Director: James Crow
Year: 2023
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
After killing off his family, a deranged killer dressed as Santa Claus decides to tell the young child left behind vicious stories about the holiday.
Review:
Story 1-After their Christmas is ruined, a strained family fallen on hard times is visited by the mischievous Krampus to play off a spur-of-the-moment wish. This was a genuinely disappointing effort that does have some promise. The great setup is something that can have a bit of fun involved with the early setup showing how their lives have turned out for the holiday for the holiday and the antics of their unwarranted visitor result in some gruesome encounters that give this some likable qualities. However, only the mother is sympathetic with everyone else being selfish pricks unhappy with their lot in life and the whole affair is draped in an air of low-budget indifference that really robs this of the atmosphere it’s trying to present.
Story 2-Staying home to watch his brothers, a teen tries not to let his friends robbing the house end up succumbing to a crazed killer running loose in the house. This turned out to be a generally fun and likable slasher short. The idea of the specific killer coming to the house and conducting the rampage they do against the rotten group of friends that are present there is a lot of fun and features some great aftermath kills that lead to the big twist revealed in the end which is quite shocking to see in concept yet shows off the one lone issue here in how it doesn’t make any logical sense to how everything takes place. This is due to how the twist affects the events that took place previously, but beyond this, there’s not much to dislike with this one.
Story 3-Left alone with her client, a health-care worker alerts a woman and her husband that the house has been overrun by a group of youths seeking revenge for his past. There was a decent idea at the center of this one but not much else going for it. The uncertainty of the mysterious quote and its purpose gives this a bit of intrigue as this goes along but there’s not a lot otherwise going on here with the reveal undergoing a lot of the mystery in this one. That brings about a general air of apathy here that’s immensely underwhelming as that makes the whole affair less intimidating and imposing than it had been beforehand, so this just ends up being a giant waste with the purpose being undone by these revelations.
Story 4-After being fired from his job, a man who works as a mall store Santa invades a series of residences seeking revenge on various families. This was a massive misfire of a segment that has very little going for it. The main purpose has potential until the majority of the kills are carried out by poisoning as most of the actual kills take place off-camera and stumbling upon it later while the poisoning bits only seem to work if the characters who continually find the particular poisoned objects and proceed to eat them, so they look like braindead morons of the worst order. With an unlikable family and lame setups to continue the rampage being the wrap-around background, this is a bit underwhelming to end this on.
Overview: **/5
An underwhelming anthology that remains watchable at best, that this one has positives and negatives in every segment does the film in quite a bit. Really only stay with this one if you’re a fan of this style or are a fan of anthologies while most others out there should heed caution.
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