Recensioni degli utenti

Stumbled upon this movie and thought I'd give it a go. I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised how much I liked it.

4 horror stories mixed around a radio DJ giving a live broadcast on Xmas eve, all with a connecting theme.

I love Xmas and I love Xmas movies, but there are so many bad ones. There's a few horrors that haven't done it for me. Krampus springs to mind, but this film delivers. It has a nasty feel to it, with a dark humour and a cracking end which brings the film together. A great "oh right" moment which I didn't see coming.

Definitely give this a go if you like horror movies. It's not light hearted like gremlins and Krampus, it's a proper horror with blood and guts.

A Christmas Horror Story (2015) is a movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a family that wanders onto the wrong property to cut down a Christmas tree and in doing so unleashes Krampus and loses their son. The release of Krampus offsets Santa's magic leading to elves no longer being invinsible and after dying returning as zombies. The parents and Santa will need to find a way to offset these daunting events.

This movie is codirected by Grant Harvey (Heartland), Steven Hoban (Darknet) and Brett Sullivan (Frontier). This picture stars William Shatner (Star Trek), George Buza (X-Men), Rob Archer (Pixels), Zoé De Grand Maison (Riverdale), Amy Forsyth (Hell Fest) and Olunike Adeliyi (She Never Died).

The cinematography in this is very good. The settings, attire, makeup and masks are perfect. This is one of the better versions of Krampus, definitely top 2. The elves is this are excellent and the highlight of the movie. Their lines and dialogue are hilarious. Did I mention William Shatner is in this? The kill scenes are solid but the sex scenes are not. The ending is way better than it should be and was very smart and well executed.

Overall this is a very solid addition to the Krampus universe and is definitely worth a viewing. I would score this a 6-6.5/10 and strongly recommend seeing it.

So I am fresh off of watching this and I have to say that I am a bit disappointed. The trailer and the current reviews made it out like this was going to be a blast to watch, and some parts of it were, but for the most part I felt pretty let down.

So this is an anthology film, but instead of running each story back to back the film instead runs them simultaneously throughout. So basically you jump around from each story, the main problem here is that I found two out of four of the stories to be pretty cliché and boring. It was a bummer to be right in the middle of one story that is picking up only to be thrown back to a story that is just plain boring. The pacing was a big problem too, nothing at all really happens until about an hour in, once things do get rolling it is decent but not enough to make up for the first dull hour.

I do have some good things to say, the Santa and Krampus scenes were absolutely awesome, it mostly made me wish that I was watching a movie that was strictly about them. The acting was well done throughout, and the special effects/gore was all top notch considering they didn't have a huge budget. Plus William Shatner is thrown into the mix, hard to hate that.

I feel like this could have been so much better because the parts that worked did work really well, but the stories just didn't blend well together and since you have to watch them all at once that really effected the entertainment of the overall film. It's rare that I truly hate some parts of a film but then absolutely love other parts, unfortunately with this one the good was not good enough to out weigh the bad. The fun parts were still really fun though, it just seems like the whole thing could have been a lot more fun.

5.5/10

I enjoyed this movie more each time I saw it after noticing how every story had connections that I missed the first time. I feel like it deserves a higher rating but whatever, I enjoy it and watch it every December.

A horror movie anthology that centers around 4 stories related to Christmas (except 1 which actually isn't).

Story 1: a very unoriginal story of young guys breaking into an empty building on Christmas eve. Not very orignial and not even very Christmas related but oh well. The lesser story in my opniion.

Story 2: Santa fighting off his elves turning into zombies. Sounds silly ? Wait for the end !

Story 3: a family steal a Christmas tree from a grove only to find out their son isn't the same anymore. Not a very orignial story either but I still liked it.

Story 4: a family visit their in-laws, and come into confrontation with a malevolent Christmas entity. Likely made in the wake of the Krampus movie.

Some reviewers complained that the story were interwoven and shown simultaneously, but that didn't bother me.

Not a masterpiece but you can do worse compared to the schlock that's made in the horror genre.

It's Christmas Eve. Three high school students go to school to film a documentary about the disappearance of two students last Christmas. Some part of the school was at some point a convent and there's more to the place than just the killings.

A family goes to the forest to cut a Christmas tree. At some point their young son vanishes but they do find him after a while inside a tree. When they return home the kid isn't quite himself.

A family travels to visit the father's rich aunt. But she's creepy and hostile so they quickly leave. But the daughter stole some trinket and the son dropped a Krampus figurine and broke it. That will come back to haunt them as their car breaks down and they have to walk through the forest. Things quickly get bloody.

Santa is getting ready to deliver gifts. Suddenly one of his elves goes nuts, drives a hatchet through his hand and dies. Soon all the elves become zombies and violently attack Santa who will have to take them out one by one.

All these stories are framed by a radio host who is in the Christmas spirit. Krampus makes an appearance in most of these stories and even confronts Santa himself. But when all appears said and done there's an neat unexpected twist.

The stories aren't told independently but are interwoven and aren't anything special initially but improve markedly once they take a turn to the dark. The story of the kid in particularly has some creepy moments. The story of the kids playing investigators in a locked school during Christmas Eve no less is very annoying at first until things change. The whole business with the radio host was mostly irrelevant. It's good to see Santa get a cool role as well as all the resent fuzz about Krampus. I wasn't expecting much from this movie but I was surprised that it did have something different and enjoyable to offer.

You never know what are you getting yourself into with movies like this. Luckily, A Christmas Horror Story gets most of the beats right.

It's a mix of multiple intersected story lines movie, fun horror movie and Christmas movie. There are even few known names here, but generally all the cast does a good job. Cool stories, couple of cool twists here and there and pretty sweet FX makes this movie a fun watch.

Yeah, it's nothing original and over the top, but it's well made and not too long. I'm guessing this movie will get repeated Christmas viewings in the years to come. Recommended but keep you expectations real.

It's the most wonderful time of the year. To die.

Directors Grant Harvey, Steve Hoban and Brett Sullivan all lend their talents in an attempt to turn the happiest day of the year into a horrifying movie experience in A Christmas Horror Story.

Best described as an anthology, A Christmas story interweaves multiple stories with Christmas being the anchor theme. The stories are diverse and in no way repeating. Santa takes on a horde of zombie elves. A family goes Christmas tree hunting where their son gets possessed by a demon. A group of teenagers return to the scene of a grizzly crime to film a documentary where the evil still lurks. And a family is terrorized by Krampus, the anti-Santa Claus.

William Shatner plays a radio DJ host that helps intertwine the stories and provides some spots of levity along the snowy roads to where the film journeys. The stories themselves do not play out in their entirety before moving to the next segment a la say Tales of Halloween or the ABC's of Death. Instead, the filmmakers jump between the stories which allow them to keep audiences on their toes and ensure that the lesser terrorizing / more dramatic scenes are broken up with the moments horror fans relish.

What makes A Christmas Horror Story so different from its peers is that there is not a dull story in the mix. Sure, not all stories share the same enthusiasm, gore or humor, but there wasn't any particular segment I wished would just mercifully end so that we could get to a more interesting one. That is great praise to say the least. I could not say that about Tales of Halloween and that makes A Christmas Horror Story more in line with say Trick 'R Treat than Creepshow.

Yes, Yes, Yes, we still had our favorite. That would be Santa's story on combating zombie infected elves and his eventual showdown with Krampus. The effects, make-up and overall execution of this segment are worth the price of admission alone. Santa comes across as an 80's action hero. His eyes didn't twinkle. His dimples weren't merry. His cheeks weren't like roses. My god was he scary! The Santa/Krampus showdown might be the highlight of the film but one can't ignore the other segments that lead to the climax. Each provide a fun sleigh ride of horror and all three could have been their own movie if the stories were expanded.

A Christmas Horror Story played at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival on Saturday night and the audience clearly got in on the fun laughing at the right moments and offering applause for some of the more gruesome scenes.

There are not a plethora of good Christmas horror films out there. In fact, after Black Christmas you would be hard pressed to name another outside of a Silent Night, Deadly Night. But A Christmas Horror Story brings enough presents in its Santa sack to make this a rather fun film that might just become a 'go-to' film for many horror fans every December.

Radio DJ Dangerous Dan (William Shatner) is hosting his annual Christmas Eve show while slowly getting sloshed; meanwhile, Santa is fighting off zombie elves, a group of teens are investigating a haunted murder site, a married couple's son is replaced by a 'changeling', and a greedy family have an encounter with Krampus, the anti-Santa.

It took quite a while for me to realise that A Christmas Horror Story was an anthology (the title is a tad misleading, suggesting just one story), and when I did, I was more than a little disappointed: I had been looking forward to seeing how they were cleverly going to connect all of the different plot threads.

As an anthology, the film is sorely lacking. Rather than concentrate on one tale at a time, the film cuts back and forth between the stories, making it hard for the viewer to become too involved in any of the action. Furthermore, none of the episodes have particularly effective endings, whilst the 'wraparound' scenes of DJ Dangerous Dan are fairly pointless and exist simply to add some star power in the form of the ageing Shatner.

On the plus side, the 'Santa vs the elves' story delivers some fun gore, the jolly old fellow slicing up several of the toothy little monsters with his staff, and the tale about the teens in trouble offers some eye-candy for the fellas in the form of pretty redhead Zoé De Grand Maison, who has a steamy sex scene, albeit one without any nudity.

My rating: 5/10. While I'd still rather watch this sort of thing over saccharine seasonal pap like Miracle on 34th Street or It's a Wonderful Life, there are many much better Christmas themed horror films to be had.

Let me start by saying I like generally horror films - not so much the torture films ("Hostel", "Saw" etc) - but things like "The Thing", "Halloween (Original)" The Exorcist, "It Follows", & "The Ring". So I was always gonna watch this because I also like William Shatner & Christmas. I was expecting this film was going to rate 5 or 6 but because it exceeded my expectations so much I am giving it a hefty 9.

It's better shot, acted and written than the average shocker.

The film nicely interweaves 4 stories and a semi-story of William Shatner as a DJ. All are nicely told and varied in tone. The film is really slick and well directed, shot, and edited together - especially since there were 3 directors. The dialogue is not always the greatest but heck its a horror film so its way above average for the genre. There are also plenty of nice scares.

If your idea of a horror is lots of explicit gore this film is not for you - although there is enough to keep the less gore obsessed fan on the edge of their seat. The focus is spread across 4 very different sets of characters most of whom you wouldn't usually see in a horror film. The exception are the young teenagers who decide to break into their school, in order to investigate two murders that occurred in the school's basement the year prior. This story is exactly what you might expect - and no worse for it - but the other stories are all great. I can't say any more as I think this film is best watched without expectations and definitely without spoilers.

A nice Christmas treat!

I appreciate that while 'A Christmas horror story' echos the format of any given anthology film by splitting its length between distinct stories, its approach to that end is much more loose and free-flowing. Set primarily all within and around the town of Bailey Downs, each story happens concurrently, with passing shots or scenes to initially illustrate that connection. Where other movies in this style would tell its stories one by one, separated with the customary wraparound segment, 'Christmas' cuts from one story to the next, generally a few minutes at a time, until they are all told to completion. Does that style make it easier to engage with, or more difficult? I can't say for sure; mileage will vary from one viewer to the next.

Static imagery, blood, and gore looks fine generally; more dynamic CGI is more of a mixed bag. Other rounding details like hair, makeup, set design and decoration, and so on range from questionable to suitable; the cast's performances range from suitable to swell (although, that said, William Shatner has rarely seemed so indifferent in his acting). Of more concern for a genre picture is the quality of the writing, and here it's a rather mixed bag. Character writing, dialogue, and plot development across each story are founded foremost on contrivances: leaps in logic, poor and unlikely decisions, stubbornness and pride, and so on. To one extent or another some of the story beats are predictable - there are also some great ideas here - but above all, however well done it may be at times, very little strikes me as especially remarkable or noteworthy.

I'll say this: the action-horror vibe at Santa's workshop is a good bit of fun; Kris Kringle has never been so hard-boiled. Despite some ham-handedness, I think each story concludes with a fine ending. And while the wraparound segment here is given less concrete treatment compared to other anthology flicks, I do like the way that it progresses with subtle suggestions of something sinister before summing up sharply. Why, the strong finishes are enough to make me want to hold the entirety in higher regard. The fact remains, though, that while duly entertaining, 'A Christmas horror story' doesn't do much to grab our attention outright. It's enjoyable enough that it's worth putting on if you want to watch a horror flick without necessarily having to actively engage with it, though don't go out of your way to find it.

Worth 107 minutes of your time? You could do a lot worse.

As most have said, the stories are somewhat uneven. All the stories started out great, but most of them ran out of steam and their ending was anticlimatic. The 1st story about the school was a complete bust in my opinion. What started out as extremely interesting case turned into just a cliche mess.

However, the main arch story was awesome and without giving spoilers, that ending was really unexpected.

A solid 6.

To me, watching a Christmas-themed horror movie during the most wonderful time of the year is more traditional than eating a stuffed turkey, hanging stockings on the chimney, or turning off the radio when Mariah Carey starting whining. Since you can't keep watching the obvious classics ("Black Christmas", "Silent Night, Deadly Night", ...) year after year, we luckily have been blessed with a couple of awesome new holiday-horror in the past decade. "Krampus" was great, "Better Watch Out" was surprisingly formidable, and also this "A Christmas Horror Story" turned out to be a pleasantly horrific experience. This film is pretty much the Christmas equivalent of what "Trick 'r Treat" was for Halloween, and I happen to love that movie as well!

"A Christmas Horror Story" unfolds as an anthology, but the separate tales do not follow each other like usually the case. Instead, they are interwoven and very loosely connected to each other via character links and the fact they all take place in the wider area of a little village named Bailey Downs. As a sort of thin wraparound story, the mighty William Shatner also appears as a local radio DJ during the interludes.

The quality level of the individual segments differs enormously. Personally, I didn't like the tale of the three students privately investigating an unresolved double-murder case in the catacombs of their school. The denouement is fairly grim, I admit, but the whole thing felt too much like the set-up for a lousy found-footage flick. The chapter with the dysfunctional family encountering Krampus has loads of potential, but the running time is too short to properly deep dive into the fascinating folklore of the creature. The makers of this film probably didn't know that, almost simultaneously, writer/director Michael Dougherty was working on a long feature "Krampus" movie. I quite liked the story of a couple witnessing how their young son behaves increasingly strange and menacing after he went temporarily missing during the family's illegal search for a Christmas three in a private forest. The tale contains a few very effective shock moments and the underlying tension between the husband and wife is quite unsettling. But the masterwork of "A Christmas Horror Story" is undeniably the tale where Father Christmas (the aptly cast George Buza) must fiercely battle his own elves, because they turned into ravenous zombies. This chapter is funny, original and exhilarating, and that was before I was even aware of the awesome twist-ending.

While this is by no means an instant Christmas Classic or anything, and only really ever breaks out of B-movie status, it is still a fun, fast-paced, wacky film with some decent story telling, decent effects, and solid acting.

Shatner delivers, as can be expected, as well as George Buza, who plays Santa Clause.

The story is a little choppy, which is the norm for an anthology-type movie, and in the case of this one the story's are intermingled together, with the endings all happening at the end of the film as opposed to their own respective storylines.

The direction, however, is not without understanding and as the movie progresses you quickly see how the stories start to impact each other.

My only real complaint is the lack of a climax. While I get the ending, the other stories just kind of....ended. What was the primary reason behind all the craziness that holiday season in Bailey Downs? I would have liked to see a primary villain (Krampus perhaps?). While the stories are connected they are not really dependant on each other and their connections are more coincidental.

I would have liked to see a final act that showed that it was perhaps Krampus himself that was behind it all.

Ah..., now this is the kind of fun, Retro Fantasy Horror film that I like. As opposed to your sadistic Eli PHUK'n Roth brutality films (not to disrespect those of you though who DO happen to like that kind, but Eli Roth wouldn't know how to bloody ENTERTAIN if his life depended on it. All he knows how to do is highlight suffering and disgust...)

This film however, although truly entertaining and funny at times, used humour very sparingly (well, maybe except with the Elves...) It was not self-referential and there was absolutely NO winking at the audience. There was a lot of genuine suspense during the movie. IF you happen to like this type of fun old fashioned Horror film, I honestly feel that there is a lot to like in it. As I mentioned, the humour thankfully is not overdone. There are parts that are genuinely funny, but I feel that for the most part, the film leans more heavily towards Suspense and Horror. This movie has a vibe slightly similar to say 'CREEPSHOW' Good, solid, scary Horror at times, but along with touches of humour here and there. Perhaps this one is a BIT more serious...

Probably, what will determine if you like this movie will be whether you enjoy more Fantasy based Horror films or not. Personally I do very much. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am also an avid fan of absolutely dead-serious, Scary as $hit Horror films too. Some of the greatest Horror movies of all time are quite serious. But, I have a real affection for Horror films that truly are entertaining along with being scary. Films for example like 'CREEPSHOW', 'LOST BOYS', & 'FRIGHT NIGHT' (the original) to name a few. But, some of my favourites are chilling ones like the Classic 'LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE', the deeply Psychological 'SESSION 9', or the recent extremely well done 'BANSHEE CHAPTER' (dude, I seriously had to change my PANTS after that one!)

As I have mentioned in many other reviews before, I personally lean much more so towards the Fantasy based Horror films. Ones either with a serious Supernatural slant, or ones based on Classic Gothic Lore like the Hammer Horror films, for example. So, I would be one who REALLY loved the 2010 film 'THE WOLFMAN' with B. Del Toro, where many people did not.

Anyway, sorry to digress there a bit, but when it comes to Horror movies, people can REALLY be different in what they like, so if I am going to recommend a Horror film, I want to make SURE that I am clear about the kind that I like so that you can hopefully determine whether YOU would like it.

I think what I personally really liked about this movie was that I appreciated the quality performances which the director was able to draw out of his cast, some of them quite young. Usually it is the HORRENDOUS acting that puts me off many of these modern Horror films, especially the low budget ones. But quite honestly, I felt that all here did an above average job in their roles. Oh yeah... there was ONE thing that I wanted to SURE to address (although, I would LOVE to UNdress that one young actress! Sorry... just something about those boots, skirt and wool stockings... :D ) Anyway, uh (cough) sorry about that... as I was saying... One thing that I want to mention that I VERY MUCH DISAGREE with that some here said, is that they didn't like the way that the stories were intercut together. Well, in my lowly and wretched opinion, I personally felt that the director did a frigg'n EXCELLENT job in doing that, seeing that that is quite difficult to attempt, much less pull off as well as he did. No, I honestly VERY much liked the way they did that because, to me, what it accomplished was that it kept the audience hanging between each story as it cut to another. I felt that it was extremely effective in further ratcheting up the suspense than if they had just done the conventional thing of telling each story separately. In that, I fully disagree with what others stated about not liking that aspect of the film.

So, there you go... I hope that I have been able to describe my personal impressions of the film clearly enough to be able to give you an accurate idea of what it is like and whether you might like it like I did. I really thought it was a very fun, scary, well put together Fantasy based Horror film; especially one about the Christmas holidays, of which there haven't really been THAT many good ones lately...

This film could have used some better editing it was to choppy and cliché . The old saying that less is best ,,,in regards to the special effects . This movie had all the elements that a slasher film is supposed to have , But the music , The monster make up . the sound effects are all over done . The only reason that i tried it was because of BILL SHATNER GLEN GASTON THE CREEPY GUY .I would recommend for some kids that want to watch a wacky movie and make fun of it .this rest of this review . is just some cut and paste stuff . Getting a new Christmas themed horror movie is always an interesting occurrence to receive, especially in the unique, and some-what weird way presented in this movie. "A Christmas horror story" has ideas, executes them.. but they seem to fall a bit down..

We get multiple stories in this one film, delivering about four stories all at once, making an anthology. I honestly felt it annoying, and a bit hard to follow with the choice the filmmakers decided to go with, that being clumping all the stories delivered all at once, flipping from one scene, cutting it, and moving to the next constantly. This made it slightly annoying in the sense of our attention gripping on one part of a story given, and having it suddenly cut off, heading to another. Following that note, of course, are the stories themselves. The stories we were given were slightly clichéd, they, however managed to lift themselves from cliché garbage to a slightly nicer, more unique kind of way. They passed the clichéd to be a bit newer, more refreshed due to the way each story was heading. So in a way, they managed to rise up, and succeed the audiences cooperation. Another factor involving the stories, the pacing. I honestly didn't like the pacing in this movie. It felt way, way too slow then what if could of been, regarding each story of the anthology. The elements of which were leading up to the finale, involving for example the characters getting stuck were feeble attempts to clutch out attention, and it just didn't really work, instead boring us more, the audience wishing the events / stories were over. The movie's poster shows a battle between Krampus, and Santa. Sadly. Don't be fooled, this film does not revolve around our favorite Christmas devil, Krampus. In fact we don't get action involving Krampus at all until around the end of the film, disappointing myself, and others hoping for some action involving Krampus. And even when we get to the battle, and action scenes, we still don't get what we were hoping for, instead small scenes, glimpses, and actions involving Krampus, once again, not exactly paying off successfully. Now that all the negatives are pointed out.. are there positives? Sure! The movie adds some form of relief with its tactic of forming each of the anthology stories together, of which, at the end of the film leads to a twist that was slightly mediocre. But manages to actually pay off. We also get interesting little Christmas morals here, and there to follow through with, minor little elements. Finally, as said before the twists featured in the film. Once again. It wasn't the best. But enough to hold the attention of the audience.

I watch this every Christmas. It's become tradition. This is such a fun movie with lots of twists, and one really epic one at the end. William shatner sprinkled in to add to the campiness! Super solid horror anthology. One of my favorites.

For some reason my previous review got deleted and I can not find it anymore because a section where these where stored is gone. It's like a review horror story ... I'm just kidding or first world problems as some would say and obviously not as worrisome as the issues our characters here have to go through ... not even close to that actually.

Having said all that, the deletion of reviews here also did not have the always great Shatner narrating it, like this movie has. We get a mixture of stories that revolve around Christmas and may or may not have something in common with each other. It's something most may think about when they watch movies that have the short story touch to them. And there only is the yes or no option really.

You should not be easily offended, otherwise you may have a lot of issues watching this. Overall more than decent effort that may have different levels of quality for some, I personally did like them all more or less. The tone is set from the beginning and it carries throughout the whole thing nicely - well you know what I mean! Because there is evil here - but it is entertaining too (all in the context of remembering this is just a movie or multiple little ones)

Beginning with our beloved gift giver about to board his sleigh and coming full circle towards the end, A Christmas Horror Story weaves together four stories of almost every popular horror sub-genre. With our first story, we have a found-footage style ghost story set within the dark corridors of a school. Our second story follows a police officer and his family in a creature possession mishmash, who despite the warnings of trespassing, illegally cut down a tree. On the way they seamlessly cross paths with the next desperate and foolish family, who wind up getting into an accident, soon finding them being picked off one by one in the vein of a holiday slasher. Finally, we come back around to a festering nod to modern zombies, as Santa Claus must ward off his elves that only want to devour flesh.

While certainly not being a new concept in the world of horror cinema, with George Romero's Creepshow having carved a place over 30 years ago, anthologies have since become more mainstream with Michael Dougherty's 2007 woven horror treat, Trick R' Treat. The greatest similarities come between the character's paths, often overlapping in some magnificent or minute manor, which works to establish a pace lacking in breakups or cuts that might remove us from the film. With our stories loosely being introduced by disc jockey Dangerous Dan (William Shatner), A Christmas Horror Story jumps back and forth between each tale, often placing too much on our plate. It can feel burdensome to embrace all our stories at once, though there is a decent amount of fun to be had with each.

Establishing its first story with a group of teenagers who should probably want to have sex rather than break into a school (I mean, right?), our group of paranormal investigators wave goodbye to their friend who initiates the third story, who passes the vehicle of our second story. It's a brief introduction that exemplifies the disorder our film follows, juggling four stories without any real rhyme or reason. It's a method Trick R' Treat used much more confidently and smoothly, layering each story like a beautifully decorated tree. Each story lacks a central character(s) that grounds the story in our deepest consideration or appreciation. Besides a staff wielding Santa Clause, we find ourselves rooting mostly for the demise of each character on screen. There's a superficiality to our horror inspired Christmas treats, resembling a well put together fruit cake that in the end winds up being, well, still a fruit cake.

Directors Grant Harvey, Steven Hoburn and Brett Sullivan certainly deserve praise and applause however, as they manage to blend enough sub-genre's into one film that doesn't pander too much to its fans. The shaky camera in our first story is quickly disposed of in favor of deeper shadows and richer tones. Santa moves around his workshop, slaying Christmas elf after Christmas elf, offering enjoyable new levels to our zombie tale. Our stranded family embraces what's in the shadows, while delivering enough bloody eggnog to satisfy the splatter fiend in all of us. What falls flat unfortunately is our second story, passing on an engaging premise of wrongdoing, family woes and marital hiccups that could have featured some Twilight Zone inspired creatures. Where awe-inspiring makeup brings to life the mythological terror of Krampus, we are too often treated to poor digital effects that only hinder and shift our wonder of our four stories.

While there is a terrific end to Santa's unwrapping of the undead, grounding our film in grisly and disturbing festivities, it ends up being too little too late. There's certainly something to be said about the push and veneration for holiday inspired horror films, however it's one that continually leaves a lot of room for improvement. A Christmas Horror Story is a forgettable yet fun little holiday horror anthology that winds up feeling too adventitious for its own good.