All the Creatures were Stirring (2018) is a movie currently available on Shudder. This movie is made up of a series of short stories involving Christmas activities from work gift exchanges, family holiday dinnners, to holiday traumatic experiences and everything in between.

This movie is codirected by David Ian & Rebekah McKendry in their directorial debut and stars Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians),Jonathan Kite (2 Broke Girls),Matt Long (Mad Men),Katie Parker (The Haunting of Hill House) and Makeda Declet (Being Mary Jane).

The movie definitely has a surprise opening and the first story has potential but quickly disappoints. All the stories end up being kind of blah with some having more potential than others but mostly with few elements to get excited about once they conclude. There's no gore or worthwhile kill scenes in this, unfortunately.

Overall this is a disappointing horror short story anthology that I would score a 2/10 and recommend skipping.

Horror anthologies are always fun, more stories/themes/characters/styles etc. means there's more to find - to find something for everyone. I love the format, a compilation of short films, often wrapped in what I call the framing segment. "All the Creatures Were Stirring" is surely an entertaining anthology, but also frustrating - to feel the potential and see it executed so poorly. It also makes the mistake of slowly but steadily going downhill only to never get back up.

"All the Creatures Were Stirring" provides six stories (included the wrap-around segment) set during Christmas time, each one has its own plot and characters. Sadly, it's a very inconsistent anthology (like the most of them). Quite a lot of indie talent is involved, majority of the plotlines are (at least mildly) intriguing albeit not exactly original, some have a bit of that Twilight Zone vibe, but, however, the execution gets worse by each segment. The framing segment, about a guy and a gal going on an awkward date to the theatre on christmas eve, started off decently & ended just simply underwhelmingly - the 70 minute filler before that didn't help. Our awkward couple experience five stories, out of which the first two were the best. Decent acting, intriguing little stories, okay-ish cinematography & b-grade special fx. So far so good. The each next is worse than the last. While the interesting themes stay, the execution, excluding maybe acting, is deteriorating, even the technical aspects grow cheaper. As a consequence, pacing suffers greatly and boredom ensues. That's about it. As the credits start rolling, it becomes clear that the creatures stirring will soon be forgotten.

There's better anthologies out there, even the christmas kind, for example, "A Christmas Horror Story" (2015). I most certainly had low expectations, but out of "All the Creatures Were Stirring" 80 minute runtime only about 30 were enjoyable & with that I mean - about average. Nevertheless, it's not a regrettable holiday filler for horror fans. Recommend to everyone who loves his christmas creepy and bloody & is a forgiving movie watcher. My rating: 4/10.

A couple, both alone on Christmas Eve, go and watch a live stage show of short subjects. While they see the stage show, we get to see the movie version. The theater was surrealistic. The features were cute clever horror tales which included the Dickens tale and the last one was "Twilight Zone" like including a short riff.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.