Both as an anthology and as a Christmas horror movie, "All the Creatures Were Stirring" is far from perfect. In fact, it's a lackluster and wildly uneven movie altogether. On the other hand, though, I respect and even admire low-budget horror productions that dare to be different and original, and that's the least you can say about this omnibus. All the individual short segments, and the wraparound story, are unconventional and unique, and that's at least worth half of the optimistic score of 5/10 I gave!
On Christmas Eve, two people with nowhere else to go and absolutely nothing better to do, spend their first Tinder date together at a raunchy theater where three "actors" enact a series of holiday-themed stories with a bare minimum of decors and means. The stories turn into short films, and they are remarkable to say the least. There's a tale about an office Secret Santa party turning into a massacre, one about a traditional Yule demon, a modern version of Ebeneezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, reindeers bent on bloody vengeance, and a totally bonkers fable about holiday-loving aliens. The wraparound story about the first date then eventually turns into the last story.
A few of the separate stories are ingenious and compelling ("Dash Away All", " In a Twinkling") and others are more derivative ("Arose such a Clatter"), but ALL of them have in common that they are creative, but sadly also too underdeveloped and abruptly ending with many questions left unanswered. There's some gore, but not enough. There's occasionally tension and atmosphere, but not enough. There are flashes of sardonic black humor, but ... well, you know the rest of that sentence.
In the end, I can't really recommend "All the Creatures Were Stirring" wholeheartedly, but surprisingly enough I enjoyed it. And so did my mate with whom I watched it. Who knows, maybe it's because I was rejoiced by the spirit of Christmas, or maybe it's because the other two holiday-themed horror movies we watched were total rubbish. Either way, in case you love Christmas horror but you have already seen all the obvious classics ("Black Christmas", "Silent Night Deadly Night", "Krampus",...) this one may be worth a peek.
