Holiday Hell

Just another sup-par horror outing. As dbrown alluded to in his review, some very bad dialogue. Just really not much to see or hear.

The first segment is the worst story because of the horrible acting. plus the story itself was weak. it was literally just people hanging out and getting killed one by one. the fight coordination was awful as well. it was like the director didn't care and just wanted to get it over with.

second story about a little boy and his doll was better but stories like that have been done to death.

third story involving a guy in santa costume getting revenge, had the best acting from the lead. finally someone with a fraction of talent.

movie overall is just very BLAH and a waste of time. it's just a bunch of rehashed ideas from other movies and tv shows. no thought was put into them

This low-budget, indie horror film has some genuinely impressive filmmaking in it. I'm not a horror aficionado, but I know the tropes and these film-makers clearly have had some fun playing with them. Yes, there's some questionable dialogue, and the "don't go into the basement" (in a suburban split-level, ha-ha!) moments are schlocky, but there's definitely thought put into this, and some admirable and hilarious twists. As in many indies, the acting is a bit uneven, however, there are notable exceptions, and Joel Murray's performance is outstanding, by turns poignant, funny, terrifying. Jeffrey Combs is perfect as the smarmy owner of a creepy little shop of horror stories. And a special shout-out to Meaghan Karimi-Naser as the young woman seeking a last-minute gift for her sister. Karimi-Naser plays the slightly-too-innocent/what's-going-on-underneath role with wonderfully hinted-at layers. There's also a fantastic pay-off to her performance. (Whatever you do-stay for the last frame. You may know something's coming, but I promise, you are not going to guess the exact form it takes!) I hope to see more films by this group of indie filmmakers.

Holiday Hell (2019) is another holiday gem I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a morbid shop keeper closing up for the night on Christmas Eve when a persistent shopper comes in to buy a girl for her sister. As the shopper finds various interesting things in his store, the shop keeper tells her the short story behind the item and he how he acquired it.

This movie was created by four directors and stars Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator), Jeffrey Arrington (All Too Human), Mandy Baker (The Alliance), Lisa Carswell (Z Nation), Lisa Coronado (Z Nation) and Forrest Campbell (Mr. Bleachers).

Jeffrey Combs was awesome in this from beginning to end with great narrations, storytelling and as an overall performance. As with any short story anthology some are better than others. The first story with the mask wasn't that great, the second story with the doll was pretty good, the Santa storyline was awesome and the final story wraps up the movie perfectly. There's inconsistent gore in these but the better stories obviously have the better kills.

Overall this is far from a classic but a worthwhile holiday horror short story anthology. I would score this a 6/10 and recommend seeing it at least once.

I think a 12 year old boy wrote this! It's really stupid and NO ONE talks like that! It's so bad, I can't tell if the stories are even good! 2 thumbs down! 👎🏼👎🏼