NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET movie poster | ©2023 Wild Eye Releasing
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Pierse Stevens, Mark Beauchamp, Olivia Hespe, Les Mills, Lucy Pinder, Jeff Kristian, Adam Thomas Wright, Jude Forsey, Eloise Harwood, Jon Vangdal Aamaas, Tony Fadil, Karl Hughes, Rafi Wilder, Matthew Jay France, Liam Elcock, Dani Thompson, Bibi Lucille, Tara Kirsty Sumner, Andy Gatenby, Gillian Broderick
Writer: James Crow
Director: James Crow
Distributor: Wild Eye Releasing
Release Date: December 5, 2023 (digital)
NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET is a Christmas horror anthology. It is a relative novelty in that all of its segments have been written and directed by the same person, James Crow, rather than going with the more typical format of having individual sequences written and directed by a variety of personnel. This has the obvious benefit of making sure that the connective material corresponds directly to the separate pieces.
In fact, Crow gives us not one but two wraparounds, one inside another, plus four larger stories, all set in England.
NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET begins with a bloodied boy, Peter (Jude Forsey), who’s wearing a white stag mask, being asked what he’s done. Peter replies by asking if the other person wants to hear a story.
One segment later, we learn that all the stories Peter is relating, except his own, have been told to him by a visiting Santa (Pierse Stevens).
An onscreen title tells us it is Christmas Eve. However, we don’t get the onscreen segment title (“Toby & Chloe’s Christmas Nightmare”) until the end credits. This one involves a trio of escaped-from-the-asylum serial killers breaking into a suburban family’s home.
The next segment, “The Ventriloquist Who Stole Christmas,” presents us with Henry White (Mark Beauchamp), whose puppet is the increasingly hostile snowman Dr. White. Henry’s father was a Norwegian ventriloquist/serial killer (Jon Vangdal Aamaas), whose smile under white clown makeup arguably provides the film’s creepiest moments.
“Merry Krampus” deals with that other figure of Christmas – no, not Jesus, that other precursor to Santa – and a single mom with three children.
“The Twelve Kills of Christmas” takes place in and near an Anglican church, where the former priest is suffering from dementia – and the ill will of some former parishioners.
Then there’s Santa’s own story.
Much as this reviewer doesn’t want to put a lump of coal in any indie filmmaker’s Christmas stocking, NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET registers as less cool than lukewarm.
It has clearly been made with care, reasonable skill, some good actors and a specific sensibility. All of this provides NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET with solidity.
The film runs over two hours, which isn’t necessarily a drawback, but here it feels like most of the episodes extend longer than needed. Also, the episodes themselves feel thematically similar, with job loss, addiction, child abuse and personal vengeance figuring in almost all of them. The killers lack wit, the victims lack sympathy, and while there’s a lot of carnage, there is little real fear.
There’s a curious retro sensibility in NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET, as if it had been made in an era when the material would have been more inherently shocking, and audiences wouldn’t be expecting more variety. As it stands, it’s mainly for active fans of ‘70s-style horror, and for Christmas horror anthology completists.
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