Holidays (2016)

To me, this movie is perfection.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a collection of short stories (about 10 minutes each) of the following holidays: Valentine, St Patrick, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year's. I did enjoy a few of the stories sometimes thinking they would have been a better feature length film such as St. Patrick. I was least excited about Father's Day. Warning to religious folk, the Easter Bunny has the wounds of Jesus as the film combines the two tales. I am not sure why a cassette tape, even when old would pop and click like a record.The efforts seemed half-baked.Guide: F-word. Ample nudity in Mother's Day episode.

Using a celebratory holiday as the background for your horror film isn't a new technique. The most popular slasher film of all time is "Halloween," complete with trick or treaters and the teenaged screams of Jamie Lee Curtis. Many other lesser known, yet beloved, holiday features have been made, including "Santa's Slay," "New Year's Evil," and "ThanksKilling." In this vein comes a horror anthology film that celebrates the horror of the holiday season. The holidays in question include Father's Day, Mother's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Christmas, Halloween, New Year's Eve, Easter, and Valentine's Day.Those who will enjoy this film must love the grotesque and the weird. None of these movies are especially scary, because that doesn't seem to be the aim for these newbie directors. Some of the vignettes are spooky, like "Father's Day," and most of them are downright weird, like "Easter," and "St. Patrick's Day," but if you're going in thinking that there will be an emphasis on jump scares and low budget thrills, you are mistaken. Honestly, I enjoyed the creepy, grim realities of these holidays, but these films don't take themselves too seriously and they revel in their campiness. If you love movies like "Black Christmas," and "Silent Night, Deadly Night," this is definitely going to make you feel nostalgic for the fun of seventies psychological faire and eighties slashers.Though this is a film that I enjoyed, mostly for its unapologetic strangeness, it is not a good anthology. Some of these entries are so underwhelming, not only because they don't scare but because they don't know how to end. "Mother's Day," is an entry with an especially strong start a la "Rosemary's Baby," and then stumbles around until it ends predictably. "St. Patrick's Day," has, literally, the exact same themes, but ends in a comical (?) farce of Irish lore. Kevin Smith, the only large name attributed to this film, has an entry that stars his teenaged daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, as a cam worker bent on revenge on her pervy, rapist of a boss (played by Harley Morenstein of Epic Meal Time internet fame.)Anthology horror films are rarely good, but they act positively as a space for filmmakers to take a small amount of time to try and create the next great horror fiction. Horror is so often drawn out and ruined via contrived plots and repeat sequels, and seeing a simple idea condensed down can be its own reward. While there' definitely some uncomfortably terrible entries in this anthology, there are some particularly potential gems as well.

This is one of the best anthology films I've ever seen. There is something really special about it. Maybe the idea, maybe the story – I don't know. But you should give it a chance. It reminded me of ABC's of death(which sucked balls), but it's way way better. I was really surprised that Thanksgiving wasn't included, but however it's pretty descent movie to watch. Of course not every "short horror film" about holiday in this film is good enough, but most of them are.Valentine's Day – it totally grabbed me. The atmosphere in this one is something very different and i don't know, amazing I would tell. The culmination was the point that I knew the movie will be good one or another kind of way – 10/10 St. Patrick's Day – Ehhh… that wasn't so good at all. Too much bullshit and it was kind of boring – 3/10 Easter – Well… this part is cool. (Spoiler alert – Jesus Bunny surprisingly doesn't look funny, just creepy). Exactly how it must be. – 9/10 Mother's Day – I can say the same for this one. I couldn't really understand the story, but I understand one thing – it definitely do not liked it – 5/10 Father's Day – This part was mind-blowing awesome. Somebody really burned the midnight oil for it. I would like to see full-length movie about that story. They HAVE to do that – 10/10 Halloween – Kevin Smith? Why not. I like revenge horrors and this one wasn't scary at all, but it's nicely done – 9/10 Christmas – what we have here… original idea? Of course. Modern technologies + horror film = not cool(for me), but it's not bad at all – 7/10 New Year's Eve – Spoiler alert! Psychopath vs psychopath – it look like my kind of thing – 9.5/10.

holidays is an anthology horror film released in 2016, it involves multiple horror shorts that are rooted in the major holidays throughout the year. we get a segment for valentines day, Easter, Christmas, mothers day, fathers day, new years eve, st. Patrick's day and Halloween. the directors of the film are Anthony Scott burns, Kevin smith, Nicholas McCarthy, Adam Egypt Mortimer, Kevin kolsch, Ellen Reid, Gary shore, Sarah Adina smith, Scott Stewart, and Dennis widmyer. with a list of directors like this one would think the film had potential. for the most part each director has at least one credit to their name that was enjoyable and displayed their skill and passion as a film maker to some degree. so this for me combined with a concept that to my knowledge hadn't yet been done in the anthology horror genre left me pretty excited for this film. to give you an idea of how good the movie actually is ill review each short and then conclude the review with my general thoughts on the film as a whole.valentines day: directed by Kevin kolsch and Dennis widmyer. the two of these men previously brought us starry eyes which ill admit to not seeing yet but from what I have heard its excellent. but for me valentines day misses the mark. it was going for a carrie-esque type of story but fell flat in its execution. I wont ruin anything but the humour is very much out of place and would've worked much better if it was left until the finale. 4/10 St. Patrick's day: directed by Gary shore who recently brought us Dracula untold, which did fairly well upon release. this short is really all over the place in execution. homages, serious buildup and a mind numbingly silly finale make this a total dud. 2/10 Easter: directed by Nicholas McCarthy who recently brought us two excellent horror films, home (2014) and the pact (2012). this short was actually kind of memorable and you can really get a sense of McCarthy's excellent camera-work and how well he utilizes the score, lighting, sound design, and special effects. while Easter is a difficult holiday to do a horror short for he does create a memorable and well crafted short with some good performances from the tiny cast. the only things I can detract stars for would be the silliness factor which Is only really there because it involves Easter. by no means is it great. but it is pretty good 6/10 mothers day: directed by Ellen Reid and Sarah Adina smith. both of these women make their directorial debut with this short and do a decent job. the cult atmosphere they create is pretty good and they manage to tell a decent story with a good ending. the editing in one particular scene is pretty amateurish but for the most part the editing is good as well as the lighting and sound design. 5/10 fathers day: directed by Anthony Scott Burns. most known for his visual effects work on the last exorcism part 2. Burns puts in a solid effort here with this short, telling an emotional story that actually has some depth due to its solid direction and style of storytelling. it has great atmosphere, a good score and lighting, as well as a good performance from the lead. unfortunately though the monster/entity was kind of shown to us near the end and I think it would have been far more effective it had been left to the imagination. 7/10 Halloween: directed by Kevin smith. Kevin smith's filmography speaks for itself. he has some good films and he also has some bad ones. his style of comedy is hit or miss but when he gets things right he really gets things right. red state was a good example of this. but this short is truly awful. nothing at all about this short is enjoyable. the saddest part is that he had the easiest holiday. Halloween. but instead of giving us something interesting or even slightly atmospheric we get some white trash porno silliness with terrible acting. 1/10 Christmas: directed by Scott Stewart who was the director of dark skies, priest and legion. this short stars Seth Green, who gives us a pretty good performance for what he had to work with while also making me laugh here and there. the story is pretty interesting but I felt like it could've been brought in a much better direction. all in all it was okay. 5/10 new years eve: directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer who previously directed some kind of hate (2015). this short was also pretty darn good. it had some good acting, awesome gore effects and a twist that I really didn't see coming. hey I laughed at one point too. very good short. 7/10 so to conclude my review I would have to say holidays for the most part is a success. it is definitely bogged down by some of the bad shorts but the ones that are good really are good. 5 of the 8 shorts were decent to good shorts so I would give the film as a whole a score of 5.5/10. nowhere near as good as say, creepshow, black Sabbath, body bags or V/H/S 1 or 2 but still enjoyable.