Holidays (2016)

Holidays is the kind of anthology that reminds you how much fun horror can have with a good idea: it takes the warm, familiar glow of calendar traditions and flips it into something wickedly imaginative, like a grin you’re not sure you should trust. Each segment arrives with its own vibe and visual personality, and at its best it’s genuinely inspired—clever in concept, impressively crafted, and unafraid to lean into nightmare logic for a jolt that sticks. The film’s standout chapters (especially the ones orbiting Father’s Day and Easter) feel like mini-movies made by filmmakers who are thrilled to push folklore into strange new shapes. Not every entry lands with equal force, but if you enjoy dark comedy, inventive scares, and the roulette-wheel pleasure of an anthology, this one turns the holidays into something you’ll look at a little differently afterward.

Holidays is clearly aiming for a cheeky, nasty little anthology that twists familiar celebrations into horror-fantasy nightmares, and the idea is better than you’d expect on paper. The problem is the execution is wildly uneven: a couple of segments have a genuinely creepy hook or a fun visual, but too many feel underwritten, predictable, or like they stop right when they should be building to a payoff. If you need coherent stories and satisfying endings, this will likely feel like a string of half-finished sketches rather than a real film. It’s best for viewers who enjoy sampling odd, sometimes mean-spirited concepts and don’t mind sitting through duds to find the few that land.