All The Creatures Were Stirring

 A five-short (plus wraparound) Christmas horror anthology - what could possibly go wrong?
 That's a rhetorical question, by the way. You don't have to answer that, All the Creatures Were Stirring has got you covered.

 The wraparound story is about a couple who go see the titular play in some sort of community theater, a terrible-looking performance-art-like piece where three bored-looking actors put on ridiculous looking pantomime of some common activity - each one transitions into one of the film's five segments. There's some fun in just how shitty the shows get, and how poorly the couple are treated by the theater staff, but other than that there's very little going on here.

 The first segment - "The Stockings were Hung" is one of those stories where some sort of evil mastermind traps a bunch of people in a room and tries to get them to kill each other. In this case it's a group of office drones at a company Christmas do. It's fun, for a little bit, until the character writing gets so ludicrous it completely breaks any possible immersion - one of those cases where you wonder if the writers ever saw how human beings actually interact, a copy of a copy of a copy of lazy horror tropes with no verisimilitude or grasp of psychology. It's bad, really bad.

 "Dash All Away" has a man (Matt Long) lock himself out of his car in a deserted parking lot - deserted except for a van with two slightly cultish-looking girls (Catherine Parker and Mekeda Deklet) whom he needs to engage to call his family and roadside assistance. It's the only short in the movie that manages to build some suspense, as the situation is very relatable and effectively creepy. It also has, when it arrives, a cool monster and a nicely bizarre explanation as to what's going on.

 After that high, we're due a couple of turds in the stocking. Specifically, a particularly shitty take on A Christmas Carol where the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future decide scrooge over an unfunny, angry loner (Jonathan Kite) in deeply underwhelming ways. It's a witless, poorly paced and absolutely uninteresting slog that takes way too long to do its thing and shuffle off the screen.
 It's followed by what's almost a throwaway joke, a story where a man runs down a reindeer in a country road to then be followed home by a mysterious assailant that lights everything around it red. It's a hilarious premise, but the next-to-zero production budget means that nothing is shown, completely buggering any chance it had to be a cool (and very funny) creature feature.
 What's interesting with this one is that directors Rebekah and David Ian McKendry go full on with the giallo and '70s Italian horror imagery, from the leather gloves that the man dons to manhandle the downed reindeer to some trippy, very cheap-looking photography-based visuals, to some of the editing and even a goblin-esque (on a budget) score. The short ends up being fucking dire, but it's got some interesting visual callbacks in a movie that otherwise looks pretty drab.

 Well, mostly drab. The last segment, In a Twinkle, is another highlight: Steve (Morgan Peter Brown) tells his girlfriend Gabby (Constance Wu) to not visit him for Christmas, as he prepares to chain himself to bed as a full moon shines outside his window. And then, just as he's about to lock himself in, Gabby, as well as three other friends, arrive for a surprise party.
 What seems like a straightforward lycanthropic (were-reindeer? an elapusthropic?) premise fortunately takes a left turn into Twilight Zone territory, complete with an aspect ratio change, (very flat) black and white photography,  some overtly familiar musical stings, and sci-fi elements. Despite one major dangling thread, it ends up being a very cute, heartfelt Christmas story and it'd be a really great note to leave things on.

 But... no dice. We've still got the wraparound story to wrap up - or deflate, to put it more accurately, with a barely-there resolution. Only then are we finally done; It's some sort of achievement to make an eighty minute movie split into six stories that drag this much.

 So what we have here is an almost aggressively unfunny horror comedy, one that offers at best some chuckles at the concepts on offer, but none at any of the actual jokes. The best segments take their ridiculous premises seriously, and are inventive and cool enough to work on their own terms and merit a recommendation- just skip to Dash All Away and In A Twinkle, you won't be missing out on anything by bailing on the rest.