The Big Picture
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Holidays
takes major American holidays and turns them into horrifying scenarios, exploring the dark side of these joyous occasions. - The segments range from cringe-worthy to truly deranged, with “Easter,” “St. Patrick’s Day,” and “New Year’s Eve” standing out as the best.
- While some segments fall flat, the film’s creative take on holiday horror and its exploration of common fears make it worth watching.
As the title suggests, 2016’s horror anthology film Holidays takes every major American holiday and imagines the worst possible scenario. From psychic breaks to body horror, Holidays ensures that you’ll never see these joyous occasions the same way again. With a wide range of highly skilled directors attached, the segments range from somewhat cringe-worthy and uninspired to truly deranged. The biggest name attached to Holidays is undeniably Kevin Smith, whose name was milked for all it’s worth in the film’s marketing. Nevertheless, his is one of the less impressive segments, with “Easter,” directed by Nicholas McCarthy, Gary Shore‘s “St. Patrick’s Day,” and “New Year’s Eve” by Adam Egypt Mortimer being the true standouts.
‘Holidays’ Takes Some Big Creative Swings
For the most part, Holidays smartly draws from much of the folklore surrounding many of these holidays and perverts them in extremely clever ways. As with many horror films, the weirder that Holidays gets, the better it is. The most disturbing of the bunch is undoubtedly “Easter,” which imagines a demented amalgamation of the Easter Bunny mixed with a perverted Christ figure. This abomination is so disturbing and beautifully realized that it puts every other aspect of the film to shame. The implications in “Easter” are truly disturbing not only because of how unsettling the creature’s appearance is, but because they involve an innocent little girl caught in her worst nightmare. Her fear is palpable with the segment ending in such a sinister way that will have you shooting for the exit of the grocery store next time you see a carton of pastel Easter eggs.
Another highlight is the folk horror-tinged “St. Patrick’s Day” segment, which mixes the legend of St. Patrick with Cronenbergian levels of body horror. The segment wisely uses its upsetting themes of interspecies reproduction to portray the dark side of motherhood, leading the protagonist down a path of severe psychosis. Similar to “Easter,” “St. Patrick’s Day” takes what we love about the holiday and twists and perverts it to revolting lengths. “New Year’s Eve” similarly takes an aspect that most people love about New Year’s — ringing in the New Year with loved ones — and decides to exploit our collective fear of dying alone. While this segment goes out with a whimper, it starts out strong with a great performance from scream queen and former Eli Roth muse, Lorenza Izzo.
‘Holidays’ Also Has Some Major Misses
Holidays overall has about a one-to-one ratio when it comes to memorable segments and ones that are either downright bad or generally just totally forgettable. The most ludicrous of the segments is thankfully the first one, “Valentine’s Day,” whose premise and execution are so unoriginal and sloppily told it momentarily leaves a bad taste in your mouth before “St. Patrick’s Day” and “Easter” pick up the pace. “Valentine’s Day” is basically just a bad retelling of Carrie, with awful acting and unintentional camp that doesn’t really fit the tone of the rest of the film. The worst offense of this segment, however, is that the resolution is extremely lazy, taking the least interesting approach to the material possible. There are a few more mediocre but inoffensive entries, such as the Seth Green-led “Christmas” and Kevin Smith’s “Halloween.” “Christmas” just feels like one of the lesser episodes of the latest season of Black Mirror, and “Halloween” is too quintessentially 2016 Kevin Smith to be any good (don’t forget, this was the same year he put out Yoga Hosers).
Both of the segments mentioned above feel like they could easily work without being attached to their respective holidays, failing to live up to their potential the way that the more interesting segments do. This is similarly the case with “Father’s Day” which feels like the director wanted to make a contemplative character piece about estranged parents but remembered last minute that he was supposed to be making a horror film. “Mother’s Day,” on the other hand, has a very interesting concept that really utilizes the concept of motherhood and asks what would happen if every time a woman had sex she got pregnant. It also has a nice little cameo from A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night lead Sheila Vand.
Despite Its Flaws, ‘Holidays’ Is a Horror Anthology Worth Watching
At the end of the day, what distinguishes the memorable segments of Holidays from the more lackluster entries is a sense of creative liberty taken with the folklore of each holiday. The better segments tap into what makes each holiday a culturally or historically important day and subvert our collective positive associations. The ones that don’t quite land seem like they could easily be happening on any day but just happen to be occurring on Christmas or Halloween. The worst offender when it comes to ignoring the titular holiday is easily “Halloween.” It’s a forgivable thought considering how many films have already used Halloween as the basis for their story, from the obvious to Trick ‘r Treat and beyond. A similar defense could be said of the Christmas segment, as there is no shortage of Christmas-themes horror flicks, from Krampus to Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Despite half of the film’s segments being less than stellar, Holidays still deserves a recommendation for its creative take on holiday horror. It often makes use of the most disturbing aspects of our most beloved holidays by diving deep into the folklore associated with them, as well as by exploiting the very common fears of loneliness, not being able to fulfill one’s desire to be a parent, and failing to have a loving and lasting romantic relationship. Like all good horror, Holidays is at its best when it reveals something universal about its audience, even if the premise is delightfully absurd. Most of us will never have to worry about getting pregnant with a serpent or being taken from our homes by a demonic Easter Bunny, but the roots of the fear experienced by the film’s protagonists are as real as anything. Hopefully, horror filmmakers can learn from the successful aspects of Holidays so that we can get more films that ruin things we love!
Holidays is available to stream in the U.S. on Shudder.