Christmas horror is supposed to be fun. If you’re not decking the halls with arterial spray or roasting Santa over a hellfire, you’re doing it wrong. But The Apology (2022) takes one look at that tradition and says, “No thanks, we’d rather make you listen to two people argue for 90 minutes in a snowstorm.” Written and directed by Alison Star Locke, the movie promises tension, guilt, and revenge—but what it delivers feels more like a hostage situation where the hostage is the audience. It’s Misery if Kathy Bates replaced the hammer with a guilt trip. It’s The Shining without the hotel, the ghosts, or, unfortunately, the entertainment value. Darlene Hagen (Anna Gunn) is a recovering alcoholic still haunted by her daughter’s disappearance twenty years ago. She’s preparing for a Christmas gathering with her best friend Gretchen (Janeane Garofalo), who apparently wandered in from a much better movie. Just when Darlene’s about to drown her sorrows in cookie dough and regret, there’s a knock at the door. It’s Jack (Linus Roache), her former brother-in-law, who shows up uninvited during a blizzard carrying “gifts.” Because nothing says holiday cheer like surprise visits from the brother of your deadbeat ex-husband. At first, things are awkward in that “we should’ve texted instead” kind of way. But soon, Jack reveals he’s not just here to exchange fruitcake and trauma—he’s got a secret. A big, nasty, Christmas-ruining secret. I won’t spoil it (the movie already did that itself), but let’s just say it’s the kind of revelation that’s supposed to make your jaw drop. Instead, it makes you wish you’d dropped the remote before pressing play. The Apology tries to sell itself as a psychological thriller, but the only thing psychological here is the audience’s slow descent into madness from sheer boredom. The entire movie takes place in Darlene’s house, which might’ve worked if the script had tension. Instead, it feels like being trapped in a very sad Christmas card. There’s a snowstorm raging outside, but all the storm does is trap these two inside long enough to torture each other—and us—with endless conversations about regret, forgiveness, and moral relativism. You know, the stuff everyone loves to discuss right after eggnog. At some point, the power goes out, and we’re left with flickering candles. I assume this was to symbolize darkness and despair, but it just makes the movie look like it’s being projected from a dying flashlight. Anna Gunn—yes, Skyler White herself—does her best to inject life into Darlene, a character who seems permanently stuck in emotional buffering mode. She sighs, she paces, she stares longingly at the snow. It’s all meant to convey grief, but mostly it conveys that she’d rather be anywhere else. Linus Roache, meanwhile, plays Jack like a man who just remembered he left the oven on halfway through a confession. He alternates between creepy uncle energy and earnest guilt, neither of which make him interesting. He spends much of the film explaining himself in painful detail, which is cinematic code for “we ran out of ideas.” Janeane Garofalo pops in for a few scenes as the sassy best friend, Gretchen, bringing the only spark of humanity to the entire affair. Unfortunately, she leaves too soon, presumably because she saw the script and said, “Yeah, no, I’m not dying in this one.” You can tell The Apology really, really wants to be profound. Every line sounds like it’s auditioning for a quote on a motivational calendar. “I have to live with what I did,” Jack moans. It’s the kind of pseudo-deep dialogue that feels written by a thesaurus with low self-esteem. Instead of cutting to the bone, it circles the wound for an hour and then apologizes for getting too close. Even the arguments drag. Darlene and Jack go back and forth about morality, fate, and parenting until you start rooting for the storm to finish the job. It’s like watching two Philosophy 101 students have a breakdown in real time. For a movie marketed as horror, The Apology spends an impressive amount of time avoiding anything remotely scary. There’s no killer, no ghosts, no monsters—just the monster of regret, which would be fine if the movie had the emotional range to make it matter. Instead, the “horror” comes from extended dialogue and the creeping realization that this is the entire film. Occasionally someone gets smacked, or blood is spilled, but it feels more like a desperate attempt to wake the audience than genuine suspense. Even the big reveal, the one the whole movie builds toward, lands with the emotional impact of a snowflake hitting a windshield. It’s grim, yes, but not shocking—more like reading about a traffic accident on Facebook. The film’s visual palette is fifty shades of gray, and not in a sexy way. Everything is bleak, cold, and drained of life—like the world’s longest antidepressant commercial. The snowstorm outside should add atmosphere, but it just feels like the director was too cheap to rent lights. The production design is equally lifeless: one cabin, one kitchen, one Christmas tree that looks like it’s given up on the season entirely. Even the presents under the tree look ashamed of themselves. The pacing of The Apology makes molasses look like a sprinter. Each scene feels stretched to its absolute breaking point, as though the film is trying to hit a runtime quota. There’s a rhythm to good slow-burn horror—tension rising, stakes escalating. Here, it’s just two people repeating themselves in slightly different emotional keys. You could cut half the runtime, and nothing of value would be lost. In fact, the shorter it gets, the better it might seem—like a terrible joke that almost sounds funny when whispered. I can already hear the defenders: “It’s a metaphor! It’s about grief, forgiveness, trauma!” Sure. And Sharknado is about the fragility of nature. The problem isn’t that The Apology wants to explore heavy themes—it’s that it does so with all the subtlety of a snow shovel to the face. Every emotional beat is spelled out, underlined, and repeated until you start apologizing to it. Even the title is ironic. The movie’s called The Apology, but by the end, it feels like it owes us one. Eventually, the simmering tension between Darlene and Jack explodes into physical violence, which would be exciting if it didn’t look like two people halfheartedly fighting over the last turkey leg. Knives are waved, blood is spilled, and yet it all feels weirdly polite—like they’re both apologizing mid-stab. The movie ends the only way it can: ambiguously, bleakly, and without satisfaction. By then, you’re not wondering who’s right or wrong. You’re wondering how soon you can start watching Die Hard to feel alive again. The Apology wants to be a haunting meditation on grief and vengeance—a kind of holiday Death and the Maiden. What it ends up being is a 90-minute TED Talk about guilt held hostage by a blizzard. There’s a great story somewhere in this premise, buried under monologues and moody lighting. But instead of catharsis, we get constipation—a film so afraid of being sensational that it forgets to be interesting. Rating: 3 out of 10.‘Tis the Season for Monologues and Murder
The Plot (or: The Longest Christmas Ever)
A House of Guilt and Monotone
Acting: A Battle of the Bland
Dialogue So Stiff It Needs CPR
“We all do,” Darlene replies, like she’s been rehearsing her Oscar clip since Halloween.
The Horror That Forgot to Horrify
Festive Depression: The Cinematography
When “Slow Burn” Becomes “No Burn”
Symbolism, Subtext, and Snowdrifts
The Climactic “Fight”
Final Judgment: A Lump of Coal with Pretensions
If you’re looking for a Christmas horror film, stick with Black Christmas or Krampus. At least those had the decency to kill people quickly. The Apology drags its victims—and the audience—through the snow, begging for forgiveness that never comes.
