Holidays (2016)

Am I Missing Something?

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Every story is terrible except the Christmas one which was kind of interesting but the ending was pretty dumb.

This anthology of dark tales with holiday themes will take a skewed attitude and appreciation for gory, gruesome, creepy and horror. These stories deal with Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter, Father's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, Christmas and New Year's Eve. Some are tense and scary; some will easily be forgettable. All in all, I really had fun watching and even flinched a few times. Some pretty good acting. The Easter story may be the creepiest. The New Year's Eve tale will twist and turn giving you the shakes. The atmosphere and cinematography make these short horror stories worth watching.The cast features: Harley Quinn Smith, Lorenza Izzo, Jocelin Donahue, Seth Green, Morgan Duffy, Andrew Bowen, Ashley Greene, Rick Peters, Michael Gross, and Sophie Traub.

With The Tales of Halloween comes this anthology of horror shorts centered round the iconic holiday seasons all year around. It only has 8 stories with each of them dark, sinister & twisted one way or the other!Now I've seen the VHS Films, ABCs of Death, Trick 'r Treat, The Reaping etc. All of which were really good & amazing! So you could image, I had high hopes for this one & from the Valentines Short to kick off this film I really was hoping the others would deliver in the same way if not better. But sadly, the others were either weak, confusing or completely unimaginative! Let's go through the list:1. Valentine's Day (written & directed by Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmyer)A teenager with a crush on her gym coach is bullied by the rest of her classmates, but an innocent Valentine's Day gesture leads to horrific results.This was the one & only short I actually liked! It was straight forward, sinister, dark & pretty twisted! Yet had a pretty satisfying ending! Really liked this one!2. St. Patrick's Day (written & directed by Gary Shore)A young teacher learns the frightening truth about the legendary snakes of St. Patrick. A student makes her deepest wish come true, with a sick twist.This one wasn't great, it was dull, boring & quite dumb. It could've be great, but it simply didn't catch me!3. Easter (written & directed by Nicholas McCarthy)A young girl who wakes up and sees the Easter Bunny arrive is in for a shock.This one was a bit better than St. Patrick's Day, but still not great, it was a little too subtle for my tastes!4. Mother's Day (written & directed by Sarah Adina Smith) A woman who can't stop getting pregnant finds herself involved with a coven of barren witches after attending a strange ritual.This one was much to samey & similar to St. Patrick's Day! It was too subtle & wasn't great. It again never captured my interest!5. Father's Day (written & directed by Anthony Scott Burns)A teacher receives a mysterious cassette tape from her long- estranged father that leads to a darker mystery. The answer for why he disappeared may not be what she expected.Again, like the previous 3, it was way too subtle & dragged out & didn't do much for me in terms of straight forward story-line & in- your-face gore!6. Halloween (written & directed by Kevin Smith)A man running an internet cam sex business finds himself in dire straits when he crosses his employees on Halloween.This one was just outright sexist & stupid beyond belief! It was simply just the turning point of the film where I felt it was shite & still going to continue as since since the first short, Valentines Day, & the other shorts including this just where shite, this however, took the cake!7. Christmas (written & directed by Scott Stewart)A man goes to terrible lengths to get a virtual reality device for his son for Christmas, but finds himself haunted by it.Was a slight step up from the others though not as good as Valentines Day, this was alright, but still not the greatest!8.New Year's Eve (written by Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmyer; directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer) A disturbed young man discovers that his New Year's date may be just as twisted.Just when I thought the film couldn't get any worse, this just went from stupid to utter BEEP! I mean this one just ending the film on a pretty bad note & it was sad because there was nothing good about this one, I mean, yeah it was bloody but, nah it was just kak! Then.... The film ends, only 8 shorts? Wow. It was a major pi$$ take when the credits rolled, as it seemed that since, Valentines Day, there wasn't a even half as good shorts I liked. 1 out of 8, 7 of which just sucked so that leaves me no choice to give this film a low rating of 2! If there was 4 out of 8 shorts which were great, it would've been ace, but sadly there was only one that I liked! Such a shame, 2/10 & this film could've been so much better!

HOLIDAYS is an anthology feature film that puts a uniquely dark and original spin on some of the most iconic and beloved holidays of all time by challenging our folklore, traditions and assumptions.Where this anthology fails is in being an anthology. The idea is very good, but unfortunately the weak spots bring the film as a whole down. The worst segment, amazingly, was from the biggest name attached: Kevin Smith, and his take on "Halloween". It had such potential to make a comment on young women who are duped into coming to LA, or it could have been an interesting witch story, but he squanders it on a throwaway idea.Some segments are just alright. "Valentine's Day" is not bad, but not good. It has some darkly humorous moments, a nice homage to "Carrie", and a twist that is somewhat predictable but still rather sweet.The two best were "Easter" and "Father's Day". The Easter story deserves lots of credit simply for the creature design, but also takes on a mythology that is to be commended. The Father's Day story is my favorite. I love how it was crafted, I love the lighting, the voice delivery, everything about it. The only thing that could have made it better is if the last two or three seconds had been cut off.So, as a whole, "Holidays" is only worth a 5 or 6. Some segments could easily be 7 or 8, but they are weighted down by the worst. In this case, that is Kevin Smith. I enjoyed both "Red State" and "Tusk" (which puts me in the minority, I believe), but there was just no spark of creativity in this one.