FrightFest

One of the best Christmas horrors ever made - plenty of humour, but with a deliciously dark, almost sadistic streak. The twist at the end of the first act is a doozy too. Credit to the young leads for carrying the plot off with aplomb. Hopefully it will be out on DVD in time for Christmas! 9 / 10

My favorite film of the festival , with some great twists ! Hopefully this is getting a wider release come xmas as it deserves it .

This was a difficult one for me.

It starts out looking like it's going to be Home Alone meets Krampus, maybe with a dash of Christmas Evil, all colourful and lighthearted, then halfway through things start getting nasty and I was suddenly quite angry, thinking (spoilers ahead...) no, you can NOT make a film about a 12-year-old psychopath and act like it's hilarious. But then it remains in serious mode and my feelings shifted again.

I suspect if I watched it again I'd find the first half was never really as jokey as it seemed - certainly I'd see the kid's already-creepy crush on the babysitter in a different light.

I'm not sure what the intended audience is. It's not out-and-out horror, it seems aimed at the mainstream but to me it's definitely not a piece of slightly-scary festive fun.

Great twist... Great little shit of a bad guy

I was amazed by how dark this got, enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. I predict tabloid outrage when this is released.

Reminded me a bit of the 80s book

Not sure when was the last time that a studio movie went into such uncomfortable places. Good job Universal! My favourite of the weekend.

This was really smart. i didn't see it coming

I was surprised how disturbing this was.

Must admit i didnt realise the way this was going to go and even now i can see the controvosy that its gonna cause when it gets release before Christmas.

Im sure its getting a full release as Universal have picked it up over here.

For me, this was the best film of the lot. The acting was good, the deaths were excellent and gorey, without showing much of the actual gore and the villain was evil, calculated and chilling. He went from a normal 12 year old to a bit obsessed to a bit crazy to full on psychopath.

The twist in the end (that usually goes against the protagonist, but actually went the other way) was satisfying and well timed.

Plus Patrick Warburton.

I didn't know what to expect here and as it transpires the film gives nothing away and you really walk away thinking...I didn't expect it to do that.
Brilliant film and a great Christmas movie....was a bit creepy at times and may be that was intended but the power trip thing was a tad off but it worked in the end I think.

A big highlight of the festival

Excellent Christmas horror with some great twists, rising tension and a lot of interesting psychological interplay between the killer and the victim. I could feel the Frightfest audience getting into this a lot, laughing at the beginning and then gasping at the shocking moments later on in the film. I liked how the tone gradually got darker as the film went on, although even at its darkest there's a vein of black humour. I've seen this before at the Brussels International Film Festival (where it won the best film award), and I'm pleased to say it holds up well on a second watch, even though I thought knowing the twists might hurt it there are clues right from the beginning that you can catch.

It has an air of Hitchcock about it in the way it gets you to empathise with both victim and villain, which is why I think the comparison with Funny Games (which makes a point of refusing to let sympathy shift from the victims) is wrong and it has more in common with something like Psycho or Rope.

Like other films at this festival it's shy about showing gore, tending to cut away from the most brutal moments. Felt like it was aiming at the mainstream in this respect and I felt it lost the film a bit of its edge.

Also, I like the final tag, though it shouldn't have been stuck in the middle of the credits like that, it should have been right as the final moment to give one final reverse to the audience's feelings.