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Holidays

(Multiple Directors)




In the style of ABC's of Death, Holidays takes a stab at the horror anthology genre, this time the gimmick is...you guessed it, Holidays.

The big ones are used, Christmas, Easter, Halloween...but then we get a St. Patrick's Day, which is odd because I'm not so sure that is considered a "Holiday". What makes things weirder is the fact that Thanksgiving is missing. I really liked St. Patrick's Day, until the absurd ending, but it's an interesting note on the film.

As a lot of anthologies do, this one suffers from the unevenness of the shorts. Some are wildly original and creepy, Easter, others a pathetically inept, Halloween. That later short, Halloween is directed by Kevin Smith, yes, Kevin Smith. He's on his horror fad right now and he misfires completely here. He casts his daughter and other girls as cam girls who have had enough with the poor treatment they are receiving from their 'boss'. So they force him to mutilate himself before taking over the business themselves. The horror element dives into the "torture porn" sub-genre, but it is pathetically weak, not funny and somewhat insultingly lazy. Compared to the Easter short by Nicholas McCarthy who directed the horror film The Pact, where he blends the Easter Bunny with Jesus to make a creepy horror hybrid of terror.

Seth Green and his wife star in the Christmas short about the truths behind people's worst desires and evil doings. Mother's Day focuses on a pregnant woman with a coven of witches and Father's Day is one of the more obtuse and out there films. Well directed and paced, but doesn't deliver on the ending. Then you have Valentine's Day which has predictable results and New Year's Eve, which was somewhat fun. It's all a mixed bag.

If you're into the anthology horror series, give it a shot. It's on the lesser side of things like ABC's of Death or V/H/S.