A Christmas Horror Story

It's the most wonderful time of the year. To die.

Directors Grant Harvey, Steve Hoban and Brett Sullivan all lend their talents in an attempt to turn the happiest day of the year into a horrifying movie experience in A Christmas Horror Story.

Best described as an anthology, A Christmas story interweaves multiple stories with Christmas being the anchor theme. The stories are diverse and in no way repeating. Santa takes on a horde of zombie elves. A family goes Christmas tree hunting where their son gets possessed by a demon. A group of teenagers return to the scene of a grizzly crime to film a documentary where the evil still lurks. And a family is terrorized by Krampus, the anti-Santa Claus.

William Shatner plays a radio DJ host that helps intertwine the stories and provides some spots of levity along the snowy roads to where the film journeys. The stories themselves do not play out in their entirety before moving to the next segment a la say Tales of Halloween or the ABC's of Death. Instead, the filmmakers jump between the stories which allow them to keep audiences on their toes and ensure that the lesser terrorizing / more dramatic scenes are broken up with the moments horror fans relish.

What makes A Christmas Horror Story so different from its peers is that there is not a dull story in the mix. Sure, not all stories share the same enthusiasm, gore or humor, but there wasn't any particular segment I wished would just mercifully end so that we could get to a more interesting one. That is great praise to say the least. I could not say that about Tales of Halloween and that makes A Christmas Horror Story more in line with say Trick 'R Treat than Creepshow.

Yes, Yes, Yes, we still had our favorite. That would be Santa's story on combating zombie infected elves and his eventual showdown with Krampus. The effects, make-up and overall execution of this segment are worth the price of admission alone. Santa comes across as an 80's action hero. His eyes didn't twinkle. His dimples weren't merry. His cheeks weren't like roses. My god was he scary! The Santa/Krampus showdown might be the highlight of the film but one can't ignore the other segments that lead to the climax. Each provide a fun sleigh ride of horror and all three could have been their own movie if the stories were expanded.

A Christmas Horror Story played at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival on Saturday night and the audience clearly got in on the fun laughing at the right moments and offering applause for some of the more gruesome scenes.

There are not a plethora of good Christmas horror films out there. In fact, after Black Christmas you would be hard pressed to name another outside of a Silent Night, Deadly Night. But A Christmas Horror Story brings enough presents in its Santa sack to make this a rather fun film that might just become a 'go-to' film for many horror fans every December.

Stumbled upon this movie and thought I'd give it a go. I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised how much I liked it.

4 horror stories mixed around a radio DJ giving a live broadcast on Xmas eve, all with a connecting theme.

I love Xmas and I love Xmas movies, but there are so many bad ones. There's a few horrors that haven't done it for me. Krampus springs to mind, but this film delivers. It has a nasty feel to it, with a dark humour and a cracking end which brings the film together. A great "oh right" moment which I didn't see coming.

Definitely give this a go if you like horror movies. It's not light hearted like gremlins and Krampus, it's a proper horror with blood and guts.

As most have said, the stories are somewhat uneven. All the stories started out great, but most of them ran out of steam and their ending was anticlimatic. The 1st story about the school was a complete bust in my opinion. What started out as extremely interesting case turned into just a cliche mess.

However, the main arch story was awesome and without giving spoilers, that ending was really unexpected.

A solid 6.

It's Christmas Eve. Three high school students go to school to film a documentary about the disappearance of two students last Christmas. Some part of the school was at some point a convent and there's more to the place than just the killings.

A family goes to the forest to cut a Christmas tree. At some point their young son vanishes but they do find him after a while inside a tree. When they return home the kid isn't quite himself.

A family travels to visit the father's rich aunt. But she's creepy and hostile so they quickly leave. But the daughter stole some trinket and the son dropped a Krampus figurine and broke it. That will come back to haunt them as their car breaks down and they have to walk through the forest. Things quickly get bloody.

Santa is getting ready to deliver gifts. Suddenly one of his elves goes nuts, drives a hatchet through his hand and dies. Soon all the elves become zombies and violently attack Santa who will have to take them out one by one.

All these stories are framed by a radio host who is in the Christmas spirit. Krampus makes an appearance in most of these stories and even confronts Santa himself. But when all appears said and done there's an neat unexpected twist.

The stories aren't told independently but are interwoven and aren't anything special initially but improve markedly once they take a turn to the dark. The story of the kid in particularly has some creepy moments. The story of the kids playing investigators in a locked school during Christmas Eve no less is very annoying at first until things change. The whole business with the radio host was mostly irrelevant. It's good to see Santa get a cool role as well as all the resent fuzz about Krampus. I wasn't expecting much from this movie but I was surprised that it did have something different and enjoyable to offer.

You never know what are you getting yourself into with movies like this. Luckily, A Christmas Horror Story gets most of the beats right.

It's a mix of multiple intersected story lines movie, fun horror movie and Christmas movie. There are even few known names here, but generally all the cast does a good job. Cool stories, couple of cool twists here and there and pretty sweet FX makes this movie a fun watch.

Yeah, it's nothing original and over the top, but it's well made and not too long. I'm guessing this movie will get repeated Christmas viewings in the years to come. Recommended but keep you expectations real.