I didn’t expect much from A Christmas Horror Story either (yay for low expectations?), but it was better than it had any right to be. This anthology contains four stories (five if you include the wrapper story with William Shatner as a radio host slowly getting shitfaced on air), all taking place in the little town of Bailey Downs (nice It’s a Wonderful Life homage) on Christmas Eve. Rather than complete one story, the film cuts between all of them, which is a bit frustrating.
The first story is probably the weakest: three teens break into their school, a former convent, to film where two kids were murder the year before. They are trapped in the basement with the ghost of a young unwed pregnant woman who was sent to the convent to have her baby. Other than a set of really creepy life-sized nativity statues, there’s not much going on there.
The second story is about one of the police officers who investigated the deaths of the students the previous Christmas. Still haunted by their unsolved murder, he drinks too much, which is causing a strain on his family. He makes the very unwise decision to take his wife, Kim, and young son into private woods to cut down a Christmas tree. Their son gets lost, but when they find him, he’s withdrawn and mute. His mother soon realizes there is something very wrong. The small boy shovels plate after plate of food and stabs his father with a fork. The owner of the woods calls and informs Kim that her son is a changeling and she needs to bring it back to the woods to get her real son back. There is some truly disturbing shit in this story. Keep in mind that the child is supposed to be around five years old and though he’s been replaced by a monster in the story, he still looks like the little boy. I am honestly a little shocked by some of the things they did in this story.
The third story is about a family going to visit the father’s Aunt Etta for Christmas Eve. After one of the children misbehaves, she demands they leave. On the drive home, they hit…something, and their car is wrecked. On the walk back to the aunt’s house, they are attacked by a monster that they discover is Krampus, the monster from a folktale Etta told them. Each family member reveals dark secrets about themselves and each other as Krampus picks them off one by one. There’s a nasty little bit with Krampus’ tongue that’s wonderfully gross. Only the daughter, Caprice, survives by killing Krampus, who transforms into Etta’s servant. Etta explains that Krampus is the spirit of anger and that anyone sufficiently angry on Christmas Eve can be taken over by him. I like this take on the Krampus myth–it cements his place as the anti-Santa.
The fourth story is probably the best, although it starts in a rather silly place. In Santa’s workshop at the North Pole, one of his elves gets sick and dies. This is alarming because elves can’t die. When the contagion spreads to and kills all of the elves, they come back as filthy-mouthed undead–and they are hilarious and wonderfully gross. This is no doughy Santa, though–with his trusty staff, a sharp blade at one end, Santa fights off the zombie elves, slicing off heads and limbs as he races to his sleigh. He knows the culprit is Krampus and prepares for a showdown with the Christmas devil. This one takes a turn I truly did not expect and the ending is fairly chilling.
The scenes with Shatner aren’t really a full story, but act as segues between scenes. The real fun with Shatner’s part happens during the closing credits.
eris404 