HOLIDAY HELL (2019)

 

(Directors: Jeremy Berg, David Burns, Jeff Ferrell, Jeff Vigil. Screenwriters: Jeremy Berg, Jeff Ferrell.)

Storyline

An antiques and curiosities shopkeeper tells the tales relating to the items he’s trying to sell to a last-minute customer.

Review

In the wraparound tale (“Nevertold Casket Co.”), a young woman (Amelia) visits the titular antiques and curiosities store.  Its owner (Thaddeus Rosemont, a.k.a. The Shopkeeper) helps her find a gift for her sister─which entails an obligatory backstory for each object. The consistently excellent Jeffrey Combs (I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, 1998) is his usual, entertaining self here, as Thaddeus, a courteous, dark-vignette-telling retailer.

Thaddeus’s first tale (“Dollface“) is prompted by a mask. A group of young adults party in a murder house where a female killer (Dollface) used to live. The characters are generic, and the acting and the dialogue is terrible for the most part. The killer, with her nightgown, long black hair and spooky mask, makes for an interesting figure when she offs the kids who tormented her and her sister years before. There’s an okay twist at the end, one that’s telegraphed early in this lackluster segment.

In “The Hand that Rocks the Dreidl,” an old German rabbi doll is the source of terror for a theft-minded babysitter (Lisa) and her wannabe gangsta boyfriend (Tre). The acting is solid in “Dreidl,” as is the plot (despite its by-the-numbers predictability).

The third story, “Christmas Carnage,” is inspired by a brown-stained Santa suit, once belonging to a “disturbed man” (according to Thaddeus). The man in question is Chris, a sober-for-a-year alcoholic stuck in a marriage with a cold, materialistic woman. His longtime sales job, where he’s taken for granted, is just as bad. During an unpleasant company Christmas party, he falls off the wagon. Will he resist the urge to enact his bloody, off-camera revenge?

Joel Murray, a consistently good actor, is convincing as the barely-hanging-on Chris. The other actors, lesser known, vary from bad to solid.

“A Room to Let” is a tale told by Amelia (Meagan Karimi-Naser), its source object a skull in a glass case and her ring, once worn by her mother. Cut to a young woman, moving into a boarding house on bucolic Jenne Farm. Its owners are friendly even if the townspeople are terrified or hostile. Also, a clowder of black cats have gathered in the barn, where something feels off.

A pleasing, well-foreshadowed twist caps the end of this wraparound tale, one that makes up for the lackluster elements of this often generic, relatively goreless and suspenseless film. I would not watch HOLIDAY more than once, other than to appreciate certain performances (Combs’s, Murray’s and Karimi-Naser’s) and the fun plot pretzel at the end of “Room.”

Jeff Ferrell directed “Nevertold Casket Co.” and “The Hand that Rocks the Dreidl.”

Jeff Vigil directed “Dollface.” David Burns: “Christmas Carnage.” Jeremy Berg directed “Room to Let.”