There’s been an absolute renaissance with horror over the past decade where the polarizing genre has made major waves, not just on television, but also with feature films. Movies that are able to properly translate the horror genre to the theatrical experience can resonate so strongly with audiences due to the communal nature of the genre.
Horror movies have a nearly limitless range in what they cover, but there’s been a number of films that tie the bloody genre to seemingly innocuous seasonal holidays as well as the anthology format of storytelling. Holidays is a 2016 horror film that embraces this concept with eight different seasonal horror stories that cover the whole calendar. There’s a lot to admire in Holidays, and it’s the perfect watch for Halloween, but some of its segments are more successful with their scares than others.
8 “Halloween” Wastes The Horror-Centric Holiday With Empty Blood And Bodies
“Halloween,” the segment helmed by Kevin Smith is the one entry that’s outright regrettable among the lot. Smith has progressively tried his hand at bold horror concepts, but there’s nothing original going on in his contribution here. The installment capitalizes on extreme sex and violence as three abused female employees take revenge against their boss. There’s zero subtlety to this story and just because a man gets viciously maimed doesn’t mean that it’s frightening. It’s also the most tonally frenetic of the lot and it’s even worse that it squanders the potential of what can be done with a Halloween segment.
7 “Christmas” Shines A Light On The Empty Nature That’s Consumed The Holiday
"Christmas" is another one of Holidays' more prominent installments, not just because of the significance of the holiday, but because it has some of the biggest star power of the lot with Seth Green in the lead role. "Christmas" gets into the corruptive nature of consumerism, corporate culture, and the benchmarks of which society judges humanity. The segment skews towards comedy more than it should, despite its dark themes. There's a nihilistic conclusion, but there's nothing in it that's necessarily scary. It’s appreciated that a Christmas horror segment doesn’t just stoop to a killer Santa story, but this segment doesn’t commit enough to the frights.
6 “Father’s Day” Gets Lost In Its Head And The Past
There's a lot of angles that a "Father's Day" horror story can be taken, but the segment in Holidays decides to look at the absence of a paternal presence in its central female character's life. That's a powerful relationship to examine and the bulk of "Father's Day" has its protagonist search for answers on her father with a supernatural occult atmosphere that slowly takes over.
"Father's Day" is more restrained and a slower burn than most of Holidays' stories. This doesn't make it a bad segment, but it's more contemplative in nature and lacks visceral scares.
5 “Valentine’s Day” Literally Wears Its Heart On Its Sleeve
Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer are a talented duo responsible for Starry Eyes, which is an extremely unsettling horror experience and deconstruction of fame. Their take on Valentine's Day doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it does some effective work with how this holiday can be grueling for romantic individuals who put themselves out there and get nothing back in return. The trajectory of the story in "Valentine's Day" is very familiar, but it hits hard in a brutal nature. It's especially rough that "Valentine's Day" looks at regular girls who are just pushed too far rather than some fantastical monster.
4 “New Year’s Eve” Unveils The Dark Horrors That Lie In People In Plain Sight
A good twist can go a long way and "New Year's Eve" in Holidays feels like a great Tales From the Crypt episode that's boiled down to its barest parts. The segment focuses on the romantic nature of the year-end celebration where many people hook up together. Holidays' look at this turns the tables on its murderous protagonist and puts him in over his head and struggling to survive. It's an idea that's been done plenty of times before, but it works as well as it does here because of the cast's strong performances and the blunt nature of its violence.
3 “Mother’s Day” Amplifies The Fears And Anxiety That Accompany A Pregnancy
Mother's Day may not get explicitly explored in many horror films, but there are countless movies that examine the fears that surround childbirth and motherhood, both in a real and supernatural sense. Sarah Adina Smith's "Mother's Day" pairs this anxiety with a witch coven with a story that builds to a frightening climax.
"Mother's Day" can feel reflective of Rosemary's Baby at times, but it sticks the landing and concludes with a strong image. Witches and cults can be overdone in current horror, but “Mother’s Day” doesn’t exploit them and it connects its dots in a way that makes sense and creates fear.
2 “St. Patrick’s Day” Looks To The Root Of The Holiday To Tell A Disturbing Tale
In any holiday-focused horror anthology film there are certain touchstone events that the audience expects, yet sometimes the biggest surprises can come out of the more unconventional holidays that don't have a clear angle. "St. Patrick's Day" by Gary Shore narrows in on the aspect of ridding Ireland of its snakes and the legend of St. Patrick. The segment uses a bunch of disturbing snake imagery that feels unique and unpredictable. This builds to a horrifying inhuman pregnancy that goes to more upsetting territory than what the birth in Holidays' Mother's Day segment explores. The performances are also haunting in their gleeful nature.
1 The Combination Of Extremes In “Easter” Creates A Truly Ghoulish Horror Icon
"Easter," by Nicolas McCarthy, is the clear winner in Holidays and it's powerful enough to fuel a full feature if McCarthy ever wanted to go that route. Easter is a holiday that's very divided in its religious interest in Jesus and the commodified nature of the Easter Bunny and colorful eggs. "Easter" fuses these sensibilities together and presents a figure that's a hybrid of the Easter Bunny and Jesus that's absolute nightmare fuel. The creature itself is disturbing, but the turn it takes and how the innocent mother gets enslaved to this monstrous fate hits just as hard.