An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
No spoilers! If you would like spoilers – check out the Spoiler post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at the Shudder original French feature, The Advent Calendar
A woman is gifted an advent calendar by her friend but discovers the gifts it brings are accompanied by an evil curse and a terrifying monster.
Is The Advent Calendar (2021) Scary?
The Advent Calendar has some quick unsettling scenes and it’s main villain has a pretty good simple design but nothing in this movie will have you hiding under the sheets. There is some gore but I’d advertise it as gore-lite meaning you see the aftermath and not the bloody act happening.
Overall you won’t leave The Advent Calendar afraid of the holidays unless you usually don’t heed warnings that threaten your life.
Review:
The Advent Calendar is okay but could have been so much better. The movie has some pretty good acting and an interesting premise but where it lacks is its character development/motivation and connecting threads. This makes it pretty difficult to connect with the characters. By the end you’ve watched characters go through a story and while it’s not boring, you can’t help but wonder “why do I care”. Luckily the premise is a fun-to-watch horror movie so you’re not that let down.
The biggest problem I have with this movie is its inconsistency following its own rules. Because of the premise there are a set of rules the characters have to follow and when it’s broken it means death but as you’re watching there will 100% be points where you’ll ask aloud, “wait is that allowed?”
The movie feels like the writer had a bunch of different good ideas and forced them into this one movie without worrying too much about how to connect them all, incidentally that makes the movie an metaphorical advent calendar.
Overall I can only recommend The Advent Calendar if you have nothing else to watch and you need something entertaining on but you’ll also not be paying attention for big chunks of the time.
Cast IMDB