Directors: Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan
Cast: William Shatner, Zoe De Grand Maison
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 99 minutes
Special Feature: Behind the scenes
In case you’ve missed all the adverts on the television, Christmas is coming. Halloween has been and gone and we suppose now it’s just about okay to start preparing for the festive season. Happily this week offers just the film to get you in the mood, A Christmas Horror Story.
Every Christmas Eve the small sleepy town of Bailey Downs is marred with outbreaks of supernatural tragedy. If the name Bailey Downs sounds familiar to you, you’d be right, as it’s the name of the fictional town featured in Ginger Snaps, a film that the filmmakers were also responsible for.
Pitched as an anthology, A Christmas Horror Story is actually more of a Pulp Fiction style tale with four interlinking stories rather than a series of different self-contained plots one after the other. Each story is diverse, we get a haunted house/ancient curse, a killer Krampus, a devious changeling, and Santa under siege by zombie elves. Yes, zombie elves. Tying the tales together is William Shatner who plays Disc Jockey Dangerous Dan, a man who loves Christmas with every fibre of his being. If he were real he’d be that neighbour that leaves their decorations up all year round.
The different tales are all interesting, but the film would be much stronger if they were to stick to the conventional anthology narrative. The problem with having them interlink is that the viewer is pulled around from one scenario another, and the narrative gets muddled. Worse still, some of the stories, the changeling one in particular, are stories that rely heavily on atmosphere and suspense, and all of that is lost as we jump in and out of each tale.
A Christmas Horror Story is a great movie to slowly ween yourself into yuletide delights. Much like Gremlins, this is a film that just happens to have Christmas as a backdrop to the proceedings. Even Santa can’t brighten up this movie, it’s as dark as a winter evening.
The special feature is a generic ‘behind the scenes’ featurette with interviews with each of the directors.
A Christmas Horror Story is available to own on DVD from Monday 9th Novemeber.
