Holidays

I had such high hopes for Holidays, I adore horror anthology's and one featuring the writing of Kevin Smith and starring Seth Green and Harley Morenstein! Sign me up.

Sadly it didn't quite meet my expectations, and that is such a blinding shame.

You see horror anthology's are generally 3-4 stories and a wraparound, Holidays dismisses the wraparound and instead tells a whopping 8 short stories (Each one based on a different holiday).

This heavily reminded me of the ABC's of Death (2012) which was another horror anthology I was super excited for but turned out to be dire. That as well had a vast number of stories, different directors, writers and similar themes. Thankfully Holidays isn't that bad, but only because of a couple of the tales.

Truth be told several of the 8 are really bad and I mean really bad. They're the kind of shorts you'll see on YouTube that leave you scratching your head afterwards, unsure as to what you just witnessed and what the point of it all was.

Thankfully there are a few entertaining nuggets in there, some decent star power and sprinklings of charm. The stories range from weird, to gory, to oddly clever, but none exactly blew me away.

My pick would be Valentines Day as the most entertaining with St.Patricks Day being the worst...........or possibly Mother's Day.

Holidays on paper should have been fantastic but some disastrous writing near killed it for me, such a shame.

The Good:

Jocelin Donahue and Harley Morenstein

Solid visuals

The Bad:

Some really stupid stuff

So it isn't that easy to make an Anthology after all. That's one of the "positive" things you can take from watching this. If you're mean you could even argue that SyFy has done better feature length movies than most of the shorts being on display here. One thing is for certain: there is not much to cherish to be found here.

And it's a shame, because it did sound cool. Kevin Smith alone doing a short sounds great. But then again, I guess even he was either too busy with other stuff or somehow else occupied. Maybe something else happened, you never know, except you do know where the short stories are going. And almost none of them actually can create a mood, a tension, a story or anything else substantial to hold the viewers attention. There are some neat effects (the Easter Bunny story comes to mind) and occasionally a bit of quality that seems to shine through a story. But in the end, it's more like "whatever" and "why did I watch this again?" feelings that overwhelmingly win and leave you befuddled

Horror anthologies are always a risky business. With multiple writers and directors, there's bound to be an inconsistency in quality throughout. At least with this, given that the shorts, all based on a different holiday, are consistently bad, there is a consistent level of quality throughout.

Valentine: (2.5/5) A blatant Carrie rip-off with some dangling plot threads and a lack of explanation, but at least it gets the black comedy angle of the anthology right and has a clever ending.

St Patrick's Day: (1/5) A laughably stupid dud in every sense. What were they thinking?

Easter: (1.5/5) One good jump scare aside, this is tedious, tasteless and toothless.

Mother's Day: (1/5) A terrible body horror short where pretty much nothing happens. Oh, and then just when something is happening, it ends.

Father's Day: (3.5/5) A cleverly constructed and told short story which is arguably the best of the bunch in many ways, but it's still too open-ended and vague to satisfy.

Halloween: (3.5/5) An effective, squirm-inducing dark comedy that is both amusing and uncomfortable, although it is complete nonsense.

Christmas: (2.5/5) They had a great idea here... which they did absolutely nothing with and once again it ends just as it's starting to get interesting.

New Year's Eve: (2.5/5) More formulaic stuff which is mildly entertaining but just too predictable.

These films aren't scary, but they're not meant to be. They're meant to be dark, uncomfortable comedies. Sadly, the stories are weak and just lack any true meaning or point. I learnt something important in Film Studies: when you make a short film, the story should start when the film ends in a way. That's a good thing to remember if you're making a short film and that is basically what all these shorts do. But... don't forget to get the audience interested and actually give them enough information to leave them satisfied! Evidently, these writers and directors forgot that.

4/10

'Holidays' opens up with the Valentine's Day sequence, that gives almost immediate odes to De Palma with it's high school-heartbreak atmosphere. To make a short story shorter, the plot revolves around a misunderstood and exiled young girl would happens to have a crush on the school's swimming coach. After getting word that he may have eyes for her fair-haired nemesis, she retaliates through violence. This one does border on creepy as the feelings between Maxi ("Maxi Pad") and her teacher are somewhat mutual. But life is like a box of chocolate.. or hearts. By the time you see the credits, the tone does seem comfortably familiar. From the director of Starry Eyes. (5/10)

The next segment surrounds Irish myth & folklore on St.. Patrick's Day. While I do have a clover tattoo and I love the color green, this was not one of my favorites. Plot follows an elementary school teachers who has just received a reserved new student. Ginger-hair, freckled and somewhat adorable, the young girl does not seem to integrate well and quickly upsizes the teacher with rude dismissals and eery glares. We are soon given hint that the teacher longs for a child and eventually becomes pregnant after a night out drinking. The young girl becomes eerily fond of the teacher as if she knows something she doesn't know. They reference Polanski in this one, but it's no demon she's carrying, something a lot more scaly. This one was brought to us by Gary Shore, director of Wicker Man. (5.5/10)

Easter is never really looked upon with much horror, much like the preceding holiday St. Patty's. However, director Nicholas McCarthy ("At The Devil's Door") manages to hint at a surreal dimension filled with unseen terrors that leaves you thirsting for more. The Easter installment opens up with a young girl being put to bed by her mother. They have a somewhat intense and offbeat dialogue about the iconic Easter Bunny and how no child has ever seen him, or should. The same young girl happens out of her bed that night and stumbles upon something only seen in nightmares. Kudos to the FX team and any behind the visual the bunny, an image that'll stick with you for sure. Peter Cottontail meets Pan's Labyrinth. (8/10)

Mother's Day...... a lot can and will be said about this one for sure. This sequence put me to sleep and woke me in the same damn sittnig, stressful. The overall downside to a lot of the shorts is they feel just too short. This is not the case here, in this indie desert horror from "Midnight Swim" directer Sarah Adina Smith. The concept is basically a young girl becomes pregnant every single time she has sex. She feels she is medically ailed or cursed. After seeing doctor after doctor, she is referred to a retreat house in the desert somewhere. This place is filled more with woman who are having opposite issues with fertility and she again, feels slighted. Somewhere in this drawn out entry, I dozed off and came to in time for an OUTRAGEOUS finale. It woke me up, revitalized me enough to rewind and rewatch. All I can say is geeeeeeeeeeez. And what was that in the sky? A devil? An angel? (6/10)

Like in real life, Mother's Day is followed by Father's Day; without a doubt the most gripping entry in the production. They must have strategically placed it after the previous snooze fest, besides that ending of course, to regain viewers attention. I immediately appreciated the dark, deep tone of the setting. We are introduced to a young woman who comes home to a package at her doorstep. She opens it to find an old cassette tape player with a double sided tape inside, headphones included. She decided to play the tape, of course, and is jarringly met by the voice of her late father. The tape contains not only her the voice of her dead father, but it is looped with her's a young girl as they took a trip somewhere one day. She is quickly overwhelmed, rejects the tapes, regains herself and continues. Basically, her father disappeared years and years ago without a word or trace. She never got an explanation as to why. Until now. She continues to play the tape is led into an eerily-orchestrated scavenger hunt to find the truth about her father's disappearance and perhaps be reunited. This a truly beautiful built piece and again, is only hurt by the fact that so much can and needs to be said. The ending, IMO, does not live up to the build-up but I accept it for what it in this short and it does not take away from it's genius. Shoutout to Anthony Scott Burns, Happy Father's Day. (9.5/10)

Halloween - omitting review due to word count (4/10)

I had to go look up what this segment was about again, which sounds bad, but once I did I was pleased to remember. I liked this very odd and campy thriller about a man who goes to extreme lengths obtains a Christmas gift for his "dear wife". We all know how the latest gadgets get people in a frenzy, well the product in mentioned is called the "UVU".. and "UVU shows you, YOU". It does indeed, Our characters are forced to look at themselves and the ones closets to them in an entirely new lights and brings a whole new meaning to it 'what lies beneath'. Also, great cameo from Seth Green. Nice to see that guy. (7/10)

New Year's Eve was thoroughly enjoyable IMO and very unexpected. I'm not even gonna talk too much about it because it's best the end things off with a bang. Just know that two loners wind up on a date New Year's Eve and it's a countdown you will not forget. (8/10)

Overall, I'd give this anthology around a 6.5/10.

Just one thing to say, that Easter Bunny is scary as hell. An Easter Bunny mixed with the Son of God has literally been taking out of the text and and I just think, holy. Pun intended.

I loved him because of how disturbing he was. The guy who portrayed him did a very nice job and the look of his character made it very memorable. Let's just say once you see him, you can't unsee him. It becomes burned into your retnas so that even if you wanted to look away, it wouldn't matter.

A very enjoyable nightmare.