Christmas Presence

source: Christmas Presence

Christmas Presence (2018) is currently available on Shudder and tells the tale of a group of friends who gets together in the countryside of one of the friends family estates. Little do the friends know a tragic event happened to the friend who owns the house at the estate. When the spirits of those responsible for the tragic events returns, the friends get together becomes a different type of party... This movie is directed by James Edward Cook (Together) and stars Charlotte Atkinson (Truckers), Elsie Bennett (Hitman 3), Lorna Brown (Les Misérables) and Danny Webb (Aliens 3). The storyline for this is super slow and it takes forever for anything to happen; however, the characters are well developed. The cast is solid and the dialogue is good. The CGI for the presence is pretty good also but the lack of kills and action is disappointing. I will say I loved the ending. This movie is a bit disappointing and a below average addition to the genre; however, the ending is clever but the movies so slow I couldn't recommend sitting through the entire film to get to it. I'd score this a 4/10 and only recommend watching it if you're desperate for a Christmas horror movie to watch.

Good movie to watch for especially the scenes are well made and horror is present in every scene the movie is a holiday horror but good to see.

I tried. I really did. Maybe you have to be British to get it and enjoy it. I know I didn't. I watch a lot of horror movies. I usually go through 10 to find one good one. This is one of the other nine. The first sin is boredom: if you bore me for a good 40 minutes you'd better have one hell of a second act to draw me back in. This one does not. In fact, the second AND third act are so brain dead, so contrived, that I started missing the boredom of act one. It has high production value, and a competent cast, hence the three stars. If it only had a script with a coherent thought...

Heading out to the countryside, a group of friends arrives a remote house to celebrate the holiday season, but as the night goes on the group suddenly comes to believe that a malevolent entity is preying on them using their darkest fears as fuel to kill them and must escape the house alive. This was a fine if somewhat flawed effort. One of the better elements featured in this one is the strikingly enjoyable first half where there's some fun to be had with the build-up of the friends arriving at the house. This one treats the group rather nicely with how they're introduced as they seem like a genuine group of friends that would be hanging out together, poking fun and generally having fun while being together. The scenes of them partying together and having drinks while being out in the wilderness offers a fine starting point to where the horror elements that emerge later on have a rather intriguing base to work off of. When the horror does emerge here, there are some rather enjoyable times here as this one turns into a rather different animal than expected. The idea of being trapped in the house which suddenly starts in on the concept of the spirit getting free and turning their fears onto each other in the attempt to terrify them. These provide the kind of stellar supernaturally-tinged sequences that really could've added a lot more to this one than what's provided. Still, the idea of the relentless series of encounters that spring up as a result of their random encounters throughout the darkened house really drives this with some nice energy during the best part of the film. These here are what hold it up over the main flaws present. The main issue to be had with the film is a rather tonally chaotic final half that doesn't know what it wants to really do with itself. This one goes through a rather odd change-of-pace from the realistic setup of the first half by dropping the idea of them being at the house together and instead goes into a series of random occurrences that are due to to the sudden random appearance of this creature intent on killing them. The appearance of the creature is a complete mystery as to what it actually is, there's nothing about what it's trying to do at the house in the first place, making this part of the film incredibly confusing and disorienting. As well, the film has the rather odd sense of pacing within here that does manage to get progressively worse as the movie goes on. As it spends so long with the friends getting to know them that when it finally gets to the horror very little if anything has been said about what's going on because there's way too much of it about other areas. By then rushing through the actions of the ghostly creature with no information about what's happening really tends to undermine this by taking all the time it could've spent on building that to instead work this out. As well as an utterly moronic finale that doesn't do this any favors by preparing for an unwanted sequel, these here hold this one down. Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Just from the title i expected much more. The beginning was exiting but then it got lame. It became like every other horror stories. The plot was great but it felt like the director didn't know how to keep it going and just made it like that. The ending gave us nothing. It left place for so much improvement. Overall it wasn't that bad.

I couldn't figure out what this movie was supposed to be. It started off very British sort of comedy, but then it went full speed ahead horror. There were some plot holes. The actors aren't bad, it's just the script needed more pizazz for it to be good.

I honestly don't know what to say, it's pointless, it has no story, even the end is predictable, that's it, it's garbage.

Let me preface this review by saying you should watch this movie for yourself, because although it is somewhat mediocre in parts and often quite terrible, it's worth seeing for the moments it does manage to offer a little scare or the director manages to pull a shot off well. The aspects which really pull away the stars from my rating are the lazy, lacklustre special effects. This film is a UK production, released in March 2018 and the storyline features a wintery setting, so one would assume this film would be produced during the winter months of the year in order to capture the correct atmosphere and snow-covered landscape. Wrong. It appears this film was shot entirely during early spring-albeit on a dull day-or perhaps on a less than sunny summer day. To create snow, the director has decided to simply use a 'green screen effect' (in quotation marks because it's the very bones of the effect, and doesn't actually utilise flat, green screens for CG backgrounds). He has opted for this method so that all greenery; trees, leaves, bushes and shrubs can be effectively turned black and white with a high rate of contrast, so that almost all things which were once green now appear white. Almost. The effect is poorly done and anyone could see how easily a choice like this may backfire and destroy the movie-watching experience for your viewers. Certain characters hair, their clothing, eyes and even skin is altered by this effect where patches or reflections of green have caught the filter's threshold and turned black and white. It's also incredibly jarring to see the greenery and blossom of the trees appear through windows periodically once the crew are shooting the movie from within the country house. The acting is less than believable in places, but somehow fits in quite well with the typical dialogue featured in low-budget British horror films - they are essentially behaving just as normal people would, only as caricatures of their "diverse" personas, so as to really hit home just how inclusive this cast is. There are some wonderful unnerving shots of the creature/entity (except the laughable spider puppet), including the first sighting by the wood store and then again in the bedroom when one character begins to vomit buttons. Yes, buttons. There was little to no explanation as to why that happened, but following along with the plot of the creature appearing as your worst fear, I'm sure there's a contrived reason hidden somewhere within that mess of pine furniture in the bedrooms. With most direction and shots leaving a lot to the imagination; flat, boring and bland. There are still some wonderful close-ups of the characters by the fire during a scene where they are hypnotising the protagonist to help her deal with her trauma. The director has clearly attended enough film school or classes to know how to successfully light his shots in order to convey a sense of warmth and cosiness. That I applaud him for, because that's one detail I always look for in a Christmas horror film - don't we all? To be warm and cosy, and to watch terror unfold around these fictitious morons is fun and doesn't really get boring, like some low-budget horror films do.

Funny film by a new director. There's no need to wait for a super-production, because it's been made with few resources, but very well taken advantage of. The visual effects, when they appear, are quite good, except on one occasion at the end. The protagonists, taking away someone who is a little sad, are the kind that when you've been in the movie for ten minutes, you're wishing that "whatever it is" ends up with them in the most frightening way you can imagine and then put a medal for the good work. In short: The first work of a new director, entertains, has a good time and has had the great success that the end does not bitter the feeling left by the rest of the film, as happens in others supposedly better. Enjoy it.