Holidays

I think...I think I may have poor taste.  I can already hear you now.  "Well, duh!"  WELL, I was holding out hope for myself.  Last night, I started to watch 1994's Nadja, an artsy vampire film that seems to exist in the David Lynch universe (the frost-haired auteur is dealt a small role as a morgue receptionist).  I couldn't last thirty minutes.  It was too pompous for me, and the bleak black-and-white cinematography meant that I was willing to play ball.  I'm not much of a Lynch fan either.  Don't give me that look; none of this should surprise you.  My mother can attest to my trash status, as my first words were "the grim reaper in Spookies deserves its own movie."  My birthstone is latex, for crying out loud!

Okay, enough schtick.  I'm just trying to make you understand why I would stream 2016's Holidays long after it has lost its relevance.  If Nadja is a silver platter, then this flick is a lunchbox (thermos included).  There was a time not so long ago when anthologies were being churned out in perpetuity.  We have Trick 'r Treat to blame for that.  Of course, Trick 'r Treat is excellent.  It knew how to interweave bite-sized bits of sardonic horror, whereas Holidays forgoes the wraparound narrative and still finds a way to come up short.  There are eight vignettes underscoring eight holidays.  We have New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, and Christmas.

Almost invariably, it's a mixed bag.  Stuff I liked?  The cast.  Madeleine Coghlan is suitably sinister as a lovestruck teen waif who takes broken hearts incredibly seriously.  Isolt McCaffery is too damn creepy as a little Irish lass with a malevolent smile.  Sophie Traub is believable as a dejected mother-to-be who doesn't want to be a mother (I'm right with you, sister).  Seth Green is always Seth Green, so that's cool.  But I'm not feeding you anything sustentive by simply listing actors and grading their performances.  You want to know whether or not Holidays is a worthwhile anthology.  All I can say is, there is precisely one horror "short" set around Father's Day.  And I don't see cake anywhere, do you?

Try as I might, I can't bash these festive frights outright.  The production values are well-groomed, the pacing is snappy, and most of the pejoratives I'm planning on heaving at the script (I'll get there in a second) are relatively minor.  Still, at least half of the segments are neutered by non-endings that flimflam the viewer.  I don't mean to pick on "Father's Day," but what kind of payoff was that?  "Halloween" has a payoff that makes sense; regrettably, it's not particularly witty or interesting.  I mean, it was written and directed by Kevin Smith, so...yeah.  My tank is empty.  Hey, if the team behind Holidays wants to quote me for a special edition Blu-ray release in the near future, I've got just the catchline - "Imagine Creepshow.  And then watch it.  Just watch Creepshow."