “A Christmas Horror Story.” Created by a gaggle of novice filmmakers, “A Christmas Horror Story” takes place on Christmas Eve, and depicts four separate (though ultimately woven together) stories in anthology format.
You can’t deny the seasonal elements, as Christmas is at the forefront of each of the tales, but the scares and gore included also prove that Halloween never really goes away.
The four stories that comprise the movie each offer a blend of uniqueness with the genre they are depicting. The concepts range from mystery to full out blood-fest.
We see a nefarious family inadvertently releasing the evil spirit of Krampus, a child missing while Christmas tree hunting gets replaced by a demonic doppelganger, a group of high school students breaking into their school to investigate a pair of unsolved murders, and Santa Claus himself doing battle with his own elves, all of which have succumbed to an infection that renders them zombies.
While all four tales are tied together, each serves as its own short story. One thing I liked is that the stories are told simultaneously, in lieu of one from start to end, followed by another from start to end etc. This keeps the pace moving well and leaves you on edge as the tales jump from one to another.
I thought the best of the four (I suppose by default) was the story with high school students, led by Shannon Kook (the comical relief in “The Conjuring“) and Zoe De Grand Maison (a young Canadian actress involved in several horror TV and film presentations).
The tale of the students investigating the murders of fellow classmates is the most interesting, and contains a handful of jump moments. Ironically, this tale offers the least in the way of Christmas.
The Bauer family unleashing Krampus and the Peters parents dealing with an evil being impersonating their son offer nothing in the way of intrigue or scares. The Krampus monster looks pretty cool, but its nothing short of an excuse to show gory and bloody deaths.
The story of Santa (George Buza) doing battle with zombie-elves is more of a horror spoof than anything of substance. Most of this feature is comical though a word of warning to parents or the easily squeamish; this one will have you averting your eyes from the screen a few times.
Other comical elements include a sexy Mrs. Claus (Debra McCabe) and one of my all time favorites William Shatner as a local DJ who loves all things Christmas and broadcasts throughout the movie while getting toasted on spiked eggnog.
“A Christmas Horror Story” comes up short in the end. It fails at being a well crafted horror story (despite the title) and it fails at being a fun or enjoyable Christmas movie either. If I’m curled up on the couch with hot cocoa, I’ll stick with cheesy love stories. I don’t need or want to see rabid elves being gorged to death with a staff.
