Growing up, Christmas with my family followed a carefully rehearsed routine, even though none of us had actually rehearsed it. My sister and her family would come over for dinner. Since I was older than my niece and nephew, I was placed in charge of the entertainment department. This mostly meant video games, toys and making sure nobody became bored enough to bother the adults.
Mom and my sister prepared the meal while my dad and brother-in-law watched whatever game or movie was on television, bravely contributing moral support from the couch. Once dinner was ready, we packed ourselves around the dining room table and kitchen bar. We ate until we could barely move and repeatedly assured Mom that we did not need another roll. She remained unconvinced.
It was crowded, chaotic and occasionally exhausting, but at least none of our deceased relatives showed up. In Unholy Night, one family is not quite so fortunate.
Unholy Night is a Canadian horror comedy from director Michael Gabriele, who is making his feature film debut. Gino (Marc Bendavid) is a painter living in the basement of his Italian parents’ home. On Christmas Eve, the entire family gathers for its annual dinner. They are joined by their neighbor Rene (Shailene Garnett), who also happens to be Gino’s former love interest.
As dinner approaches, the family realizes that Gino’s grandmother, Nonna (Jacqueline Robbins), has joined the celebration. There is just one small complication: She recently died. Her return might almost seem like a Christmas miracle until she catches someone else cooking in her kitchen. Nonna immediately turns demonic and begins dispatching family members with horrifying brutality.
Once she calms down and stops murdering everyone in sight, the survivors begin piecing together what brought Nonna and the other dead people in town back to life. Along the way, Gino finds himself becoming the family’s unlikely hero.
Although Unholy Night is labeled a horror comedy, there is a surprising amount of heart beneath all the bloodshed. As Gino and his family try to understand why Nonna has returned, they naturally assume that she has unfinished business. Their search eventually leads them to the strained relationship between Nonna and Gino’s mother, Lucia (Toni Ellwand), prompting the family to bring the two women back together.
These moments are genuinely heartwarming, particularly in a movie that often feels like Dawn of the Dead crashed an Italian family’s Christmas dinner. The emotional storyline gives the film more substance than its gleefully violent premise might suggest. It grounds the supernatural chaos in recognizable feelings about family, regret and reconciliation.
Another thing I loved about Unholy Night is its special effects. The film combines practical effects and CGI well, making every violent encounter feel painfully convincing. The brutality has real weight, with kills that look nasty enough to make you wince while still fitting the movie’s outrageous tone. There is the perfect amount of gore, blood and body horror.
Unfortunately, the comedy is very hit or miss, and for me it is mostly a miss. I cannot recall many moments that made me laugh, if any. The film clearly aims for dark humor, but that is usually something I respond to. The problem is not simply that the jokes ae too grim… they just rarely land.
Despite being marketed as a horror comedy, Unholy Night works much better as a horror drama. It feels less like a wild holiday comedy and more like This Is Us meets The Walking Dead, with emotional family conflict occasionally interrupted by an undead relative brutally attacking someone.
Another issue is that the reason for the dead returning is never fully explained. We are given a vague outline of what is happening and where it comes from, but the film never explores the details. Most Zombie movies either investigate the cause of the outbreak or leave it completely mysterious. Unholy Night falls awkwardly between those approaches, revealing just enough to make me want the full answer and then failing to deliver it.
This feels like a poor storytelling choice because the movie deliberately invites the audience to become invested in the mystery. Once it begins offering clues and establishing rules for the returning dead, those details start to feel important. Leaving them underdeveloped is not intriguing. It is simply unsatisfying. The film needs to either explore its mythology more thoroughly or to keep the cause hidden and focus entirely on the family surviving its deadly reunion.
I give Unholy Night three out of five stars.
This is a surprisingly heartfelt horror film with impressive special effects and a wonderfully brutal approach to an undead family reunion. Unfortunately, its emotional story works much better than its comedy, which rarely lands for me. The underdeveloped mythology surrounding the returning dead also raises questions the movie never properly answers.
Still, Unholy Night makes me appreciate my own childhood Christmases a little more. My niece and nephew only demanded video games, my dad and brother-in-law remained safely distracted by whatever was on television and the closest anyone came to violence was Mom trying to force another roll onto an already crowded plate. After watching this movie, I realize we had it pretty easy.
Nobody returned from the grave, nobody developed super strength and nobody was brutally murdered for trespassing in the kitchen. Mom might have taken it personally if you refused that extra roll, but at least she never became demonic about it.