Holidays (2016) – Movie Review

Holidays (2016)

Despite the fun concept, it sure ain’t no Creepshow

Directed by

Kevin Smith
Gary Shore
Matt Johnson
Scott Stewart
Nicholas McCarthy
Dennis Widmyer
Kevin Kolsch
Sarah Adina Smith
Anthony Scott Burns

 

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This is a fun idea for an anthology. There’s a short tale for each of the US holidays during the year. They’re labelled horror but, some are just weird tales. Despite the fun concept, the stories were mostly mediocre. None of the shorts take the time to set up the mood and spirit of their corresponding holidays. There are a few that I found moderately entertaining. Easter is weird and disturbing and although it didn’t have a clear explanation of the events, the visuals stuck in my craw. That damn Jesus-bunny freaked me out a bit. In Mother’s Day, a woman who can’t stop getting pregnant goes on a health-related retreat and finds herself with a coven of witches. I love Christmas Horror stories and the one here, starring Seth Green, was a pretty good one. A dad steps over a man having a heart attack to get the last UVU virtual reality game set. Somehow the machine taps into your mind and gives you a specialized personal VR experience. When he and his wife start to see what’s in each other’s minds, that’s when he gets a real nasty surprise. And finally, the New Year’s segment is a fun little short about online dating. Good times.

The stories are too short to garner any real empathy for the characters or to have any complex plots. As far as horror anthologies, I wouldn’t rate this very high, it sure ain’t no Creepshow. It’s more along the lines of ABC’s of Death. If you wish to kill some time and get moderately entertained by some horror shorts, you can give Holidays a try. You have a 50/50 chance at being entertained.

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Moderately entertaining horror anthology but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it.

I give it 2.5 creepy critters out of 5 on the horrific holiday antho scale.

peep show?

Ax your BF to the party

is this a condom?

no fun here, just a prego

Alice in Blunderland

stalked by a woman…

why so serious?

ABC’s of Death 2 – movie review

ABC’s of Death 2

(Various directors)

Ok, we know the deal from the first film. 26 directors, each one takes a letter of the English alphabet and builds a short-short around it.

How do you tell a full story within a small amount of time and with limited dialogue? These shorts are not like watching a regular anthology or film. They are flash fiction pieces put to a visual medium. Some will make you chuckle others will jolt you with shock value. Still others will have little effect and little reason to be remembered. I often like the animated segments best because of their unrestrained creativity. Many come off as art house films or student films with better production values. There is nothing remotely scary in the film as the cover art would suggest. I don’t find gore scary at all. It may make me squirm or cringe but it garners little fear in me.

B is for Badger was excellent. A real A-hole of a newscaster meets his untimely fate.
C is for Capitol punishment is super realistic gory and tragic.
D is for Deloused a gory animated short, extremely bizarre and unnerving because of it.
H is for Headgames is another unbridled animation segment.
L is for Legacy was a cool little demonic conjuring segment.
O is for Ochlocracy is exceptional, where zombies put a woman on trial for killing zombies.
In Y is for Youth, a teenage girl imagines the worst possible deaths
for her annoying family members. There are some imaginative gory
deaths in this segment that makes it comically entertaining.
T is for Torture Porn; a young woman auditioning for the latest skin
flick, gets the ultimate revenge against the pornographer.

Many of the segments are amusing but as a whole the film leaves little lasting impression. The film is like a calling card for directors and effects teams rather than an entertainment vehicle itself. Without any unifying thread it’s just too long to watch in one sitting. I liked this one a little better than the first because I was turned off by some of questionable subject matter in the 1st one, but overall, the ABC’s of death films are nothing more than a novelty. Unless they do something drastically different in the future, I probably wouldn’t bother wasting my time on another film in the series.

Added note – Some of these segments can be seen on Youtube. I myself, watched it on Netflix (in 3 sittings, a third at a time).