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Blu-ray Review: “A Christmas Horror Story” Is A Bloody Holiday Treat

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Interwoven stories that take place on Christmas Eve, as told by one festive radio host: A family brings home more than a Christmas tree, a student documentary becomes a living nightmare, and a Christmas spirit terrorizes, Santa slays evil.

“A Christmas Horror Story” is a new type of holiday movie. Instead of the most wonderful time of the year, mistletoe, and eggnog, we are bombarded with images of monsters, decapitations, and bad-ass Santa kicking zombie elf ass. The film intertwines three separate stories and they are are all fused together by one thread; Dangerous Dan (William Shatner), a local radio host in the small town of Bailey Downs, who keeps the audience informed as to the fate of the characters in each story.

Molly (Zoé De Grand Maison), Ben (Alex Ozerov), and Dylan (Shannon Kook) decide to break into the basement of a local school on Christmas Eve to investigate the horrific slayings of two local teens that occurred one year earlier and quickly find themselves locked in with no way out. With the school closed down for the holidays, no phone service, and the temperature rapidly dropping, the trio begins hearing strange noises coming from the hallways and only when they go to investigate, do they realize the true horrors that transpired exactly one year ago.

Scott (Adrian Holmes), the cop who discovered the dead teens in the school basement, has suffered from emotional stress, a result of the bloody revelation, but he is determined to get his life back on track. He takes his wife Kim (Oluniké Adeliyi) and young son Will (Orion John) out into the wilderness to cut down the perfect Christmas tree. When they cross over into private property, Will goes missing for a short period of time but when they get back home, he begins to exhibit strange behavior. When a mysterious caller informs Kim that Will is not her son, but rather, a changeling, the offspring of a legendary dark creature that has been secretly swapped in place of Will, she must try and take him back into the woods without rousing his suspicion, where the stranger awaits their return.

When Caprice (Amy Forsyth), her younger brother Duncan (Percy Hynes White), and her mother and father, Taylor and Diane (Jeff Clarke and Michelle Nolden), decide to visit Taylor’s estranged wealthy aunt Edda (Corinne Conley) for Christmas, things don’t go according to plan. Once she realizes Taylor is only visiting her to secure a loan for his failing business, she asks them to leave and on their way home, they narrowly avoid hitting a large creature which causes their car to veer off the road and into a ditch. When the vehicle won’t start, the family decides to walk back to town, taking a shortcut through the woods but soon realize that something is hunting them, one by one. They stumble upon an old church and take shelter inside but soon realize that even its walls cannot offer them shelter for the evil that is to come.

In the North Pole, Santa and his elves are gearing up for the evening ahead of them when one of them becomes sick. Soon after, he dies and Santa buries him but when he comes back from the dead, and more elves succumb to this mystery illness, Santa realizes that his elves are turning into zombies and must take matters into his own hands. While battling the undead, he comes face-to-face with Krampus, the horned, anthropomorphic figure who punishes children during the Christmas season for being naughty. In a battle for the ages, good fights evil until we reach the unanticipated finale which wraps up each of the stories, some which result in good outcomes, others, not so much.

Just the title itself, “A Christmas Horror Story,” implies a playful and tongue-in-cheek tone. After all, where else can you witness Santa in full-on Rick Grimes mode, hacking away at the zombified elves who are threatening his Arctic abode? Horror lovers rejoice.

Available on DVD and Blu-ray now

 
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James McDonald

Originally from Dublin, Ireland, James is a Movie Critic with 40 years of experience in the film industry as an Award-Winning Filmmaker. He is also a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association.