Thursday, 1 October 2015

Film Review: A Christmas horror story

Genre: Horror

Cert: 18 cert

Director: Grant Harvey , Steven Hoban , Brett Sullivan

Screen writerJason Filiatrault (uncredited) . James Kee , Sarah Larsen, Doug Taylor , Pascal Trottier  

Starring: George Buza , Percy Hynes White , Oluniké Adeliyi , Rob Archer , Jeff Clarke , Jessica Clement , Corinne Conley , Robert Coughler , Zoé De Grand Maison , Amy Forsyth , Glen Gaston , Ken Hall , Adrian Holmes , Shannon Kook , Debra McCabe.

Running time: 99 min

Parents advised to read before viewing film as some scene may contain scenes unsuitable for younger viewers.

Sex & Nudity: Kiss couple, Young girl & boy having sex no nudity involved

Violence & Gore: Graphic scenes of a murder, few scene of bloody graphic action through out the film, woman hold a baby covered in blood.

Profanity: Very strong adult language  

Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking: Alcohol is seen being drunk

Frightening/Intense Scenes: Some scenes maybe a little disturbing as children are involved in horror scene.


Story: High school students investigate a mysterious homicide that occurred the prior holiday season, a couple notices their young son is acting strangely after a snowy forest trip to cut down a traditional tree and one family are stalked through a winter wonderland by Krampus, the Xmas demon. Meanwhile at the North Pole, Santa is fending off zombie elves.

Likes : Everyone know's the fable story of Christmas's darker side as Santa Claus's evil brother Krampus a horned demon, anthropomorphic figure. According to traditional narratives around the figure, Krampus punishes children during the Christmas season who had misbehaved, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewards well-behaved ones with gifts.
Now this film set it self up with three story's, kind of like trick r treat Halloween movie with different fable story's happening in one night, the Santa (George Buza) and Krampus (Rob Archer) scenes were absolutely awesome, it mostly make you wish that your watching a whole movie that was strictly about them although this film is a little cheesy in places with funny Christmas one-liners.
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 as a radio host station its kind of hard to not like this film .
The atmosphere & the way they have the Christmas music with this dark ominous way really set the tone for this film story's, ya some of the story's are good but sadly its it not with out its flaws.
What got me interest in this film from the trailer was seeing Santa fighting a demon which i thought was pretty cool, as its something we haven't seen before but as for the rest of the film the other story feel disappointing in a way which i will explain in dislikes which is a shame really.

Dislikes : The problem here with this film is the classic to many cooks in the kitchen, the only good scene really are the ones with Santa Claus & the demon, as for the others the director or screener writers screw this film up.
Here why ; each story should have been keep in line with each other like creep show, showing the full set of the each other story's, instead they mixed up the story's you see story's line simultaneously throughout jump back & forth this was the mistake for this film as it ruined the flow of the film.
The Santa Claus & krampus story was easy to follow but the other two story were full of plot holes & you couldn't really understand what was going other than what was being shown, i feel there should be been a bit more to this story so they were understood better.
I feel this film instead of being 3 stories should have been one long story it would have worked better, so in a way its a good effort but sadly a disappointing film that could have been better done.

Overall : Fair effort for a Christmas horror story but a little bit disappointing.

Rating: 4.6 out of 5 for entertainment / 6 out of 10 for Christmas story horror theme



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