If you’ve ever watched a wholesome Christmas movie and thought, “This would be better if Santa was a murderer and everyone in this bar had unresolved issues,” then 13 Slays Till X-Mas is basically your emotional support film.
This 2020 Christmas-themed horror anthology is what happens when Creepshow gets blackout drunk on eggnog and agrees to split an Uber with Tales from the Crypt and that one weird cousin who loves microbudget indie gore. It’s scrappy, chaotic, wildly uneven in the most charming way, and absolutely committed to one mission: decking the halls with viscera and poor life choices.
The Setup: Bar Talk, But Make It Damned
The framing device is simple, and honestly kind of brilliant for an indie anthology:
Five men are summoned to a crappy dive bar on Christmas Eve by a mysterious host.
This is already relatable: if you’ve ever said yes to plans without getting details, you know you’re either getting murdered or roped into a pyramid scheme. While they’re waiting for their unseen host, these guys decide to pass the time by telling scary stories—thirteen of them, to be precise.
It’s like a cursed version of The Moth, if The Moth mostly involved supernatural murder, holiday trauma, and a running subtext of “we probably shouldn’t have come here.”
The wraparound does more than just glue the segments together; it slowly builds its own tension. Between tales, we get:
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Awkward banter
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Increasingly weird vibes
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The creeping suspicion that the host didn’t invite them for the cheese platter
You know from the start that the bar itself is not just a background. This is an anthology that wants its framing story to matter, and by the time it loops back around, you realize it does so with a nasty little grin.
Thirteen Segments, Fifteen Directors, Zero Interest in Playing Safe
The film’s biggest flex is also its biggest gamble: fifteen directors involved across the segments and wraparound. That’s a lot of voices, tones, and styles jammed into one 90-ish minute holiday meat grinder.
You get everything from:
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Slasher mayhem
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Creature weirdness
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Supernatural revenge
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Urban legend energy
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And at least one entry that feels like a deranged Christmas card from someone you should absolutely not accept cookies from
Because the film is so collaborative, it feels more like a mixtape than a polished studio concept album. And like any good horror mixtape, some tracks rip, some tracks are goofy, and some feel like deep-cut oddities you admire just for existing.
One of the standout meta-details is Drew Marvick’s segment “Santa Claws.” Due to COVID restrictions, he had to strip down what was originally a bigger, more populated set piece—no mall crowds, tiny crew, tighter focus. Instead of breaking the film, it kind of fits the whole project’s vibe: scrappy, backed into a creative corner, and deciding, “Fine, we’ll just get weirder.”
Honestly, “we couldn’t shoot in a shopping mall so we made it nastier and more intimate” might as well be the logline of indie horror in 2020.
The Joy of Anthology Chaos
Here’s the thing about anthologies: they should be uneven. If every story feels the same, something’s gone wrong. 13 Slays Till X-Mas fully leans into that. One segment will go for grim, bleak horror, and the next will feel like a drunken dare turned into a short film. Somehow, that whiplash works in its favor.
You might get:
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A grim, straight-faced holiday nightmare where no one is safe
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Followed by something gleefully absurd, like Santa being less “jolly old elf” and more “union-eligible slasher villain”
The best segments are the ones that embrace the holiday aesthetic and then gleefully set it on fire:
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Christmas lights as tools of death
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Santa or Santa-adjacent figures behaving in deeply HR-incompatible ways
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The general sense that December is less “season of giving” and more “season of supernatural payback”
Even the weaker stories usually have something—an inspired kill, a fun gag, a ridiculous line delivery—that makes them worth the ride. You don’t watch a movie like this expecting flawless narrative arcs. You watch it for vibes, gore, and the joy of seeing what each creative team decides is “festive.”
Cheap? Yes. Soulless? Absolutely Not.
Let’s be honest: this is a low-budget anthology. You’re not getting slick, A24 snow-globe horror here. You’re getting:
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Practical effects that range from “surprisingly impressive” to “oh, that’s just meat from Kroger”
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Lighting and sets that scream “we begged, borrowed, and stole locations”
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A cast of actors giving it their all, sometimes past the point of reason
But that’s part of the charm. There’s a scrappy sincerity to the whole thing. You can feel that everyone involved really, really wanted to be there. Nobody phones in a Christmas-themed horror short. You don’t sign up to film people dying in tinsel-covered basements unless you care.
The movie has that unmistakable “friends-who-love-horror-band-together” energy. There’s passion bleeding through the rough edges—sometimes literally. It’s DIY horror with enough heart to survive multiple stab wounds.
Holiday Spirit, Just Not the Healthy Kind
The best thing 13 Slays Till X-Mas does is take the familiar iconography of Christmas—snow, trees, Santa, cozy gatherings—and inject just enough malice to ruin it for you in a fun way.
After watching, you may find yourself:
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Side-eyeing mall Santas
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Wondering how many murders could be hidden under all that fake snow
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Accepting that dive bars on Christmas Eve are never a good idea
But it also taps into something kind of real: holidays are weirdly ripe for horror. You’re stuck with people you may or may not like, dredging up old memories, in emotionally loaded environments, often in the dark, while the weather itself tries to kill you. Adding slasher Santas to the mix is almost redundant.
The film’s blend of dark humor and genuine nastiness captures that tension. You’ll laugh at one segment’s absurdity, then feel slightly gross about how hard the next one goes. It’s like a horror advent calendar where some doors have candy and some have emotional damage.
The Wraparound: Barflies and Bad Karma
A lot of anthologies fumble the wraparound story, treating it like an afterthought. This one at least commits to its bar setup and pays it off in bloody, if predictable, fashion.
As each story is told, you slowly realize:
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These guys aren’t just randoms
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They all have baggage
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This invitation is not a networking opportunity
Is it subtle? Not especially. Does it need to be? Absolutely not. The joy is in watching the dawning horror as the characters realize that maybe—just maybe—being lured to a bar by a mysterious host on Christmas Eve was not the best life choice they’ve ever made.
It gives the whole film a nice circular punch: the stories are fun, but they’re also a kind of confession booth wrapped in barroom neon. And in true horror fashion, confession does not equal absolution.
Final Verdict: A Bloody, Janky Stocking Stuffer
13 Slays Till X-Mas is not for everyone. If you need prestige production values, airtight scripts, and a consistent tone, this will feel like drinking spiked eggnog someone mixed in a boot.
But if you:
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Love indie horror
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Have a soft spot for anthologies
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Enjoy watching filmmakers swing hard, even when they miss
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And want your Christmas movies to feature more murder than Mariah Carey
…then this is a delightfully deranged way to spend a December night.
It’s scrappy, bloody, funny, and unapologetically weird—like the cinematic equivalent of that one relative who shows up to Christmas in a “Krampus Is My Homeboy” sweater and actually brought the good booze.
Toss it on, dim the lights, and enjoy the fact that no matter how awkward your holiday gathering is this year, at least no one has invited you to a mysterious bar to tell stories for reasons that almost certainly involve your messy, bloody demise.
Probably.
