{"id":51089,"date":"2025-12-21T15:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T20:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=51089"},"modified":"2025-12-19T13:52:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T18:52:45","slug":"the-boulet-brothers-holiday-of-horrors-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/21\/the-boulet-brothers-holiday-of-horrors-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boulet Brothers’ Holiday of Horrors [2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Boulet Brothers and David Dastmalchian present 4 twisted tales of yuletide terror in the darned-good-but-far-too-short-to-truly-catch anthology The Boulet Brothers\u2019 Holiday of Horrors, now on Shudder<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Shudder drag show horror superstars, Dracmorda and Swanthula Boulet, bring increasingly awesome horror film icon David Dasmalchian (fresh from Dust Bunny<\/a>) to present, along with writing and directing some segments, a new anthology of ho-ho-horror. Here\u2019s the thing. It’s good, a nice and fun anthology. But it\u2019s only 40 minutes long. Four stories, plus wrap-around arounds with Dracmorda and Swanthula, along with a zombified David Dastmalchian<\/a> in that length of time? Yeah, it\u2019s a bit rushed. Each of these stories, save the last, which works just right, could have more time to breathe and set up. For a quick, yule log of yuck, it’s a nice visit, but could be a longer stay. Overall, the stories have a fantastic look, brimming with dread in the lighting and set. Obviously, everyone is giving great care; the Boulet Brothers and Dastmalchian<\/a> are the real deal, true-blue horror fans. The only real issue is that the stories need more. Let\u2019s take a look at the individual stories.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGaudete\u201d, written and directed by the Boulet Brothers<\/span><\/p>\n

The weakest of the bunch comes first, weirdly from the makers of the special itself. The main draw is Bonnie Aarons as an undead! A family moves to dear dead grandma\u2019s old house. They are fraying, with Judy (and her poor acting) in the center. Then Aaron\u2019s Nosferatu-looking creature comes to visit\u2026 because? Sure. It\u2019s very well shot, with a great look in the snow and the closed darkened environments but needed far more story and plot points to really work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeti or Not\u201d; written by David Dastmalchian & Leah Kilpatrick, directed by David Dastmalchian<\/span><\/p>\n

This packs so much in just a mere four minutes, I\u2019m impressed. Major brevity in storytelling, although, as noted before, I could watch much more; but what we have is so well done, it\u2019s great as is. Anyway, the story finds a group of women looking for a long-lost sister on a mountain. And they captured the yeti, Dastamalcihan, in a great suit, which they think is responsible. It doesn\u2019t go well. For them, at least, for it is a delight to us.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cOld Aquaintance\u201d Written and directed by Akela Cooper<\/a> (first directing for Cooper<\/a> after a long history of writing for James Wan and others)<\/span><\/p>\n

Cooper crafts a very interesting segment that, like the first, kinda drops the ball on paying off the setup. A woman, played by Rent and Death Proof\u2019s Tracie Thomas, returns home on New Year\u2019s Eve (switching it up) after her father died. She\u2019s been gone for a while, and soon calls begin warning about a demon on the answering machine. It\u2019s a little weird and a good hook, but it doesn\u2019t fully develop. It has a fantastic atmosphere, though. And the monster looks great, created by Dragula winner Abora.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDown the Chimney\u201d By Kate Siegel<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

After her fantastic turn in V\/HS\/Beyond, \u201cStowaway\u201d Siegel<\/a> continues to prove herself as a new Horror’s Greatest, after many fantastic acting turns and co-writing Hush<\/a> with Mike Flanagan<\/a> (she\u2019s married to him, but let\u2019s not lead with that; she\u2019s bona fide). <\/span>Akin to Rankin\/Bass animation, it\u2019s a delight of a messed-up journey. Santa, on his way down a chimney, gets stuck. Thus begins an attempt to get out. As should be expected, it doesn\u2019t go well for him. What would already be a weird and fucked premise is made more so by the animation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Boulet Brothers\u2019 Holiday of Horrors (with David Dastmalchian) is solid, but slight. It’s a nice severed toe of a dip into the waters, as intended to become a yearly special of an anthology, joining the Haunted Season (now in its second entry). I\u2019m up for it, hope next year they let the segments breathe a little more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boulet Brothers and David Dastmalchian present 4 twisted tales of yuletide terror in the darned-good-but-far-too-short-to-truly-catch anthology The Boulet Brothers\u2019 Holiday of Horrors, now on Shudder<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[103,200,477],"class_list":["post-51089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-anthology","tag-christmas","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51094,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51089\/revisions\/51094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}