{"id":54115,"date":"2026-07-26T20:35:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T00:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=54115"},"modified":"2026-07-26T20:35:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T00:35:45","slug":"unholy-night-2026-fantasia-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/26\/unholy-night-2026-fantasia-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Unholy Night (2026) [Fantasia 2026]\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When a dead grandmother comes back to life with a need to feed her family (and maybe\u00a0feed\u00a0on\u00a0them too), one grandson needs to step up and\u00a0take\u00a0care of business.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Written and directed by\u00a0Michael Gabriele, Unholy Night\u00a0takes a familiar (and overuse by now) subgenre and twists it just enough to make it interesting again. While\u00a0the\u00a0living dead, zombies, revenants, whatever you want to call\u00a0them, they have been used in film for decades, since the dawn of film really,\u00a0and have started to get stale. Thankfully, this film takes on the subject with a fun approach, mixing it with the Holidays, a family that is a bit overbearing at times, and a lot of love (within the story\u00a0and for\u00a0the genre). It\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0reinvent the wheel\u00a0or\u00a0anything, but Unholy Night is a bunch of fun story-wise,\u00a0so\u00a0it’s\u00a0all that matters here. Or is it? Because yes, the story is central to a\u00a0film\u00a0but how it’s brought to the screen matters a bunch\u00a0too,\u00a0and writer-director Gabriele makes the most\u00a0of both\u00a0his jobs here to create a good romp in the winter holidays with plenty of\u00a0laughs and a few scares.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Leading the cast as the\u00a0aforementioned grandson, Gino, is Marc Bendavid\u00a0who does\u00a0great work\u00a0as the son that is\u00a0not quite like\u00a0the others but also incredibly normal. His work here is solid.\u00a0Joining him in many scenes and stealing many scenes is Shailene Garnett as Rene.\u00a0Garnett\u00a0is fantastic here and needs more fun roles (she seems to lean on the more serious side with her work). And as\u00a0the grandma, Nonna, the\u00a0one\u00a0who comes back from the dead with an urge to feed you, Jacqueline Robbins is subtle and funny while working in a limited matter as the undead. And\u00a0that’s\u00a0the thing here, even the undead are given personalities, something many films seem to forget in exchange for bloodlust and cheap thrills.\u00a0The case in Unholy Night is fantastic and really sells the film as a whole (which likely wasn’t all that difficult given the writing and direction).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, the version reviewed here comes with a warning that the effects are not finished yet, so judging the special effects will be done with that solidly in mind. The work on the special effects available here is great, the living dead have fun, grey looks with shiny eyes that seem to glow and a glow that comes from within that is\u00a0definitely bringing\u00a0something new to the genre. Of course, these effects being unfinished, one can hope that nothing will be changed drastically but only enhanced a\u00a0little\u00a0bit between now and public release.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The cinematography here is great, making\u00a0good use\u00a0of the available light and making other lighting come off as normal outside and indoor lights while also showing dynamic movement without going overboard and into the land of shaky cam. This\u00a0is how you film a family dealing with the undead. The cinematography makes the film look like\u00a0almost a\u00a0cozy zombie film.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, Unholy Night is a bunch of fun, well-crafted, and a breath of fresh Holiday air in the living dead subgenre.\u00a0It’s\u00a0exactly what the Holiday season will need when it gets released to the public (no release date is known\u00a0at the moment).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fantasia 2026 runs from July 16th to August 2nd, 2026<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a dead grandmother comes back to life with a need to feed her family (and maybe\u00a0feed\u00a0on\u00a0them too), one grandson needs to step up and\u00a0take\u00a0care of business.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2497],"tags":[219,4062,477],"class_list":["post-54115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasia-fest","tag-comedy","tag-fantasia-2026","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54115","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54116,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54115\/revisions\/54116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}