All the Creatures Were Stirring

Both as an anthology and as a Christmas horror movie, "All the Creatures Were Stirring" is far from perfect. In fact, it's a lackluster and wildly uneven movie altogether. On the other hand, though, I respect and even admire low-budget horror productions that dare to be different and original, and that's the least you can say about this omnibus. All the individual short segments, and the wraparound story, are unconventional and unique, and that's at least worth half of the optimistic score of 5/10 I gave!

On Christmas Eve, two people with nowhere else to go and absolutely nothing better to do, spend their first Tinder date together at a raunchy theater where three "actors" enact a series of holiday-themed stories with a bare minimum of decors and means. The stories turn into short films, and they are remarkable to say the least. There's a tale about an office Secret Santa party turning into a massacre, one about a traditional Yule demon, a modern version of Ebeneezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, reindeers bent on bloody vengeance, and a totally bonkers fable about holiday-loving aliens. The wraparound story about the first date then eventually turns into the last story.

A few of the separate stories are ingenious and compelling ("Dash Away All", " In a Twinkling") and others are more derivative ("Arose such a Clatter"), but ALL of them have in common that they are creative, but sadly also too underdeveloped and abruptly ending with many questions left unanswered. There's some gore, but not enough. There's occasionally tension and atmosphere, but not enough. There are flashes of sardonic black humor, but ... well, you know the rest of that sentence.

In the end, I can't really recommend "All the Creatures Were Stirring" wholeheartedly, but surprisingly enough I enjoyed it. And so did my mate with whom I watched it. Who knows, maybe it's because I was rejoiced by the spirit of Christmas, or maybe it's because the other two holiday-themed horror movies we watched were total rubbish. Either way, in case you love Christmas horror but you have already seen all the obvious classics ("Black Christmas", "Silent Night Deadly Night", "Krampus",...) this one may be worth a peek.

Not a horrible anthology but some of the stories are a lot better then others.

All the Creatures Were Stirring: Written and directed by David Ian McKendry and Rebekah McKendry

This was not the movie we started the night out with. The movie I was originally trying to watch was something called Christmas Presence, a bizarre English slasher film with some of the most morally repugnant obnoxious characters you ever laid eyes on. You know perfect slasher movie fodder. For some reason or other, I couldn't bring myself to spend more than 7 minutes with them. It was too much for my psyche to bear. I turned it off and turned this movie on instead. An anthology movie with a Christmas theme to most of the stories. It had one of those posters that catches your eye right off the bat. What's this?! A tiny monster exiting a Christmas ornament like some kind of egg. Well alright then I'm on board.

Lies! All lies! No such thing exists in the entirety of the movie. It's like being in a video store back in the 90s searching through the horror movie section being bamboozled by the cover art. I sadly fell for it. I ventured into the community theater on Christmas Eve for what stories it may tell. None of the stories really had any impact. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be scared or laughing. I did laugh at it. So I'm going to assume that this is meant to be a comedy. It's funny in the way things play out in an oddly stilted way. I laughed at the stuff in the community theater a bunch. You go from the serious bloodshed portion to the same thing being reenacted by two actors on a blank stage in the most over the top way possible.

This was a very cheap looking movie. I don't mean just low budget. I mean cheap. This is a difference. This is a cheap looking movie. I guess they spent all their money on the poster. You could have spared some for some good camerawork. We could have used some of this money for some decent makeup effects. None of the stories were all that good. The first one was a mixture of the Belko Experiment and Saw. This type of story has been handled by better filmmakers. We didn't need a fan film version of this with a Christmas flavor. The second story about the demon keepers was too long. It had some okay elements and the demon creature had a great design. The one doing a low budget version of A Christmas Carol made me roll my eyes. The one with the aliens visiting on Christmas and doing a Christmas dinner with this guy and his girlfriend. It's sort of weird. All the stories are very weird but not engaging.

This is a very weak anthology movie. There is no story good enough to overcome the shabby structure. The poster is the best part of the movie. The rest of it was very meh. I can not recommend it. There are better Christmas related horror movies out there. I give it a D.

This was one I had been anticipating for along while and after seeing Bloody Disgustings review witch pretty much trashed the film, I really knew I had to give it a watch. And sadly I was a little disappointed. The movie only runs at 80 minutes and contains five stories, all having something to do with Christmas in one way or the other! As normal with anthologies the tales are a mixed bag most suffering from the runtime. The first is a saw-esqe story of a group of office workers forced to play a deadly game, its sadly wasted on a half assed rushed ending. There's also a bizarre tale in which a reindeer gets revenge, and one that plays like a horror redo of A Christmas Carol, the best however is one in which a man stranded in a deserted parking lot meets a very strange van with two girls inside and that's not all. Overall it's ok but nothing really what I was hoping for.

Horror anthologies are always fun, more stories/themes/characters/styles etc. means there's more to find - to find something for everyone. I love the format, a compilation of short films, often wrapped in what I call the framing segment. "All the Creatures Were Stirring" is surely an entertaining anthology, but also frustrating - to feel the potential and see it executed so poorly. It also makes the mistake of slowly but steadily going downhill only to never get back up.

"All the Creatures Were Stirring" provides six stories (included the wrap-around segment) set during Christmas time, each one has its own plot and characters. Sadly, it's a very inconsistent anthology (like the most of them). Quite a lot of indie talent is involved, majority of the plotlines are (at least mildly) intriguing albeit not exactly original, some have a bit of that Twilight Zone vibe, but, however, the execution gets worse by each segment. The framing segment, about a guy and a gal going on an awkward date to the theatre on christmas eve, started off decently & ended just simply underwhelmingly - the 70 minute filler before that didn't help. Our awkward couple experience five stories, out of which the first two were the best. Decent acting, intriguing little stories, okay-ish cinematography & b-grade special fx. So far so good. The each next is worse than the last. While the interesting themes stay, the execution, excluding maybe acting, is deteriorating, even the technical aspects grow cheaper. As a consequence, pacing suffers greatly and boredom ensues. That's about it. As the credits start rolling, it becomes clear that the creatures stirring will soon be forgotten.

There's better anthologies out there, even the christmas kind, for example, "A Christmas Horror Story" (2015). I most certainly had low expectations, but out of "All the Creatures Were Stirring" 80 minute runtime only about 30 were enjoyable & with that I mean - about average. Nevertheless, it's not a regrettable holiday filler for horror fans. Recommend to everyone who loves his christmas creepy and bloody & is a forgiving movie watcher. My rating: 4/10.