Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: An anthology series whereby each story corresponds to a major holiday.
Review: What an absolute waste of potential. You'd think an anthology tale that showcased different holiday horror would be a slam dunk. The main problem is that every tale is only tangentially connected to their holiday and sometimes not connected whatsoever. There was also no coordination among the different directors to create a similar tone, style, or anything that would make the film, as a whole, not appear so disjointed. And, if that weren't bad enough, almost every story is terrible with a few bordering on mere, pretentious shit. I was looking forward to this film for quite a while, and it turned out to be a huge ass disappointment.
Valentine's Day: Compared to the rest, this opening segment isn't too bad...it at least made sense. An outcast, high school girl has a crush on her swim coach--the coach seemingly dying from a heart problem. After doing little to stop the girl from being bullied, the coach gives her a Valentine card to cheer her up, but this appears to inspire her to murder. Tracking down her main bully, the girl cuts out the bully's heart and offers it up to the coach. The end. Well, it could have been worse, so there's that. Honestly, this is the quality I'd expect from the weakest entry of an anthology...not one of the better ones.
St. Patrick's Day: This is probably the dumbest of the segments, but I wouldn't call it the worst since there was less opportunity to disappoint; I mean, let's be real, there isn't a lot to work with regarding this holiday. Some teacher in Ireland regales her students about St. Patrick allegedly removing all the snakes from the country. A weird girl leaves a message to the teacher that the girl will smile once the teacher asks for a wish. This wish is granted by somehow getting the teacher pregnant with a giant snake. The stupidity in this tale is palpable as the comedic elements fail miserably. I want to say this segment should have been called "4/20" as that would have been more apropos.
Easter: Trying to be weird for the sake of being weird, a little girl meets some kind of Easter Bunny/Jesus hybrid creature. I really don't understand what the hell was supposed to be happening. This creature turns the little girl into what he is...because why not? The girl's mother appears distracted to this incident due to heavy masturbation. Whaaaat? Oh for the love of fuck.
Mother's Day: We are halfway into the tales at this point and still not a single good one. This time around we have a woman who supposedly gets pregnant every time she has sex despite protection and birth control. Riiiight. A doctor recommends she visit, what appears to be, a coven of witches living in the desert. It's implied the woman is chosen to give birth to a demon or something, and the coven wants to force her to term. When she tries to escape she suddenly gives birth to a bloody adult, but we only see the arm before the segment ends. Wow. It's almost as if they aren't trying. This is two "Rosemary's Baby" wannabes already!
Father's Day: This is the only segment I enjoyed, and that's not even saying much realistically. I really like this actress, Jocelin Donahue (from "The House of the Devil"), so that helped especially when this story had a '70s/80s-ish feeling. A girl, named Carol, receives a box from her father many years after she last saw him. Inside is a cassette tape that explains that the father had to go away and how the two can be reunited. Following the directions, Carol finds herself in some abandoned beach town just as a cosmic alignment comes together. They don't explain anything, but apparently the father wanted Carol to willingly come to some evil place. Actually, the ending is extremely frustrating considering the commendable buildup and atmosphere. If there was effort put into explaining things, I'd consider this segment alone worth the movie, but, alas, the ball was dropped.
Halloween: This is the worst segment in the entire film. Not because it has the worst story (though it was atrocious in its own right), but because it wasted the most potential and was directed by Kevin Smith who was intended to be the headliner. How in the fuck are you going to take the easiest holiday to work with and present shit of this laughable caliber as a response? The story revolves around dumb camgirls forced to work for some douchebag. Growing tired of his abuse, the girls shove a vibrator up the guy's ass, glue his ass shut, and hook the vibrator up to a car battery. Oh my god, so edgy! For one, I don't see how they rigged a car battery up to a vibrator nor how the cord was so long. For two, the whole point is the girls want him to cut off his own dick yet he's too stupid to cut the cord?! Regardless, they crank the power up on the battery to max and this, I guess, kills the guy from vibrator overload or whatever. Pitiful. Utterly pitiful. What the hell does any of this have to do with Halloween?! I haven't seen someone shit all over Halloween this badly since Rob Zombie.
Christmas: This is probably the second best segment though it has virtually nothing to do with Christmas. Again, how do you waste the easiest holidays to work with?! Seth Green is trying to find the rarest holiday gift on Christmas Eve when some guy beats him to the last one. The guy seemingly suffers a heart attack at that exact moment, and Seth Green decides to let him die and take the gift. This gift turns out to be a kind of VR system that connects to your mind or something. Seth Green sees himself letting that guy die and grows nervous. However, the wife sees this murder and becomes super turned on by it. Either finding the courage herself or because she's a killer too, Seth Green sees the wife's VR images which depicts her murdering her boss. And that's it. Um, hello, the title of this film is "Holidays," right?
New Year's: Closing this nonsense out is just another mediocre segment. An awkward serial killer is picking up girls on a dating website--trying to find that one, special girl. When dating a pretty hot chick next, he goes back to her place to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve. Looking around her bathroom, the guy realizes that this chick is also a serial killer. Oh noooooo! TWO serial killers?! That's never been done before! The two fight a bit until the guy reaches for his gun that he idiotically forgot to reload after his last kill. The guy takes an axe to the head and that wraps up not only this tale but the film in general. Well...it wasn't the worst ending to an anthology I've reviewed.
Did anyone understand that this movie was supposed to emphasize the holidays? The overall feeling from each segment is sheer pointlessness. Likewise, the stories felt incomplete and incoherently assembled. On top of that, all the tales ranged from mediocre to outright shit save for the "Father's Day" segment. The ONLY reason why I'm not rating this significantly lower is due to the attempt at holiday horror, the production quality, and I did like the music. I do not recommend this movie at all as it brings nothing but disappointment to the viewer. If you're a fan of anyone involved, you are not missing out on anything by passing this one over. Now, if they want to make a "Holidays 2," and fix the disastrous mistakes present here, I would be willing to get on board with that. Until then, this film stands alone as one of the worst examples of wasted potential out there.
Notable Moment: During the Mother's Day segment when that fat, naked chick is dancing in slow motion. Ueehhuahauh! That's the sound of me puking. She seriously had more cellulite areas than not--how in the fuck?
Final Rating: 5/10
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