WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
Last year I brought you an article about Unconventional Christmas Films. This festive season I wanted to take it another step further. In case it wasn’t obvious by previous articles, horror is my favourite genre – so this time I’ve compiled a bunch of horror films set around Christmas in order to put a little fear in your stocking.
Mercy Christmas
I’m not going to pretend this is a good film. The acting is cheesy and the puns are absolutely terrible but you really have to try and look passed all of that. The worrying part is I actually found some of the film quite funny but I don’t know if that says more about me or how bad it is. For example, this is a family that eat people for a traditional Christmas dinner but Cindy has a go at her grandmother for wearing fur? Talk about irony. I feel sorry for everyone that is planned to be served up for Christmas dinner except for Phillip. He gets on my nerves from the moment we are introduced to him, and I cheered internally when Cindy kills him.
This film actually holds up as a Christmas film because it is all about family coming together and celebrating their own traditions. OK, this family’s tradition is to eat people but I guess everyone has their little quirks…
I Trapped the Devil
What’s great about this film is that it isn’t in your face, and I mean that in terms of both the horror and the fact of being set at Christmas. However, not a lot actually happens throughout the whole film apart from the deaths of the two brothers and a cop. At first I thought this was a good thing, it left me with great anticipation from the moment the door in the basement opens because all the time I’m thinking is it the Devil or not? Unfortunately, and this is obviously my opinion, the ending is quite a bit of an anti-climax. The one thing I do like is the slight nod to Poltergeist with the staticky TV with the image of Steven’s wife.
All Through the House
I feel like this film is what would happen if Michael Myers decided to dress up as Father Christmas instead of just wearing a William Shatner mask. However, it doesn’t feel quite as structured as the Halloween films.
There are so many layers to this film that it just becomes a little bit confusing and, I’ll be honest, I either missed or don’t understand what the killer’s motive to have murdered all those couples as well as Rachel’s friends. The only death that I truly understand is that of crazy Mrs Carter, a little too crazy for my liking, at the end because who wouldn’t kill the mother that castrated them as a baby. Actually, I get why the men as well – Jamie clearly wants his penis back but none of the rest of it makes any sense to me.
Curse of the Cat People
This 1944 film will not take much out of your Christmas Day plans as it’s no longer than an hour. OK, so only 20 minutes of it is actually set at Christmas but I guess this is when the most important part of the story happens. It is by this point that Amy has truly become friends with Irena and it’s the first time it becomes truly obvious that she has becomes friends with a ghost. Truthfully, this film being a sequel to Cat People it may a little hard to understand the true significance of Irena’s character when it is watched by itself.
It’s not exactly what I’m sure we would consider as a horror film nowadays but it’s the subject of the film that makes it a horror, the basis of the supernatural.
Krampus
I’m going to be completely straight with you. I tried to watch this film, or at least that’s what I thought, a few years ago when I was home alone – BIG MISTAKE! It’s rare that I get scared and had to turn a film off but back then that’s exactly what I did. Thankfully, this was a different version.
Now, I’m not saying it’s a bad film because it’s not but I feel that it had the potential to be so much better. With the attack on Beth towards the beginning and all that is shown is the shaking of the DHL van, the audience are set up for quite a dark film but it does slow right down from then on. Possibly caused by Omi’s backstory and the oddly animated vision that the audience are shown. Also, I’m sorry to say that it feels like we’ve certain parts of the film it’s like someone has been reading Stephen King’s IT and watching Tremors. Truthfully, I can’t hide the fact that I shed a tear at the demise of Toni Coletti’s character.
The ending, I haven’t made up my mind about it. If it genuinely had turned out to be all a dream I would’ve been extremely let down because I seriously hate ‘and then I woke up’ stories. However, if we’re supposed to believe everyone’s dead – I can get onboard with that.
Anna and the Apocalypse
If you ever wondered what it would be like to mix Shaun of the Dead and High School Musical this film would be it. OK, so the production values aren’t quite as good as Shaun of the Dead but who cares. What’s great about making a zombie film into a musical is the juxtaposition of the music and everything that’s going on around it – like when Anna and John are singing ‘Turning my Life Around’ and there are people being eaten alive around them.
Obviously, I’m not going to pretend that this isn’t an absolute cheese-fest because it is but it’s a bit of fun and truthfully this is usually the kind of place I would tell people who aren’t that into horror to start. It’s pretty darn realistic too. Obviously I’m not saying this kind of thing could happen but it’s rare to see someone in a zombie film vomit after they’ve killed one.
