Holiday Hell

There are warning signs when a movie is going to be pretty bad. The biggest one is when the same people are the writers, directors, and producers. This is a sure fire sign that a bunch of bored rich people are about to make a movie for the fun of it and it is going to be a dud!

This one had the telltale signs, but it also had some pretty innovative story lines. One storyline pretty much followed the ancient legend of the Golem from Jewish tradition, but the others were pretty original and deserve credit for being good ideas.

Now, the crime of the situation is that they were played out by a pretty amateurish cast with the exception of the shopkeeper!

The ending was pretty standard and stale. The kind of thing you pretty much see coming from a mile away.

I did enjoy the tales woven into the overall plot, but I cringed every time the casting spoiled the moment!

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.

Holiday Hell was an entertaining romp through the infernal holiday seasons. Great film to watch with friends at gift exchanges while munching on cheese logs and quaffing spiked egg nog. I had a blast watching a kid (Forrest Campbell) battle his babysitter with the help of a possessed Rabbi doll (WTF? and YESS!), and a drug-impelled miserable husband/Santa (the amazing Joel Murray) becoming the life, er death, of the office party. Check this one out.

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! 👎🏼👎🏼

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.