Christmas Presence (2018) User Reviews

mostly absent

[pseawrig · 3/10 · 14 December 2018]

This is a mighty thin sliver of a holiday horror movie. It's set at Christmas, but its Christmasy part amounts to a group of friends getting drunk and modeling newly gifted underwear. And this is the movie's best sequence!

The rest is a sketchy, by-the-numbers mishmash of paganism, mean ghosts, and supernatural mind games, the confluence of which seems to have bored the writer, the director, and the cast. It didn't do much for me either.

I did like the chubby, cheese-making, shotgun-toting lesbian character. This role was well-written and the actress who played it seemed present when she came on screen. Everyone else seemed absent, as if their minds were elsewhere. Given this movie's uninspired plot, I can't much blame them.

All in all, despite having come all the way from the UK, this movie leaves little in its wake. It's as if it never fully arrived in the first place

Mediocre Schlock Horror Film

[DoubleDarkness · 3/10 · 14 December 2018]

"Why Hide?" or "Christmas Presence" is nothing more than your garden variety schlock horror film. The only original thing they did was make the characters all LGBT, but did absolutely nothing with it. The first act had a decent build, where it established the characters in a base line sense. The jokes are cringey and I think they may have implied the main character was a TERF, but nothing ever comes of it. Everything that followed got progressively worse. The antagonistic force in this is each characters worst fear. The group figures this out after a few incidents, but whenever they are targeted, they become oblivious again. The ending is a bad, confused twist, possibly to set up a sequel. Don't waste your time.

British horror comedy?

[staciarose20 · 5/10 · 7 February 2019]

I couldn't figure out what this movie was supposed to be. It started off very British sort of comedy, but then it went full speed ahead horror. There were some plot holes. The actors aren't bad, it's just the script needed more pizazz for it to be good.

Don't bother

[facebook-524-719286 · 1/10 · 11 January 2020]

I honestly don't know what to say, it's pointless, it has no story, even the end is predictable, that's it, it's garbage.

Just awful

[bobeaumont · 3/10 · 28 February 2019]

If this is the current shape of British filmmaking then God help us. A group of pretty vile characters meet up for Christmas in a isolated house where they encounter a supernatural creature. This is just bad, I struggled through to the end but only just. Neither scary or funny, I was happy when characters were killed off. Don't waste your time.

Maybe you have to be British?

[haskel-72951 · 3/10 · 5 December 2020]

I tried. I really did. Maybe you have to be British to get it and enjoy it. I know I didn't. I watch a lot of horror movies. I usually go through 10 to find one good one. This is one of the other nine. The first sin is boredom: if you bore me for a good 40 minutes you'd better have one hell of a second act to draw me back in. This one does not. In fact, the second AND third act are so brain dead, so contrived, that I started missing the boredom of act one. It has high production value, and a competent cast, hence the three stars. If it only had a script with a coherent thought...

Predictable

[noemikate-90218 · 3/10 · 15 January 2019]

Just from the title i expected much more. The beginning was exiting but then it got lame. It became like every other horror stories. The plot was great but it felt like the director didn't know how to keep it going and just made it like that. The ending gave us nothing. It left place for so much improvement. Overall it wasn't that bad.

This is holiday horror movie

[dy38493 · 3/10 · 19 August 2020]

Good movie to watch for especially the scenes are well made and horror is present in every scene the movie is a holiday horror but good to see.

Yeeeeah

[codexniagra · 8/10 · 16 December 2018]

All horror films are terrible once the plot gets going because everything's so forced for the shock or fore. I thought this was no exception, but at least the bit before that is interesting. It's an unlikely group of characters as friends but it's nice to see people over 25 being treated like sexual, and sexually attractive, beings. All the cast do a good job, even if the leading men ham it up a little. Whatever they did with the colour balance is a nice touch, it's both coldly atmospheric and festive simultaneously. The camera angles aren't boldly innovative but they're effective. Same goes for the soundtrack.

Only, after the predictably interesting start, it didn't get less interesting. I was expecting this to be predictable but it kept me guessing. I'm not going to rave about it but I was pleasantly surprised. It's not Tarkovsky but it's enjoyably spooky.

I'd only recommend watching it if you're desperate for a Christmas horror movie to watch

[kevin_robbins · 4/10 · 21 December 2021]

Christmas Presence (2018) is currently available on Shudder and tells the tale of a group of friends who gets together in the countryside of one of the friends family estates. Little do the friends know a tragic event happened to the friend who owns the house at the estate. When the spirits of those responsible for the tragic events returns, the friends get together becomes a different type of party...

This movie is directed by James Edward Cook (Together) and stars Charlotte Atkinson (Truckers), Elsie Bennett (Hitman 3), Lorna Brown (Les Misérables) and Danny Webb (Aliens 3).

The storyline for this is super slow and it takes forever for anything to happen; however, the characters are well developed. The cast is solid and the dialogue is good. The CGI for the presence is pretty good also but the lack of kills and action is disappointing. I will say I loved the ending.

This movie is a bit disappointing and a below average addition to the genre; however, the ending is clever but the movies so slow I couldn't recommend sitting through the entire film to get to it.

I'd score this a 4/10 and only recommend watching it if you're desperate for a Christmas horror movie to watch.

Ignore that low rating, this is a worthy watch!

[debi-13 · 7/10 · 30 January 2019]

If you are a horror flick aficionado, then this will provide a good story, good action and really good production value. This is a horror film, has a lot of humor and good character development. I am writing this review because the 1 through 5 ratings are undeserved and seem to be given in response to sexual orientation even though there is no sex seen on screen. This movie has a fresh story to tell that keeps you guessing. A solid six, but I gave it seven because it kept me fully engaged from start to finish.

Set your sights on some Festive Fear!

[abiuk-69929 · 10/10 · 20 June 2018]

This film caught my attention at the Newcastle International film festival.... I laughed through squinted eyes and was entertained from start to finish with it's unique horror humour! 10/10

Underwhelming if still rather appealing genre effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 6/10 · 29 December 2018]

Heading out to the countryside, a group of friends arrives a remote house to celebrate the holiday season, but as the night goes on the group suddenly comes to believe that a malevolent entity is preying on them using their darkest fears as fuel to kill them and must escape the house alive.

This was a fine if somewhat flawed effort. One of the better elements featured in this one is the strikingly enjoyable first half where there's some fun to be had with the build-up of the friends arriving at the house. This one treats the group rather nicely with how they're introduced as they seem like a genuine group of friends that would be hanging out together, poking fun and generally having fun while being together. The scenes of them partying together and having drinks while being out in the wilderness offers a fine starting point to where the horror elements that emerge later on have a rather intriguing base to work off of. When the horror does emerge here, there are some rather enjoyable times here as this one turns into a rather different animal than expected. The idea of being trapped in the house which suddenly starts in on the concept of the spirit getting free and turning their fears onto each other in the attempt to terrify them. These provide the kind of stellar supernaturally-tinged sequences that really could've added a lot more to this one than what's provided. Still, the idea of the relentless series of encounters that spring up as a result of their random encounters throughout the darkened house really drives this with some nice energy during the best part of the film. These here are what hold it up over the main flaws present. The main issue to be had with the film is a rather tonally chaotic final half that doesn't know what it wants to really do with itself. This one goes through a rather odd change-of-pace from the realistic setup of the first half by dropping the idea of them being at the house together and instead goes into a series of random occurrences that are due to to the sudden random appearance of this creature intent on killing them. The appearance of the creature is a complete mystery as to what it actually is, there's nothing about what it's trying to do at the house in the first place, making this part of the film incredibly confusing and disorienting. As well, the film has the rather odd sense of pacing within here that does manage to get progressively worse as the movie goes on. As it spends so long with the friends getting to know them that when it finally gets to the horror very little if anything has been said about what's going on because there's way too much of it about other areas. By then rushing through the actions of the ghostly creature with no information about what's happening really tends to undermine this by taking all the time it could've spent on building that to instead work this out. As well as an utterly moronic finale that doesn't do this any favors by preparing for an unwanted sequel, these here hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

The true meaning of Christmas Day.

[agla-21011 · 7/10 · 1 September 2019]

Funny film by a new director. There's no need to wait for a super-production, because it's been made with few resources, but very well taken advantage of. The visual effects, when they appear, are quite good, except on one occasion at the end. The protagonists, taking away someone who is a little sad, are the kind that when you've been in the movie for ten minutes, you're wishing that "whatever it is" ends up with them in the most frightening way you can imagine and then put a medal for the good work. In short: The first work of a new director, entertains, has a good time and has had the great success that the end does not bitter the feeling left by the rest of the film, as happens in others supposedly better. Enjoy it.

HORROR OF THE YEAR!

[karen-604-503702 · 10/10 · 20 June 2018]

Please check out the BLOODY FLICKS review of WHY HIDE? (see EXTERNAL link) Why Hide is the most original horror of 2018 so far.

Watched on Shudder as Christmas Presence

[Terrorcore5 · 10/10 · 13 December 2018]

Had an extra day off before Christmas.

Thought I'd check out the new festive releases on Shudder. This is definitely the highlight.

Great Pace, Funny, Creepy Atmosphere, Not what I was expecting but in a good way.

Strongly recommended viewing for any horror film fans! 11/10