Nightmare on 34th Street (2023) Wide Eye Releasing/Horror RT: 135 minutes No MPAA rating (graphic violence, language, drug use, suggestive material, children in peril) Director: James Crow Screenplay: James Crow Music: Pete Coleman Cinematography: James Crow Release date: December 5, 2023 (UK) Cast: Pierse Stevens, Jude Forsey, Adam Thomas Wright, Eloise Henwood, Dani Thompson, Jeff Kristian, Tony Fadil, Sonny Denham, Mark Beauchamp, Barnaby Jago, Jon Vangdal Aamaas, Bibi Lucille, Angus Foulkes, Gillian Broderick, Denise Wilton, Maisy Crunden, Rafi Wilder, Lucy Pinder, Marc Zammit, Petra Bryant, Verity-Rae Martin, Orion Jackson-Rose, Jaire Russell, Olivia Hespe, Jim Mannering, Ben Greaves-Neal, Adam Greaves-Neal, Karl Hughes, Mirabel Stuart, Robert Lowe, Cathy Treble, Harbour Carew Bellamy Clark, Katherine Hurley, Joe Neary, Archie Grant, Brooke Norbury. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ** ½
I have to say it. Nightmare on 34th Street is a great title for a Christmas horror movie. It ranks right up there with It’s a Wonderful Knife. If only the movie was as awesome as the title. It falls short of greatness, but it’s still worth a look for those demented souls who love a good bloody Christmas story.
As a matter of fact, the British-made Nightmare on 34th Street serves up four tales of holiday terror plus a wrap-around featuring a guy in a Santa suit (Stevens) relating the blood-soaked stories to a little boy (Forsey) while he lies in bed on Christmas Eve. The first, “Toby and Chloe’s Christmas Nightmare”, has the titular girl (Henwood) witnessing the slaughter of her family by a trio of escaped lunatics dressed as an elf, a snowman and Santa. Instead of killing her, they take her in as one of their own. We learn this when the group returns to the same house, now occupied by a new family, a few years later.
The second segment “The Ventriloquist Who Stole Christmas” deals with a failed ventriloquist named Henry (Beauchamp) and his puppet, a snowman named Dr. White. He inherited it from his dad (Aamaas), a popular children’s entertainer back in Norway and a serial killer. It would appear the pear didn’t fall from the tree. Already mentally unstable, he snaps and goes on a killing spree. The next story “Merry Krampus” centers on a kid (Wilder) from a broken family who’s convinced they’ll be visited by Krampus this year. He might not be wrong.
The fourth and final tale “The 12 Kills of Christmas” is about the past sins of a priest coming back to haunt him. Father McShane (Kristian), now suffering from dementia, did some bad things involving members of his boys’ choir. His daughter and primary caretaker Maria (Hespe) is also on the hook because of her repressed memories from that time.
Then we have the wrap-around. No surprise, this Santa is a psycho too. He’s a disgruntled ex-mall Santa who racks up a nice body count before he commences storytime.
The good news about Nightmare on 34th Street is that none of the stories suck. The bad news is none of them are especially great either. They’re all varying degrees of pretty good. My personal favorite is the one about the ventriloquist although I wish writer-director James Crow (Curse of the Witching Tree) made clearer the connection between the man and his puppet. It speaks by itself sometimes, but nobody makes a big deal of it. Is it all in Henry’s head? Is it possessed by something evil? I think the former is the more logical explanation, but it would have been cooler if Crow left the viewer wondering. The Krampus story is okay. It has a twist that most viewers will see coming. 12 Kills is good enough for a full-length feature of its own. There’s a lot of story to tell there. Toby & Chloe needs a bit more development, especially where the killers are concerned.
As a whole, Nightmare on 34th Street is decent even if does spiral near the end. Crow loses control in the final moments. It gets a little convoluted. Also, I would have liked to see more blood and gore. Yes, there are some cool kills and most of the victims deserve it. There’s not enough splat and splatter. The visual FX are pretty good for a low-budget horror film. It doesn’t look cheap, but you can tell Crow didn’t spend a lot of money on it.
I suppose you’re all wondering if Nightmare on 34th Street is scary. No, not really. I wouldn’t even say it’s particularly suspenseful. It held my interest well enough, but it never kept me on the edge of my seat. The overlong running time certainly doesn’t help. It could use some tightening up here and there. As for the acting, it’s about what you’d expect from a movie like this. It’s adequate. Some performances are better than others. There’s some overacting and some underacting. There’s not much else to say about that.
Nightmare on 34th Street doesn’t excel in any way, but it’s watchable. It’s a mixed sack of weird and twisted tales that should please holiday ghouls looking to celebrate the dark side of the Christmas season. Besides, who can pass up a title as cool as Nightmare on 34th Street?
