Day 354 of the challenge! A Christmas Horror Story could have been a great horror anthology. It isn’t, but it still has it’s moments.
A holiday-centric series of horror misadventures set in a small town, I was initially pumped for A Christmas Horror Story. Y’all know I love my horror anthologies, and right off the bat I was getting some major Tales of Halloween (which I love) vibes from it.
Like Tales of Halloween, the segments in A Christmas Horror Story are all loosely glued together by a lone radio DJ (this time played by a random, but not unwelcome WIlliam Shatner) commenting on the strange nature of the town during the holidays. Unlike Tales of Halloween, however, A Christmas Horror Story decides to break up the stories, interweaving them throughout the course of the film. Lord knows why. By haphazardly editing them this way, the weaker stories rob the stronger and more memorable stories of their hit, bringing the whole film down as a whole.
That’s not to say each of the stories don’t have their moments, but it’s incredibly frustrating to watch when you keep going back and forth between 4 different stories that obviously weren’t meant to be watched that way. Still a fun enough holiday watch for those missing Halloween.