All the Creatures Were Stirring

This was one I had been anticipating for along while and after seeing Bloody Disgustings review witch pretty much trashed the film, I really knew I had to give it a watch. And sadly I was a little disappointed. The movie only runs at 80 minutes and contains five stories, all having something to do with Christmas in one way or the other! As normal with anthologies the tales are a mixed bag most suffering from the runtime. The first is a saw-esqe story of a group of office workers forced to play a deadly game, its sadly wasted on a half assed rushed ending. There's also a bizarre tale in which a reindeer gets revenge, and one that plays like a horror redo of A Christmas Carol, the best however is one in which a man stranded in a deserted parking lot meets a very strange van with two girls inside and that's not all. Overall it's ok but nothing really what I was hoping for.

This 2018 horror anthology was nothing extraordinary, and it is not really one that I can recommend that you waste your time, money or effort on. And it is definitely not a movie that will be a Christmas time horror classic, that's for sure.

The stories told in "All the Creatures Were Stirring" felt mediocre and half-hearted at best. In fact, it was so mundane and tedious that I gave up halfway through the movie. I just couldn't take anymore of the torment.

The acting in the movie was adequate, although the actors and actresses were struggling with the fact of having a lack of proper script, storyline and interesting characters. So it was a losing uphill battle for sure.

There really isn't any continuity or structure to the stories, so it is essentially just a random mash of collected stories told in a less than entertaining manner. This is one of the biggest flaws that this anthology had to it.

In between the various stories is some atrocious theatrical performance that just makes you cringe.

"All the Creatures Were Stirring" is an anthology that came and went without leaving anything of a lasting impression. And I have no interest in returning to finish the last half of the movie, simply because it completely failed to entertain me, and much less captivate me.

My rating for "All the Creatures Were Stirring" is a mere three out of ten stars, solely based on the production value and the effort they put into that.

They did this film for fun ,it shows its not gonna win any prizes but it has a twillight zone vibe that makes you go through the whole thing .In the end its an ok weird horror comedy .

Horror anthologies are always fun, more stories/themes/characters/styles etc. means there's more to find - to find something for everyone. I love the format, a compilation of short films, often wrapped in what I call the framing segment. "All the Creatures Were Stirring" is surely an entertaining anthology, but also frustrating - to feel the potential and see it executed so poorly. It also makes the mistake of slowly but steadily going downhill only to never get back up.

"All the Creatures Were Stirring" provides six stories (included the wrap-around segment) set during Christmas time, each one has its own plot and characters. Sadly, it's a very inconsistent anthology (like the most of them). Quite a lot of indie talent is involved, majority of the plotlines are (at least mildly) intriguing albeit not exactly original, some have a bit of that Twilight Zone vibe, but, however, the execution gets worse by each segment. The framing segment, about a guy and a gal going on an awkward date to the theatre on christmas eve, started off decently & ended just simply underwhelmingly - the 70 minute filler before that didn't help. Our awkward couple experience five stories, out of which the first two were the best. Decent acting, intriguing little stories, okay-ish cinematography & b-grade special fx. So far so good. The each next is worse than the last. While the interesting themes stay, the execution, excluding maybe acting, is deteriorating, even the technical aspects grow cheaper. As a consequence, pacing suffers greatly and boredom ensues. That's about it. As the credits start rolling, it becomes clear that the creatures stirring will soon be forgotten.

There's better anthologies out there, even the christmas kind, for example, "A Christmas Horror Story" (2015). I most certainly had low expectations, but out of "All the Creatures Were Stirring" 80 minute runtime only about 30 were enjoyable & with that I mean - about average. Nevertheless, it's not a regrettable holiday filler for horror fans. Recommend to everyone who loves his christmas creepy and bloody & is a forgiving movie watcher. My rating: 4/10.

All the Creatures were Stirring (2018) is a movie currently available on Shudder. This movie is made up of a series of short stories involving Christmas activities from work gift exchanges, family holiday dinnners, to holiday traumatic experiences and everything in between.

This movie is codirected by David Ian & Rebekah McKendry in their directorial debut and stars Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians), Jonathan Kite (2 Broke Girls), Matt Long (Mad Men), Katie Parker (The Haunting of Hill House) and Makeda Declet (Being Mary Jane).

The movie definitely has a surprise opening and the first story has potential but quickly disappoints. All the stories end up being kind of blah with some having more potential than others but mostly with few elements to get excited about once they conclude. There's no gore or worthwhile kill scenes in this, unfortunately.

Overall this is a disappointing horror short story anthology that I would score a 2/10 and recommend skipping.