A Christmas Horror Story

Beginning with our beloved gift giver about to board his sleigh and coming full circle towards the end, A Christmas Horror Story weaves together four stories of almost every popular horror sub-genre. With our first story, we have a found-footage style ghost story set within the dark corridors of a school. Our second story follows a police officer and his family in a creature possession mishmash, who despite the warnings of trespassing, illegally cut down a tree. On the way they seamlessly cross paths with the next desperate and foolish family, who wind up getting into an accident, soon finding them being picked off one by one in the vein of a holiday slasher. Finally, we come back around to a festering nod to modern zombies, as Santa Claus must ward off his elves that only want to devour flesh. While certainly not being a new concept in the world of horror cinema, with George Romero's Creepshow having carved a place over 30 years ago, anthologies have since become more mainstream with Michael Dougherty's 2007 woven horror treat, Trick R' Treat. The greatest similarities come between the character's paths, often overlapping in some magnificent or minute manor, which works to establish a pace lacking in breakups or cuts that might remove us from the film. With our stories loosely being introduced by disc jockey Dangerous Dan (William Shatner), A Christmas Horror Story jumps back and forth between each tale, often placing too much on our plate. It can feel burdensome to embrace all our stories at once, though there is a decent amount of fun to be had with each. Establishing its first story with a group of teenagers who should probably want to have sex rather than break into a school (I mean, right?), our group of paranormal investigators wave goodbye to their friend who initiates the third story, who passes the vehicle of our second story. It's a brief introduction that exemplifies the disorder our film follows, juggling four stories without any real rhyme or reason. It's a method Trick R' Treat used much more confidently and smoothly, layering each story like a beautifully decorated tree. Each story lacks a central character(s) that grounds the story in our deepest consideration or appreciation. Besides a staff wielding Santa Clause, we find ourselves rooting mostly for the demise of each character on screen. There's a superficiality to our horror inspired Christmas treats, resembling a well put together fruit cake that in the end winds up being, well, still a fruit cake. Directors Grant Harvey, Steven Hoburn and Brett Sullivan certainly deserve praise and applause however, as they manage to blend enough sub-genre's into one film that doesn't pander too much to its fans. The shaky camera in our first story is quickly disposed of in favor of deeper shadows and richer tones. Santa moves around his workshop, slaying Christmas elf after Christmas elf, offering enjoyable new levels to our zombie tale. Our stranded family embraces what's in the shadows, while delivering enough bloody eggnog to satisfy the splatter fiend in all of us. What falls flat unfortunately is our second story, passing on an engaging premise of wrongdoing, family woes and marital hiccups that could have featured some Twilight Zone inspired creatures. Where awe-inspiring makeup brings to life the mythological terror of Krampus, we are too often treated to poor digital effects that only hinder and shift our wonder of our four stories. While there is a terrific end to Santa's unwrapping of the undead, grounding our film in grisly and disturbing festivities, it ends up being too little too late. There's certainly something to be said about the push and veneration for holiday inspired horror films, however it's one that continually leaves a lot of room for improvement. A Christmas Horror Story is a forgettable yet fun little holiday horror anthology that winds up feeling too adventitious for its own good.

The only good thing about this film was the Norman storyline and you had to wait through so much other crap to get to the decent storyline. William Shatner was THE best part and the biggest reason for watching it. After watching the other Krampus movie we were hoping to find a fun kind of thrilling Christmas film, but this was just another horror film using Christmas as the backdrop-getting a good deal of the folklore wrong on top of that AND not really tying everything together! I wish I would have used those 99mins to watch a good film.

I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 400 Christmas MOVIES. BEWARE OF BOGUS REVIEWS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION. NOW I HAVE NO AGENDA! I AM HONEST! I REVIEW Christmas MOVIES AS A WAY TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT I HAVE SEEN! I love Christmas. I love horror films. Two of my favorite films of all time are "Psycho" and "Halloween". . Now I don't care they make these films and that people like them but I just think that somethings people should leave alone and that to me is "Santa". In this film one of the stories is about Santa Claus going on a killing spree. (Spoilers ahead) Now we find out later it is not the real Santa doing this but to me the harm is already done. They took a symbol of goodness and turned it into evil, There is 2 other stories as well and they are much better then the story about the "KILLER CLAUS" but because all stories are interwoven the film as a whole suffers. Skip this film not because of the killer "Santa" but the film was poorly made

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source: A Christmas Horror Story

It's Christmas Eve in the small town of Bailey Downs. DJ Dangerous Dan (William Shatner) is pulling a double shift on the radio. Two kids were killed one year ago in the local school. Students Dylan, Ben, and Molly Simon are doing a story on the incident. They get locked in the basement. Scott and Kim Peters go into private property to cut down a Christmas tree. Their son Will gets lost but they eventually find him. However, there is something odd about him. Taylor Bauer takes his family to visit his aunt but she kicks them out. A creature runs across the road and Taylor crashes the car. Meanwhile in the North Pole, Santa is battling with zombie elves. There is some solid horror work being done here. It's somewhat like a loosely connected Twilight Zone anthology. These four horror stories are shown in a back and forth manner. This does mean the first half of the movie is a bit slow with the four stories getting set up. First of all, Shatner's part is not necessary. It's great that Shatner has a day to give to the filmmakers and I'm sure they were restricted with his usage. His pontificating adds nothing to the stories. There is one big connection but that's not necessarily either. There has to be a more compelling way to use his stardom. There is value in all four horror stories. The kids in the basement is a classic jump-scare horror. The changeling is an even older classic horror. The family on the run is solid chase horror. None of these three are completely original but they are all well-made very solid old school horrors. Santa and the elves do stand out. It is something different but also something not fully realized. In addition, it doesn't fit. There is a pretty good twist in the end but that needs better foreshadowing earlier on. This section could probably stand on its own as a separate movie. The other three would work better without this. The special effects and gore effects are generally competent especially for an indie. The acting is solid throughout and the horror is fine.

For some reason my previous review got deleted and I can not find it anymore because a section where these where stored is gone. It's like a review horror story ... I'm just kidding or first world problems as some would say and obviously not as worrisome as the issues our characters here have to go through ... not even close to that actually. Having said all that, the deletion of reviews here also did not have the always great Shatner narrating it, like this movie has. We get a mixture of stories that revolve around Christmas and may or may not have something in common with each other. It's something most may think about when they watch movies that have the short story touch to them. And there only is the yes or no option really. You should not be easily offended, otherwise you may have a lot of issues watching this. Overall more than decent effort that may have different levels of quality for some, I personally did like them all more or less. The tone is set from the beginning and it carries throughout the whole thing nicely - well you know what I mean! Because there is evil here - but it is entertaining too (all in the context of remembering this is just a movie or multiple little ones)

Some people, or rather a lot of people, are going to hate this movie. It's easy to see why - four short, separate Christmas Eve horror tales in one movie, flicking back and forth, it can be difficult to keep up. If you can manage to stay focused and patient, there is some great entertainment here. 'A Christmas Horror Story' has everything you'd want in a festive horror movie. It's funny, gory, scary, and very, very weird. From zombie elves attempting to murder Santa to a possessed child, this is sure to satisfy those who like their horrors more on the 'quirky' side. It entertained me for an hour and a half, but I certainly won't be revisiting this bizarre Christmas film any time soon.