Crew
Director/Screenplay/Producer – Kim Sønderholm, Inspired by The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe. Photography – Tim Brandt, Makeup Effects – Martin Sonntag. Production Company – Apotheosis Film.
Cast
Kim Sønderholm, Angela Kim
The Christmas Witch
Crew
Director – Dustin Ferguson. Production Company – Sinister Studios.
Cast
Stephanie Eads, Lynn Sangster (The Witch)
Jingle Hell
Crew
Director/Producer – Mike Connors, Music – Valentin Sosnitskiy, Animation – Scraggy Box Studios.
(Saint) Nick
Crew
Director/Screenplay – Jonathan Patrick Hughes, Producers – Jason Baker & Jonathan Patrick Hughes, Photography – Kyle Rosania, Music – Braden Bixler, Makeup Effects – Bec Johnson.
Crew
Director/Screenplay/Producer/Photography – Jason Impey, Music – AKM Music, Makeup Effects – MJ Dixon.
Cast
Samantha Keller (Faye), Alan Impey (Santa)
Bad Tidings
Crew
Director/Photography – Sam Mason Bell.
Cast
Stephen Longhurst, Veronique Devine, Chris Mills, Isabelle Bilton, Jackson Batchelor, Caitlyn Powell, Livi Johnson
The Hunt
Crew
Director/Producer – Noel J. Rainford, Screenplay – Scott Baker, Elinor Perry-Smith & Noel J. Rainford.
Cast
Tristan James (The Master of Ceremonies), Simon Longden (The Hunter), Nik Grundison (Ms Winterlast), Danielle Jameson (Suzie), Robyn Prager (Caroline), Amy Brunskill (Emilia)
A Santa tells a series of stories in between drinking and making out with one of his elves. The Uncommon Mr. Goode:- A man returns home looking forward to Christmas dinner with his partner. 6 Shooter:- A couple are making out in their apartment when they hear an intruder. Bad Karma Santa:- A man dressed as a Santa returns home, haunted by the fact he killed somebody during the robbery of a house. The Christmas Witch:- A woman who is scornful of Christmas returns home and hears a noise in her cellar. Jingle Hell:- A man armed with a gun shoots all who comes near his home. (Saint) Nick:- After the death of their mother, Ashley and Billy Cummings are raised by their obnoxious stepfather Horace Jones. Billy’s Christmas wish is that Santa would kill Horace. The Naughty List:- A woman at home receives a taunting Christmas card to tell her she is on the naughty list after which a killer Santa breaks into the house. Bad Tidings:- As Christmas carollers come to a couple’s home, one asks to enter and use the bathroom. The Hunt:- A group of people are gathered in the woods for a banquet with a girl imprisoned to be hunted. Boxing Day:- A man has moved into a new house and employs a video camera as he looks into the story of the death of the family that used to live there. The Night Before Christmas:- Returning home, a husband receives a series of taunting Christmas cards that expose his affair with another woman. Dead Winter Days:- Adam has an unnatural fear of Krampus. As his wife dismisses this, he receives a visitation from figures.
The 12 Slays of Christmas is produced and packaged by Tony Newton who has been the figure behind more than seventy such short film compilations released by Troma, including Grindsploitation (2016) and sequels, 60 Seconds to Die (2017) and Virus of the Dead (2018), among others. The film advertises that it comes from “twelve of the leading indie horror directors” – directors who seemed so indie that I had only heard of a couple of them before and most of whom seem to have no other credits outside of these Troma short films compilations.
Tony Newton himself has shot what looks like a grainy VHS tape opening piece that shows a body in front of a Christmas tree. Natalie Bailey-Trist films the segments in between each of the episodes, narrated by one of the dullest and most dreary Santas ever as he fools around with elves, all filmed with a fake out of focus look.
Cramming twelve stories into a 102-minute runtime is quite a feat. As a result, most of the episodes are so slight you forget them the moment they are over. At best they are a set-up and a punchline – The Uncommon Mr. Goode simply follows a man on his way home, chatting to his wife?/mother? and going out again, whereupon the camera turns to show a dead body sitting there. The second episode 6 Shooter is a similarly short piece that hangs entirely around its punchline – a couple are making out in bed and then think they hear an intruder. The male goes out with a gun and shoots the intruder. The eminently predictable punchline is that the intruder happens to be Santa.
Bad Karma Santa is a Supernatural Retribution piece – a genre that found a place for itself in the horror anthology short. A man dressed as Santa comes home, covered in blood after killing a woman during the course of a home robbery. He showers and relaxes, only for the dead woman to turn up to exact retribution. This comes from one of the directors I’ve heard from Danish director Kim Sønderholm, who was behind The Horror Vault (2008) anthology.
The Christmas Witch comes from the only other director I have ever heard of before – Dustin Ferguson who has made a series of excruciatingly awful films – see Apex Predators (2021) and Space Sharks (2024), among well over a hundred others. It is also the weakest segment in the entire show. Woman arrives home and, just like in 6 Shooter, hears noises and goes down to the basement to investigate. Something is there and attacks her. The end credits and title call the intruder a witch but everything is shot too murky to see anything clearly.
Jingle Hell is the novelty of a piece that is Claymation animated, although the animation is very cut-price. It offers the interesting set-up of a man shooting all comers to his home but the piece is brief and over without going anywhere.
Toby Osmond and Hannah Dingle go to confront an intruder in the 6 Shooter episode
(Saint) Nick is the best of the episodes and also the longest, which may indicate something (most of the others feel so trimmed away there is nothing there anymore). It has a satisfying build up, gets nasty and reaches a proper conclusion (which a surprising number of the episodes do not). John Seese gives an amazingly crass and disgusting performance such that you welcome the comeuppance when he starts to be tortured.
The Naughty List concerns itself with the other recurrent theme of the anthology – killer Santas seeking to exact naughty list retribution. The episode follows Samantha Keller as she receives a card telling her she is on the naughty list after which a Santa breaks into kill her. The episode is brief and to the point but leaves out the crucial thing – why is Samantha is being targeted and what did she do to get on the naughty list?
Bad Tidings is probably the briefest of the episodes but is also undeniably effective. It is largely shot from outside a couple’s house as carollers come to the door to sing. One of the group asks to go inside to use the bathroom, the wife is also there and something happens. In the end shot, we realise that the caroller has killed her. The episode is effective for its understatement – the carollers in the foreground, the attack briefly glimpsed occurring in the background, but nothing confirmed until they leave and we get the husband’s reaction.
The Hunt seems like an interesting episode. A group of people are gathered around a banquet table in a forest and seem set to set free a girl to hunt her. It appears to be a variant on the Human Bloodsports set-up, but then the serving girls turn the table and kill the diners. It seems like a potentially interesting set up, but it is so brief that it left baffled as to what was going on, both before and after the twist. It is also an episode that has nothing to do with Christmas.
Boxing Day also has not much to do with Christmas either. It starts as a Found Footage piece with a man with a video camera conducting an investigation into the deaths of the family who previously owned his house, before reaching an ending where it is not clear what or why things are happening.
The Night Before Christmas is an almost identical set-up to The Naughty List where a man receives a Christmas card taunting him about his crime, although this reaches a more satisfying ending where we get reasons as to why he is attacked – it is his wife vengeful over the fact he is cheating on her. It should also be noted that the vengeful wife is played by the segment’s director Reyna Young.
Dead Winter Days is a piece about a man (Vito Trigo) with an unnatural fear of Krampus. A figure listed on the credits as Father Crimp appears and various scenes occur where Vito is attacked and nailed into a coffin, before reaching a nasty ending.
I have no trailer for this one. There is another video out there circulating with the same title The Twelve Slays of Christmas (2022), but this is a different 41 minute short film produced by Full Moon Features.
