Since childhood, I’ve admired the concept of the advent calendar more than using one — a case of each door revealing “That’s it?”-level disappointment after so much buildup. That feeling extends to Deathcember, a festive horror anthology constructed as such a calendar, with a short from a different director (Ruggero Deodato, Lucky McKee and Trent Haaga the most recognizable) waiting behind each of 24 numbered items in a 3-D environment.

The stories actually number more than two dozen if you count those nestled within the end credits, so Deathcember even betrays its own approach. It’s not like the Dominic Saxl-conceived collection faced a Sophie’s Choice of inclusion, because so few segments register as entertaining.

I counted three that do. The comedic “All Sales Fatal” pits a meek store clerk against an entitled customer (B-movie royalty Tiffany Shepis, Victor Crowley) attempting to return an item without a receipt. “December the 19th” pays homage to the ’80s slasher with gory results at an ice-skating rink. And putting a Santa spin on Reservoir Dogs is “X-mas on Fire”; cleverly, the jewelry heist leader is played by Steven E. de Souza, co-writer of the classic Christmas movie Die Hard.

On the spectrum’s other end sits “Aurora,” a pointless slice of sci-fi seemingly taken from a video game trailer. While “Crappy Christmas: Operation Christ Child” consists of wonderfully done stop-motion animation, it does so to depict clergy members repeatedly raping a young turd (yes, “turd,” not “turk”). Ha-ha?

Commendably, the movie’s two and a half hours run the gamut of genres, from the giallo and a rape revenger to a black-and-white Western and a silent Hunchback of Notre Dame parody. With so many tries at bat, it’s improbable for every piece to succeed, but it’s not out of the question to expect more hits than misses (as The ABCs of Death and its sequel achieved). And yet, a wide majority of Deathcember’s doors ring empty, either lacking a payoff, misjudging their scope or failing to tell a story at all. —Rod Lott

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In the late 17th century, Godfried Schalcken toiled as a painter of candlelit portraits. In 1839, lesbian vampire creator Sheridan Le Fanu cast the then-deceased artist as the protagonist of a ghost story. And in 1979, the BBC adapted the tale into the hourlong made-for-TV movie Schalcken the Painter.

While Schalcken (Jeremy Clyde, The Musketeer) serves an apprenticeship under Gerrit Dou (Maurice Denham, The Alphabet Murders), he also longs for the lovely petals and pistil of Dou’s niece, Rose (Cheryl Kennedy, The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins). As he pursues her hand in marriage, Schalcken is not without competition: an old guy (John Justin, Lisztomania) who looks suspiciously like a rotting corpse, albeit a wealthy one.

Written and directed by Leslie Megahey (The Advocate), the film looks appropriately stately and proper. Although elegant and elegiac, it moves at the pace of drying pigments. That renders the story as low-wattage as the candles Schalcken reproduces on canvas, with only the occasional beat of madness — too occasional, as my interest waned before evaporating.

In this spiritual realm, I believe the Beeb fares better with its Ghost Stories for Christmas. While Schalcken the Painter enjoys a reputation of admiration, it plays like Peter Greenaway were hired to helm an episode of Tales from the Darkside, which is to say the vision and execution are misaligned. —Rod Lott

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