'THE ADVENT CALENDAR' - 'LE CALENDRIER' (2021)
The French Christmas horror, The Advent Calendar, is understated gem. Thought-provoking and unconventional, it really played around with the traditional tropes of “be careful what you wish for” or “is the price worth it to get what you want?”
This is the story of Eva (Eugénie Derouand), a paraplegic with a birthday in early December, who gets a present from her best friend in the form of an antique German advent calendar. Behind the first calendar door she finds the rules.
The calendar contains candy. If you eat one, eat them all. Or I’ll kill you.
Respect all rules until you open the last door. Or I’ll kill you.
Dump it and I’ll kill you.
The first chocolate
Initially Eva and her friend brush it off as mildly creepy, but ultimately harmless. However as the days go by and coincidences mount, Eva begins to believe in the power of the calendar and finds herself drawn into its temptations and resigned to its demands.
As a bit of a fan of the trope where people must pay a price for the power they are gifted, this one felt really refreshing. Most tend to get to a point where the cost on the characters dramatically outweighs any benefit, as they are merely caught in a trap because of their initial greed and temptation. ‘The Advent Calendar’ plays it differently. Initially she doesn’t receive that much of a benefit and it is largely the threat of death that makes her continue. However the calendar bestows a fairly even amount of gain and loss on her life, to the point where she begins to genuinely accept the price she must pay for the further advantages it offers. It gets to the point where she only really hesitates in the final couple of days when everything feels like it’s changing too quickly and the rollercoaster of events are out of control.
Sacrifices must be made
As the story builds you are given glimpses of monster summoned by the calendar, known only as ‘Ich’ (German for ‘I’). Looking like a mix of Silent Hill and Hellraiser aesthetics, it had a plain, but effective, elementally evil look that manages to illicit intense dread while not necessarily stealing the scene. I initially thought it was going to be presented as a sort of ‘man behind the curtain’, as the ultimate power that uses the calendar as a conduit. In fact, it is actually presented as a servant to the calendar. Protecting it and enforcing its rules. I really liked this dynamic, as they managed to have the calendar have such a sinister presence on its own it could have been a shame for it to be overshadowed by the monster. The advent calendar prop itself is just gorgeous, and would be the sort of Christmas thing I would like, being a nice balance of creative craftsmanship, old-style antique, and unsettlingly creepy.
This is going on my wish list.
Overall this is the sort of Christmas movie I always hang out for, the ones that genuinely try to have a fresh take on often over-looked traditions. The fact it also played against my expectations was just an additional treat.
RATING: 8/10
WHERE TO WATCH: Shudder
