Starring: William Shatner, George Buza, Percy Hynes White, Zoé De Grand Maison, Amy Forsyth, Adrian Holmes, Oluniké Adeliyi, Rob Archer
Director: Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan
Writer: Jason Filiatrault, James Kee, Sarah Larsen, Doug Taylor, Pascal Trottier
Running time: 99 minutes
Rated: None (contains graphic violence, language, sexual situations)
Reviewed by Michael Juvinall – Horror Society
A Christmas Horror Story is IN THEATERS, VOD and iTunes: October 2, 2015 from RLJ Entertainment!
We’re starting to see more and more horror anthologies again. There was a while over the past decade or so when you didn’t see them all that often, but now they’re becoming fashionable again. Anthologies have had a bit of a spotted past. They were popular in the 1960’s and 70’s but then petered out. There have been some pretty great ones in the 80’s and then not so much in the 90’s. Anyways, I guess the point I’m trying to make is just as everything else in horror is that anthologies are cyclical. I’ve been reviewing anthologies left and right over the past month or so and several others are on the horizon – which brings me to A Christmas Horror Story. This is an anthology that doesn’t follow the typical narrative associated the anthology format. Normally, you would have three or more short films or segments that play out in sequence in their entirety with a wraparound story that ties everything neatly together. Not so with ACHS. The film deviates a little from the tried and true anthology format but I’ll talk about that in a bit.
It’s Christmas Eve i
n the sleepy town of Bailey Downs. DJ Dan played by the enigmatic William Shatner is belting out the holiday tunes all day long but the shadow of a double murder one year ago to the day looms large like a black cloud over the residents of the town.
Santa (George Buza) is getting ready for his big night, but there’s a strange illness affecting the elves in a horrific way that might ruin Christmas for every child in the world this year if Santa can’t stop the evil from spreading.
A trio of high school teenagers, Molly (Zoé De Grand Maison), Dylan (Shannon Kook), and Ben (Alex Ozerov) decide to make a documentary about the double murder that happened at their school one year ago. While school is out for the holiday, the trio breaks into the creepy school basement where the murders occurred. What they don’t know is some things just w
on’t stay dead.
An ex-cop and his family trespass onto forest land in search of the perfect fresh Christmas tree to cut down but soon notice their young
son begins to act strangely after they get home from the forest.
A well-to-do family makes a trek to see daddy’s rich aunt on Christmas eve in the hopes she will invest in his dying business. Young spoiled Duncan (Percy Hynes White) inadvertently summons a Christmas demon, Krampus and the winter wonderland becomes a terrifying night of survival for the family.
A Christmas Horror Story has a lot going for it – the segments are all highly entertaining, the acting is superb, the makeup effects and gore are very well done. Two of the four segments are better than the rest but that’s not to say the others are bad, not at all, just not quite as enjoyable. The Santa and Krampus segments are the best in my book and I believe most viewers will agree with me.
To get back to the format as I promised, the segments are not played back to back. They happen at the same time in the film and we get quite a bit of jumping around from one segment to the next and back again and so on for all four of the segments. Shatner’s DJ Dan character appears throughout the film. Some viewers might not like this type of narrative, but I didn’t have a problem with it.
I must say I thoroughly enjoyed ACHS; it’s another great movie in an unexpected year of really good anthology horror films. What I really liked is the film is played straight except for just the right amount of comedy touches thrown in. Each writer and director did a bang up job of executing their segments to great effect. Krampus, zombie elves, a changeling, a ghost, and William Shatner – what more could you ask for? A Christmas Horror Story will definitely make it to the top of my Christmas wish list this year.
4 out of 5 Pentagrams!
Watch the trailer here,
