Holidays (2016): Everything
November 11, 2016
Another horror anthology because they're my favorite. Plus, each anthology takes place on a different holiday, so it was basically MADE for this blog. I figured since we are officially entering the "holiday season" it would be an appropriate time to review this film. The shorts range from bad to very good so I'll just briefly review each one.
Valentine's Day:
A girl on a high school swim team has a massive crush on her coach. When he sees her being mercilessly bullied he decides to give her a Valentine, as a kind gesture. However, due to the depth of her obsession this turns out to be a mistake. This one is pretty good, a little predictable, but well done. It was very enjoyable to look at. The director/writer also did Starry Eyes and I kind of felt the same about that: it was alright, but was visually very interesting.
Holiday rating: 8 hearts
St Patricks Day:
Okay, so for some reason I fucking love this short. It's weird as hell, but like... I'm into it. This one takes place in Ireland, where a school teacher who dreams of being a mother, struggles to work with one of her quieter students. It's very weird and i don't want to reveal much else. I feel some people might think this one is stupid, but for me it's weirdly funny so it works.
Holiday rating: 8 shamrocks
Easter:
I liked this one more than the first and less than the second. In this one, a little girl is questioning her mother about the existence of the easter bunny (a not so thinly veiled metaphor for jesus) and is in for a surprise when he finally arrives. This one is creepy and is trying to be a little deeper than the others (and that's understandable since easter is one of the most important christian holidays). The bunny himself is really creepy, but also kind of hilarious if you're a heathen like me.
Holiday rating: 7 easter eggs
Mother's Day:
Meh. This woman is cursed with getting pregnant every time she has sex, no matter what she does in forms of protection or prevention. She goes to this witch coven to try to stop this process, but discovers that the witches are planning to use her for something a little different. I like this one celebrates the female form and motherhood but I unfortunately the plot is just weak. Like it's all there aesthetically and everything, it just didn't work. It's like... they had all the ingredients but still made the cake wrong. Meh.
Holiday rating: 6... moms? I haven't really thought through a rating system for this one.
Father's Day:
A woman receives a cassette tape from her father, who has been missing for years. As she listens to the tape she follows to where he disappeared with promises of being reunited. But what she finds is not what she expected. I liked this one. I think a problem I had with it though is that it built the tension so well that I think whatever they could have shown us at the end wouldn't have lived up to what I'd been creating in my mind. Still though, one of the better of the bunch. I'm surprised I liked this one as much as I did because I'm not normally a huge fan of this director's work.
Holiday rating: 7 dads... I guess, Idfk
Halloween:
A porn recruiter/pimp guy treats his employees like shit. The girls finally reach their breaking point and decide to exact their revenge on him. This short was directed by Kevin Smith and features his daughter as one of the porn girls (weird). It also features an unrecognizable Ashley Greene. This one is just weird and dumb and I think it's definitely my least favorite of the bunch. However, a Halloween short was probably easier to fuck up because there's already so many great Halloween themed pieces of media out there.
Holiday rating: 6 pumpkins
Christmas:
A man breaks his morals in order to get a virtual reality device that helps you see whatever you desire for his son for Christmas. However, what he has done begins to haunt him and the VR device begins to force him to relive it. He soon begins to fear what will happen if someone else sees what he has done. I really enjoyed this one, I mean of course it has the moral underlying about consumerism and materialism and whatnot, but it was honestly very clever. It starred Seth Greene as the dad and it really works well as few play paranoid and frustrated better than he.
Holiday rating: 7 christmas trees
New Year's Eve:
This one is for sure my favorite of the bunch. A serial killer goes on a date with a woman for New Years Eve, but he soon learns that his planned victim may be just as disturbed as he is. This one is my favorite of the bunch. One, because I think New Years Eve is an underutilized holiday, but also it's really really funny. But it's also got a decent amount of gore (not a ton, but enough). This was also written by the Starry Eyes guys, but it was directed by someone else and I have to say this is my favorite of their work. So maybe they're just still learning how to translate from page to screen. Either way, I love this one.
Holiday rating: 9 new calendars