Holidays

2016   NR   1:45  Anthology/Horror    ( IMDB info)

It may not be rated but I give it a Pg-13 to an R rating from what I’ve seen.

starring  (well the notables anyway)  Seth Green, Harley Quinn Smith, Michael Gross, Ashley Greene, Jocelin Donahue

Each of the movie shorts, end with a card and the writer or director’s name on it.

 

Are you one of those people sick of the same Holiday specials every year? Maybe for some reason you just hate the holidays, (or certain ones) well this is a derogatory gesture to those holidays. I’m not usually keen on short stories because a lot of times they do not seem to be fully told, as if the beginning and or middle or maybe the middle and the ending are cut off.  However in this there are a few that I quite liked.

If you ever saw the ABC’s of Fear, think of this as the ABC’s of the holidays or as Holidays of fear!

The  movie started with a swim team during practice and some mean fake blonde  picking on some girl max or as she calls her ‘Maxi pad’. The blonde bully and her cohorts shouldn’t talk cause they are nothing to be picking on someone about as they are not all that themselves. With her pale splotchy face, fake blonde hair, or those scary eyebrows. One of her entourage looked like she’s from a Horror  movie…oh wait this is… I mean a horror version of Dazed and Confused.

Max has a crush on her swim coach for some reason, which besides the mean girl I’m not sure which is supposed to be scarier. We find out it’s (almost?) Valentine’s day and Max decides to get an extra special valentine to her coach. I’ll leave it at that. This one I did like  but I think was half way or almost finished before we find out what holiday we are watching.

Why didn’t it start with New Years though?

then we visit a classroom for St. Patrick’s Day with some creepy tree craft. Yes I know St. Patrick supposedly drove the snakes out of Ireland and all that but this fell flat for me. This one for me was a lame duck, skip it.

Now the Easter one was an nice interesting twist as to why you should be asleep when the bunny comes. It’s also a bit scary in the end. No one is supposed to see nor has ever seen the Easter Bunny. The little girl has no problem with the bunny it seems, but Jesus coming back she seems terrified about… (I don’t blame her… I don’t like zombies either).Her mom explains you are not supposed to be up when the Easter bunny comes, while explaining to her that it’s the day Jesus rose etc. One of the girls anxieties is what if she wakes up at night or needs a glass of water? Her mom tells her that’s ok.This short is the reason you shouldn’t be up when the bunny (or really any gift giving icon of the holidays) comes. Apparently Jesus is the Easter Bunny but looks a bit like a cobra with the ears down like that. This was one of my favorites of the anthology.

Mother nature is a bitch, and this proves my point. Mother’s Day Forget not being able to get preggers, this one is over fertile no amount of birth control or condoms seem to help! Now that is truly terrifying.

While on Father’s day  a tape recorder shows up on Carol’s stoop. It’s her father who disappeared or something when she was little and there’s instructions for her to find him.  Not impressed with this one but suspenseful

I enjoyed the  vintage holiday cards they showed after each short, it also mentioned  who the writer and/or director was.

Halloween was quite amusing, I think the ladies will like this one best. It’s a little funny in a sense but All I’ll say is webcam witches and payback as a hint. Definitely another fave highlight of the anthology    :::evil laugh:::

Now Christmas had me laughing for one reason… you know that Samsung VR thing that was out for the 2016 holidays? Well Seth Green is out to buy a gift (last minute the freaking idiot)  and because he was too late, someone else got what and he wanted to get his kid. Which were UVU glasses (so this made me think of the Book and soon to be movie ready Player one)  anyway you hear about holiday shopping and people having riots etc. (Heck mom had to get my Cabbage Patch Kid from the back of the store, I think you got a voucher or something from inside or when you pre-ordered and this helped control the crazies or something)  Anyway this is what the movie reminds me of and that finding a holiday gift (heck just getting out of the store) can be a real killer! It’s not just that but a reminder to always put that sleep timer on your electronics in case you are called away and there are nosy bodies around. This one was ok… and the story end up being in a sense another Samsung VR commercial.

Then there’s the New Year with a last minute date the character finds from Craigslist or some some online site. Well I saw where this was going in an instant… my question was which is the one that is gonna chop up the other? And y

So as I said it’s sort of like the ABC’s of Fear just with the holidays instead. It’s just too bad they use the most popular ones, but then again there’s already a movie titled Krampus, but too bad they don’t use Yule as well. as it does pre-date Christianity and most of the symbols (if not all) of ‘Christmas’ are actually Pagan!

 

Want to check it out? Get it on Blu-ray or DVD

See the trailer on   Amazon Video

You can also check out this screen rant article that lists it as #1 in most unusual horror films !