When you first look at the poster image for A Christmas Horror Story you expect nothing but a cheesy yet balls to the wall battle between Santa Claus and the Anti-Santa demon known as the Krampus. For those who don’t know, while Santa brought gifts in a bag to good children, European folklore describes Krampus as a monster that would stuff bad children into his sack to steal them away to a horrible fate. So immediately a battle between these two is sparking my imagination. When I watched the film, however, I found that this was not the movie I would be seeing.
Now this did not end up being a disappointment surprisingly. There is indeed some epic leve Santa action in this film but it’s not what you might expect. When you begin watching the film you are introduced to several characters in several different situations though it turns out they are almost all connected to each other and the larger story of Christmas Horror in various ways. It’s a clever ruse I thought, presenting this as a singular film as I waited for all these characters to come together somehow for the larger plot only to realize that this movie is in fact a horror anthology presented as a singular film. A shared universe of shorts all happening in or around their town.
As far as horror anthologies go it’s pretty good. I enjoyed myself while watching it. Mind you, for a Christmas themed horror movie each segment is not entirely based around Christmas so I have to count that against the film. The main unifying element is the local DJ Dangerous Dan who is broadcasting on Christmas Eve spinning records whose music pops up in the various segments and who also reports on something horrible happening at the local mall. Dan is full of alcohol and eggnog fueled Christmas cheer. The second story involves three highschool friends sneaking into their school to report on a murder that happened exactly one year ago. This story is only related to Christmas by the time of year. The third story involves the police officer who was on said murder case taking his family out to collect a Christmas tree from private property with unfortunate consequences. While story four follows the girlfriend of one of the student journalists from story two as her family trip turns into an encounter with the Krampus. The last story takes us to the North Pole where Santa is preparing for Christmas only to find that the elves have been infected by some deadite like cures inflicted by the Krampus himself, forcing Santa to slay (couldn’t resist) his little helpers in an effort to still make his Christmas run.
All in all each story is effective in its own way and all try to provide a nice little twist by the end of what would have otherwise been a series of fairly predictable horror shorts. They largely succeed though some of the stories are a bit formulaic or a little slow if taken as a whole. The teens in the high school is the least effective of the tales and would not be very satisfying if it wasn’t broken up by the film jumping around from tale to tale. But taken as a whole I found this film to be quite a surprise. I was expecting a cheesy monster brawl of a movie (which the Santa segment did give me) but I ended up getting so much more. There is some real horror and tragedy mixed into these tales, enough to leave me wondering what might happen to certain characters where the stories to continue.
William Shatner gives a very nice turn as the bookend character of DJ Dangerous Dan. He starts out very full of the Christmas spirit and his character becomes drunker and more somber as he reports on the terrible events happening at the shopping mall while doing his best to bring some sort of hopeful guidance to his audience.
George Buza makes a fine warrior Santa. You feel his love for his work, his elves and his wife but when it comes time to throw down he is ready to roll. He will save his grief and sympathy for later as the children of the world have to come first.
While this movie wasn’t what I expected it was a pleasant surprise.
SCORE:
4 out of 5