On the ninth day of Halloween, I watched...

Holidays

Why yes, we do seem to be hitting the "anthology" genre rather hard this month. This is an anthology of horror based around (you guessed it!) holidays. Since the "holiday movie" genre tends toward the saccharine and sentimental, it's always fun when someone goes in the horror direction instead. (I still remember the furor and protests over "Silent Night, Deadly Night," which I haven't seen, but google tells me came out when I was 10.)

Valentine's Day: Completely incompetent coach/teacher tries to make one of his students feel better after witnessing her being bullied in the absolute worst way. His solution is pretty damn unethical, so I can't be too terribly upset that it goes poorly for him. 

St. Patrick's Day: Also my birthday. Growing up, since I mostly thought it was about wearing green and leprechauns and Irish things, and it meant there was always a parade on my birthday, I always thought it was cool. I more or less didn't worry about the snakes. (I was never scared of snakes, but it wasn't until I had a kid who loved reptiles that I became a fan.) Now that I know the "snakes" were a metaphor for "pagans" and "driving out" was probably a metaphor for "kill"-  Ehhhh...little more ambivalent about the whole thing. Take that and my being a soft touch for anything about how fierce a mother's love can be? Oh yeah, I enjoyed the hell outta this one.

Easter: I mean really, who among us didn't get confused about the mythology and connection between Jesus and the Easter Bunny a time or two as a child? And maybe a little bit frightened of these creatures who were supposedly visiting our houses in the middle of the night?

Mother's Day: All I have to say about this one is that we were really glad it ended up being a woman who had written it.  No, I have more to say. I just don't know how I feel about it. It had this beautiful sort of "community of women" imagery going on that then went very wrong, and...see above.

Father's Day: This one is effective because you just can't help but hope for a happy ending, even if you just know it's not coming.

Halloween: Yeah, sometimes a real nasty revenge flick just hits the spot. Added bonus for terrible puns/jokes at the end.

Christmas: File under: Be careful what you wish for, especially if it is the must-have gift of the season.

New Year's Eve: ahhh, the enduring tale of the search for true love.