Why a Christmas-set movie is hitting home video the week of Valentine’s Day is secondary to why a Christmas-set movie requires one of its leads to rectally insert a thermometer throughout. Admittedly, the “hole” idea is less absurd when you understand A Creature Was Stirring falls into the realm of holiday horror. It’s not to be confused with the 2018 anthology All the Creatures Were Stirring, although you’re better off if you do.
In her first role after an Emmy-nommed, six-year stint on TV’s This Is Us, Chrissy Metz plays a nurse who lives with her young-adult daughter (Ouija: Origin of Evil’s Annalise Basso, looking like a li’l Heather Langenkamp). That their respective names are Faith and Charm should give you a solid idea of director Damien LeVeck and scripter Shannon Wells’ level of subtlety with the material.
At super speed, a blanket-draped Charm skitters around her bedroom and turns into a porcupine monster if her body temp falls anywhere other than the “safe zone” between 102˚ and 104.4˚. The opening credits relay this multiple times. If you aren’t paying attention, no worries: Faith’s loaded up with dialogue to remind you thereafter. At least the full monstrous transformation shown later deserves kudos — and the Fangoria spread it’s clearly aiming for.
Meanwhile, in Creature’s concurrent plot line, siblings played by Scout Taylor-Compton (The Long Night) and Connor Paolo (Friend Request) break into Faith’s home, only to be attacked … and then invited to stay the night because, baby, it’s cold outside. So they do.
More ludicrous, Faith makes out with the DC Comics superhero Green Lantern. Somehow, this from-nowhere fantasy manages to be even more embarrassing than the worst moment of Ryan Reynolds’ hapless Green Lantern — not an easy achievement.
In his sophomore feature, LeVeck (The Cleansing Hour) stages one truly Stirring sequence as Taylor-Compton’s character elbow-crawls her way through a maze of snow tunnels in search of Charm. Its near-magic mix of tension and claustrophobia makes you wish he were able to sprinkle that everywhere else. Half an uninspired movie remains thereafter, limping toward a “one week later” coda with twists it doesn’t earn the right to present. But I admit the film’s final image is kinda ballsy — and refreshing because it takes place in daytime, thus sparing us the aggravatingly saturated Christmas-light color palette that overpowers every scene before it. —Rod Lott