DVD Review: A Christmas Horror Story

A Christmas Horror Story
Directors: Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan
Cast: William Shatner, George Buza, Rob Archer
Studio: RLJ Entertainment
Release Date: November 24, 2015
Retail: $27.97
ASIN: B013JA9SL4
Running Time: 107 minutes
Rating: Not Rated
Buy Link: Amazon

Review:

Arriving on DVD on Tuesday November 24th, is the horror holiday flick A Christmas Horror Story. Directed by Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban & Brett Sullivan, the film stars William Shatner, George Buza, Rob Archer. The single-disc DVD features Behind-The Scenes Of A Christmas Horror Story featurette.

If you've been following my blog lately, then you would know that I don't exactly have the Christmas spirit yet, so the last thing that I want to do is watch a Christmas movie. Nevertheless, for the some reason I've watched two holiday-themed movies over the last few days, which one of the two happens to be the horror anthology, A Christmas Horror Story.

The anthology features four different stories, which are all wrapped together with scenes with William Shatner as a radio DJ, where he's warning his listeners to avoid the mall as there is a someone wearing a Santa Claus suit has taken shoppers hostage.

The first story centers on three kids - Molly (played by Zoe De Grand Masion), Ben (played by Alex Ozerov) and Dylan (Shannon Kook) on a ghost hunt in a school basement, where two other teens were brutally murdered a year before on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately for them, the ghost stories are true and the kids might not make it through the night alive.

One of the first cops who investigated the Christmas Eve murders was Scott (played by Adrian Holmes). Now he has his own set of problems with his seven-year-old son, Will (played by Orion John). The boy has been acting weird ever since he went missing for a few minutes when Scott and his wife, Kim (played by Oluniké Adeliyi), went Christmas tree hunting in the woods. To find out, something else has replaced their son and they'll have to fight to survive the night.

The third tale centers on the Bauer family visiting their estranged Aunt Edda (played by Corinne Conley) on Christmas Eve, but the old lady quickly kicks them out of her house. On their way home, the family has car trouble and are stranded in the middle of nowhere in the snow. To make matters worse, there is some sort of creature that hunting them down one by one; eventually leaving the oldest daughter Caprice (played by Amy Forsyth) to fight off the creature by herself.

Santa (played by George Buza) is always busy on Christmas Eve with last minute preparations for his Christmas deliveries, but this year he has his hands full when his elves are infected with a virus that turns them into zombies. Saint Nicholas must clean up the mess by killing all the zombie elves. However, there is a much deadlier threat for Santa - Krampus!

While a Christmas horror flick might not appeal to most viewers, there are few that do, which explains the upcoming Krampus film as well as the recently released Krampus: The Christmas Devil. As you can see, there is anti-Santa theme with all these movies, which includes A Christmas Horror Story. The latter has received some decent reviews, so naturally I wanted to see the film for myself. Plus, William Shatner is in it, so I was already intrigued to begin with.

Unlike most anthologies where each story is shown in it's entirety before the next one begins, these four (will five, if you count the William Shatner scenes) flip back & forth, which each film is slightly connected to another tale. For a low-budget film, it has some decent cinematography. The acting for the most part is pretty good as well. I especially liked the Orphan Black actress Zoe De Grand Masion, who gives a creepy performance as Molly. Overall, A Christmas Horror Story is a surprisingly entertaining horror flick that just happens to be set on Christmas Eve.