Le calendrier

It's easy to scoff at the ridiculous premise, assigning sinister origins to innocuous items is usually a sign of a stupid movie, and "evil advent calendar" is as dumb as they come. Yet somehow they managed to wring a quality picture out of this ludicrous idea.

The tone is uniformly dark and serious, with the camerawork capturing some great low light shots and Eugénie Derouand expertly showcasing her character's turmoil. The plot mixes it's supernatural themes with the real world tragedies of living with a disability, and has an interesting focus towards the moral quandary of inflicting harm on others to service yourself. It all heats up to some gruesome ends, the effects work on the monsters is stellar, it's an inventive creature that's scary as hell without looking the least bit cheesy, and though things get pretty bloody, it's never as uncomfortably squeamish as other French horror films have been. I may have preferred a more conclusive resolution, but I still see the merit in how they chose to wrap things up.

Advent Calendar (2021) is a new French horror film recently added to Shudder. The storyline follows a former dancer that is now a paraplegic. On her birthday her friend gives her a unique wooden advent calendar that each day she opens she gets a unique treat that impacts her life, sometimes for the better and sometimes for worse. One day it unlocks the ability for her to walk; however, death and misfortune for others is given with that gift. She will need to decide to keep walking or keep opening the doors on a daily basis.

This movie is directed by Patrick Ridremont (Dead Man Talking) and stars Eugénie Derouand (Inside), Janis Abrikh (Safari Park), Olivier Bonjour (Black Spot) and Sabrina Lopez Leonard (Black Spot).

First off this movie has the coolest advent calendar you've ever seen. There's some crazy dialogue in this in terms of how people talk to a paraplegic person and an even more crazy rap sequence. There's a bloody dog scene in here that made me smile and the "thing" behind the advent calendar is well done. The ending is even clever and well written.

Overall this isn't a perfect movie but it is unique and definitely worth a watch for horror enthusiasts. I'd score this a 7/10 and strongly recommend it.

Wow, I didn't expect this age-old tale of obeying an supernatural object or die to be this good. It partially reminded me of Monkey Shines and has that feel blended with a more tone downed Malignant. For a Christmas Horror, you can't go wrong even though I doubt it'll be a yearly viewing.

The Advent Calendar is within the genre of the most surprising films of 2021. Although it doesn't bring anything new, the film has a very well-developed story without falling into the genre stereotype and has something different that captivates the narrative. Very interesting.

You have to tip your hat to Patrick Ridgemont on this one...because not only has he made a pretty cool film...but the concept itself is downright brilliant...as it's replicability is designed right into the story.

I'm sure he was influenced by the Saw series...and felt he could do better than the goofy spiral eyed character from the Saw films.

Because he does exactly that here with what is almost certainly a prop based on the dybbuk box- which was an alchemically sealed wine cabinet said to be harbouring some sort of demonic Jewish spirit that was sold on ebay.

Only, here it's been extrapolated into this really rad looking German advent calendar (the film is Belgian, but in French by the way) that seems to target people with disabilities, as a sort of puzzle box of death...in what can only be described as a f***ed up game where they're given the choice to live free from their disability, in exchange for...let's just say...a bunch of murder...

The whole thing is incredibly creepy. The monster is pretty cool. And there's a pretty rad little twist in the end.

So it's a pretty decent and worthwhile little film!

With big potential to become a full blown Christmas horror franchise.

As, obviously- like I already mentioned above- it sets itself up for a sequel, in a way that is very easily replicable, with a model where you can change up pretty much everything to suit the shifting context.

I guess you might argue that they'll eventually run out of disabilities to cover...but you could always go niche...to space...the hood...las vegas?... I dunno...have some crossover fun with Evil Bong?!

Or just change the rules, I guess.

Anyways...it's a shudder original film, so I'm sure they're pleased as santa's piss they've got a little franchise on their hands here.

Hopefully they don't go and mess up what is currently a good thing!

7 out of 10.