I dug up one more Halloween horror flick and two more Christmas horror flicks for the holiday horror page. Should I have left them buried?
TRICK AND TREATS (2025)
Didn’t expect to get a new Halloween movie for the holiday horror page in January, so I was psyched when this one popped up on Tubi.
Talk about a movie that shifts tones drastically. I was so into this one at the beginning. It all starts in colonial times when a dude wheels in a huge jack-o’-lantern, flogs a woman until she reveals she’s a demon, and then hacks her up and stuffs her in the pumpkin. It feels like good old cheesy fun is about to transpire for the remainder of the film.
Next, the outdoor Halloween visuals and score that accompany the opening credits deliver Halloween IV level atmosphere. I was so ready for an awesome autumnal horror flick.
That’s not what I got.
Instead, in the modern day we meet four friends dressed for Halloween and heading for some festive fun. Their car breaks down, so they walk to a nearby bar for help. They are immediately harassed by a biker gang, which quickly morphs this movie into a torture porn. WTF?
One character in particular has something horrible done to her face with a power tool, and it’s just such a disturbing scene even though we never actually see the result of what was done to her. I felt like I was watching a Hostel movie.
What’s unfortunate is that there’s a campy, playful horror flick just waiting to emerge from this cruel mess. There’s a jack-o’-lantern on display in the bar—same one from colonial days—and the demon inside, voiced by Malcolm McDowell, speaks to one of the main girls throughout the film and tries to coach her on how to get out of the predicament. This could have been a blast if demon McDowell had geared her towards breaking free earlier, but she only escapes and gets revenge close to the end.
At that point, the film jumps back into the holiday spirit for a few final sequences involving what demon McDowell wants in return for helping the main girl get away. Such an opportunity for a fun, original Halloween horror flick wasted on over an hour of misogynistic torment and torture.
CURTAINS FOR CHRISTMAS (2024)
This 68-minute Christmas slasher comedy comes from Steve Rudzinski, who directed Red Christmas and Amityville Christmas Vacation, so he’s no stranger to holiday horror. This is definitely my favorite of the three films.
You really have to be into Steve’s whacky sense of humor to appreciate his over-the-top style.
Despite the beautifully festive, snowy outdoor shots (is it real or AI? Not sure), the indoor scenes are straight up low budget sets.
Our main girl is a psycho. She wants a man for Christmas and every man she meets is the perfect guy…until she kills him. She also has a giant Christmas rat subconscious that talks to her and sounds like Paul Lynde.
She eventually settles on a married guy, played by Steve, and she’s determined to make him hers. It’s funny and ridiculous when she kills his wife and wears her face as a horrific mask…and Steve believes it’s actually his wife breaking up with him. The main girl looks like the wife, so I’m not even sure she needed the wife face mask to fool him.
The final act is my favorite part. The main girl invites Steve to spend Christmas with her, so she busts into a cabin owned by a gay couple and makes them play her two dads for her Christmas gathering with her “new man”, landing this one on the does the gay guy die? page.
This absurd comedy becomes enjoyably vicious as she starts doing some gory killing. Even children aren’t safe from it. Awesome. There’s also a great nod to Silent Night, Deadly Night.
I SLAY ON CHRISTMAS (2023)
This is as lowbrow and sloppy as an indie anthology gets, but I did actually appreciate one of the “tales”, if you could call it that. However, overall, this is a mess.
It begins with a guy running through the woods and finding a pinecone. But the wraparound isn’t about him.
Then we see a sick guy sitting by his tree. Wraparound not about him either. Everyone working on every part of this movie probably needed to put down the bong.
Finally, a dude in the woods has hallucinations of a babe playing with her tits and then biting off his dick. Then comes the first story.
1st story – a white trash dude drinks, screams at his wife, taunts his baby, tries to rape a woman, axes her when she runs, then kills a dude with Mr. Bill voice. The end. Oh…the white trash dude does mention Christmas and Santa a few times and the Mr. Bill guy is dressed as an elf.
Wraparound – Now a different dude is in the woods telling the stories to the dude who thought he got his dick bitten off.
2nd story – It’s in Spanish with no subtitles, so you have to turn them on manually. There’s a long news report about the discovery of body parts, then a dude invites a girl to his place for a date. His place is decorated for Christmas. He appears to have every plan to kill her, but this one gets a little twist.
3rd story – A woman goes on a date with a guy, he gives her lingerie as a Christmas gift, then kills her when she won’t wear it. The end.
4th story – This was the only one I liked. A dude saw mommy kissing Santa Claus as a child, so he abducts Santa to torture him. Very clever. This one even has a few fun twists.
Wraparound – We learn why the guy is in the woods hearing these stories as punishment, and then he explodes. Not the end.
Another guy walks into the woods and finds 4 pinecones then gets dragged away. Still not the end.
Another guy strangles a kid to death. Nope. Not over yet.
A radio show guy spouts conspiracies about the government and Christmas. The end.
