A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

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Here we have another title that seemingly went over my head when it's abundantly clear that stylistically, it's right up my alley. I love a good anthology movie, especially when it comes to horror stories, and adding Christmas into the mix just gives things an extra boost of fun. Christmas and horror don't seem like they should go together, but sometimes it can be done really well. I was hoping that I'd leave this with another title to add to the Christmas horror list of rarities I could potentially watch every year. The thing is, I dunno if this quite makes it.

Things launch with an overall familiarity in which a radio DJ (William Shatner) is here to be a sort of host, which is also seen in 'Tales of Halloween,' released the same year, and movies like '8 Legged Freaks,' released much earlier. At the very least, in this case, it's good ol' Bill Shatner, which adds some star quality to things, and might be enough to hold your attention. As he hosts a radio show on Christmas Eve, he maintains incoming reports of a disturbance at the local mall, and that locals should stay away.

Meanwhile, four stories are brought into play, all involving some sort of horror fantasy scenario First, a ghost story involving a few kids, Dylan (Shannon Kook), Ben (Alex Ozerov-Meyer) and Molly (Zoé De Grand Maison) who break into their school to document a previous murder case that took place the year before. This is by far the most disturbing of the stories, in my opinion. Although it takes on a few cliches of ghostly horror, the whole thing gets wrapped up with some disturbing imagery along with a disturbing scenario.

The second story delves into a bit of European folklore. Scott Peters (Adrian Holmes), a cop traumatized by the aforementioned school murders of the previous year, his wife, Kim (Olunike Adeliyi) and son, Will (Orion John) head out into private property to chop down a good tree for Christmas. Will goes missing for a short time, but is eventually found, if only after a short panic. Upon their return, however, Will starts acting strangely, and almost animalistic, and if you know your European folklore, you'll pick up on what probably happened.

The third story involves dysfunctional family of four, Taylor (Jeff Clarke), Diane (Michelle Nolden), and their kids, Duncan (Percy Hynes White) and Caprice (Amy Forsyth), travelling to visit their elderly Aunt Edda (Corinne Conley). Before long, bad behaviour on Duncan's part by dropping and breaking a statuette of Krampus seems to curse the family as they eventually realize that Krampus is very real, and after all of them. This one probably had the coolest ending to it, providing us with a cool twist that's fun, but dark in all the right ways.

Last, but most definitely not least, we need to take a look at Santa (George Buza). Let's just make this simple. Santa fighting zombie elves so he can make his Christmas Eve run, and it's hands down the most fun of the four stories. So I have to say that I appreciate the variety shown here - each story had a "best" to is in some way; in order, scariest and most disturbing, best original take on folklore, coolest ending, and most fun story over all. Santa's story is basically a horror comedy.

All in all, I enjoyed this, and I could see coming back to it now and then. But as an annual or bi-annual Christmas horror watch, I'm not sure there's enough here. It has its similarities to 'Trick r' Treat,' but there's a certain twist to the end of this that takes me out of things a little too much. It's not a movie that necessarily stays with you when its done. That said, it certainly has the potential to grow on me over time as something a little more original when it comes to holiday horror. Just bear in mind its a horror movie first, a Christmas movie second.

4/5

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