A Christmas Horror Story

A Christmas Horror Story (2015) is a movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a family that wanders onto the wrong property to cut down a Christmas tree and in doing so unleashes Krampus and loses their son. The release of Krampus offsets Santa's magic leading to elves no longer being invinsible and after dying returning as zombies. The parents and Santa will need to find a way to offset these daunting events.

This movie is codirected by Grant Harvey (Heartland), Steven Hoban (Darknet) and Brett Sullivan (Frontier). This picture stars William Shatner (Star Trek), George Buza (X-Men), Rob Archer (Pixels), Zoé De Grand Maison (Riverdale), Amy Forsyth (Hell Fest) and Olunike Adeliyi (She Never Died).

The cinematography in this is very good. The settings, attire, makeup and masks are perfect. This is one of the better versions of Krampus, definitely top 2. The elves is this are excellent and the highlight of the movie. Their lines and dialogue are hilarious. Did I mention William Shatner is in this? The kill scenes are solid but the sex scenes are not. The ending is way better than it should be and was very smart and well executed.

Overall this is a very solid addition to the Krampus universe and is definitely worth a viewing. I would score this a 6-6.5/10 and strongly recommend seeing it.

So I am fresh off of watching this and I have to say that I am a bit disappointed. The trailer and the current reviews made it out like this was going to be a blast to watch, and some parts of it were, but for the most part I felt pretty let down.

So this is an anthology film, but instead of running each story back to back the film instead runs them simultaneously throughout. So basically you jump around from each story, the main problem here is that I found two out of four of the stories to be pretty cliché and boring. It was a bummer to be right in the middle of one story that is picking up only to be thrown back to a story that is just plain boring. The pacing was a big problem too, nothing at all really happens until about an hour in, once things do get rolling it is decent but not enough to make up for the first dull hour.

I do have some good things to say, the Santa and Krampus scenes were absolutely awesome, it mostly made me wish that I was watching a movie that was strictly about them. The acting was well done throughout, and the special effects/gore was all top notch considering they didn't have a huge budget. Plus William Shatner is thrown into the mix, hard to hate that.

I feel like this could have been so much better because the parts that worked did work really well, but the stories just didn't blend well together and since you have to watch them all at once that really effected the entertainment of the overall film. It's rare that I truly hate some parts of a film but then absolutely love other parts, unfortunately with this one the good was not good enough to out weigh the bad. The fun parts were still really fun though, it just seems like the whole thing could have been a lot more fun.

5.5/10

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.

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.

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.