Holiday Hell

I think a 12 year old boy wrote this! It's really stupid and NO ONE talks like that! It's so bad, I can't tell if the stories are even good! 2 thumbs down! 👎🏼👎🏼

I watch movies so often that I'm running out of options and often look for new stuff on streaming apps like Netflix, Tubi, Crackle, Hulu, ect... Anyways, I don't understand people's ratings. I just watched Last American Horror Show on Tubi, and it was flat out TERRIBLE! How does that have a 6 and yet Holiday Hell is in the 3ish range? I must be watching something different than these people? Perhaps I'm partial, because anything with Jeffrey Combs gets an automatic 5 or above... Sure, this is low budget, but at least there is some work put in. I say it's a fun little anthology that doesn't look like a student project as some others do. Plenty people love Tales From The Crypt (including me), so I don't see how this is so different other than the lack of comic drawings and skeleton host. There is dark humor, the tales revolve around twisted morality, cheesiness, and some naked breasts. That's the good ol' formula for horror anthology to me.

The first segment is the worst story because of the horrible acting. plus the story itself was weak. it was literally just people hanging out and getting killed one by one. the fight coordination was awful as well. it was like the director didn't care and just wanted to get it over with.

second story about a little boy and his doll was better but stories like that have been done to death.

third story involving a guy in santa costume getting revenge, had the best acting from the lead. finally someone with a fraction of talent.

movie overall is just very BLAH and a waste of time. it's just a bunch of rehashed ideas from other movies and tv shows. no thought was put into them

Just another sup-par horror outing. As dbrown alluded to in his review, some very bad dialogue. Just really not much to see or hear.

This low-budget, indie horror film has some genuinely impressive filmmaking in it. I'm not a horror aficionado, but I know the tropes and these film-makers clearly have had some fun playing with them. Yes, there's some questionable dialogue, and the "don't go into the basement" (in a suburban split-level, ha-ha!) moments are schlocky, but there's definitely thought put into this, and some admirable and hilarious twists. As in many indies, the acting is a bit uneven, however, there are notable exceptions, and Joel Murray's performance is outstanding, by turns poignant, funny, terrifying. Jeffrey Combs is perfect as the smarmy owner of a creepy little shop of horror stories. And a special shout-out to Meaghan Karimi-Naser as the young woman seeking a last-minute gift for her sister. Karimi-Naser plays the slightly-too-innocent/what's-going-on-underneath role with wonderfully hinted-at layers. There's also a fantastic pay-off to her performance. (Whatever you do-stay for the last frame. You may know something's coming, but I promise, you are not going to guess the exact form it takes!) I hope to see more films by this group of indie filmmakers.