A Christmas Horror Story

You Better Watch Out

In continuing with our yearly tradition, I forwent the traditional holiday movies and watched a holiday horror movie, A Christmas Horror Story.

What initially drew my attention to this one, aside from it being the only such offering on Netflix this year (what the heck, Netflix?), was the description of the movie. "This anthology features a quartet of holiday-themed horror tales, including Santa battling zombie elves and demonic Krampus stalking a naughty family." Let me repeat a piece of that: Santa. Battling. Zombie. Elves. That was it, I had to watch it when I read that.

Add to that the fact that none other than William Shatner is in it, and you've got an interesting movie. Interesting, and cheesy as all get out. In addition, the horror alluded to in the title was a bit of a misnomer. There's not really anything in the movie that is overly scary, more jump scares than anything. That's not to say it didn't have its moments, but overall, not too impressed with the horror aspect of it.

Aside from the aforementioned Shatner, the cast was completely made up of relative unknowns. I loved this, because it let me focus more on the characters instead of the actor playing them. The characters were decently written, no real standouts though. They were just barely interesting enough to keep my attention.

The real star was the story, for sure. All 4 stories were actually intermingled with about equal parts cheesiness and legitimate drama. I initially thought that the tales were all connected, but after a second look, it appears that they are not. However, the story does jump back and forth between each group of characters, so you are getting updated on all of them at the same time. While this is a little unconventional for an anthology where the stories aren't really connected, it seems to work out alright.

A Christmas Horror Story gets 5/10 stars

All in all, it was an OK movie. Nothing that is a must see, but isn't completely terrible. I've definitely seen worse. If you have nothing better to watch on Netflix and are in the mood for something holiday themed and are OK with a little blood and silliness, give this one a shot.

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From me to you, Happy Holidays, wherever you may be from!

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