Deathcember
Twenty-four horror shorts behind twenty-four Advent doors is a good idea, and the trouble is that you get…
Festive Factor 47 out of 100: A different kind of Christmas.The story
About Mercy Christmas
Michael Briskett is a lonely office worker who cannot believe his luck when Cindy, a cheerful new colleague, asks him home for her family's Christmas. The welcome is warm and the house is full of festive cheer, right up until a spiked glass of eggnog lands him in a basement done out in decorations and he works out what the family are planning to serve at their Christmas dinner. A low-budget horror comedy from writer-director Ryan Nelson, as interested in jokes and satire as in gore.
The CineClaus verdict
A lonely office worker gets the Christmas invitation he has always wanted and finds out too late what the family are serving. Mercy Christmas was made for very little and looks it in places, but the cast play it straight-faced and the jokes about church, grace and good manners land harder than the budget suggests.
Steven Hubbell is a lead you root for from his first awkward minute. The last act gets properly nasty and very silly at once, so come for the black comedy rather than the scares.
The family desk
Can the kids watch?
Our take: not for children or teenagers: graphic dismemberment and cannibalism, played for laughs but shown in full.
Content advice & accessibility
- Our age guidance
- Editorial, separate from the official 18 certificate, and never looser than it.
